主動行為的下行傳遞效應及其機制

Abstract

Proactive behavior is defined as “self-initiated and future oriented action that aims to change and improve the situation or oneself” (Parker, Williams, & Turner, 2006). Self-oriented, change-oriented and future-oriented are the three core features (Crant, 2000; Grant & Ashford, 2008). For both companies in competitive environment and employees in fasting development industries, it is important for them to adopt proactive behavior.

Owing to the importance of proactive behavior, how to stimulate proactive behavior has been explored widely in academy. Previous research has demonstrated that personal characteristics factors like proactive personality and environment factors like task interdependence can evoke proactive behavior. Subsequently, researchers started to explore leader’s influence, such as leader type and leader behavior, on proactive behavior. Relatively, researchers pay less attention on the influence of leader-employee dynamic relationship. Leader-member exchange is the only one antecedent which has been demonstrated in this filed. It demonstrated that high leader-member exchange relationship can stimulate subordinate’s proactive behavior. Even this theorical perspective is reasonable to some extent, it may not only enlarge the scope of explanation but also cannot fully reflect reality when social exchange theory is the only possible explanation. For example, will employee be initiate under the situation that he/she does not have high quality of leader-member exchange? Or employee can do proactive behavior under the influence of unidirectional interaction instead of bidirectional interaction? Based on above arguments, we introduce social learning theory which is parallel with social exchange theory in explaining trickle-down effect, and hope to enrich the understanding of mechanism of proactive behavior.

Specifically, based on social learning theory, we explored the relationship between perceived supervisor’s proactive behavior and subordinate’s proactive behavior. Then we discussed that the outcome expectation, as a mediator, explained the mechanism between the relationship mentioned above. Further, we also explored the moderator effect of power dependence in the relationship between perceived supervisor’s proactive behavior and outcome expectation.

Using questionnaire, we collected data from 306 employees and 61 direct supervisors at two time points. The results showed that perceived supervisor’s proactive behavior positively related to subordinate’s proactive behavior. Besides, outcome expectation mediated the relationship between perceived supervisor’s proactive behavior and subordinate’s proactive behavior, which means that perceived supervisor’s proactive behavior can enhance subordinate’s outcome expectation and then stimulate his/her proactive behavior. Furthermore, power dependence negatively moderated the relationship between perceived supervisor’s proactive behavior and subordinate’s outcome expectation. It means that, employees who have low power dependence on their leader, supervisor’s proactive behavior has greater influence on subordinate’s outcome expectation.

Our research has several theorical and practical implications. As for the theorical implications, firstly, based on social learning theory, this research explored the antecedent of subordinate’s proactive behavior, which enriched theorical perspective of the antecedents of proactive behavior. On the one hand, starting from leader-employee relationship, it offsets current research which focused too much on the influence of personal characteristics and environment. On the other hand, framing research through social learning theory provides new perspective except for social exchange theory, it enhances the understanding from leader-employee dynamic relationship angle. It means that perceived supervisor’s proactive behavior will evoke subordinate’s outcome expectation and subsequently will stimulate subordinate’s proactive behavior. Secondly, this research found that outcome expectation as a core concept of social learning theory is an important proximal antecedent of proactive behavior, which increases the understanding of “Reason To” mechanism of motivation framework of proactive behavior. Thirdly, we build the boundary between perceived proactive behavior and outcome expectation by using power dependence. Fourthly, through introducing social learning theory to proactive behavior research, we enlarged the scope of explanation of social learning theory.

There also are several practical implications. Firstly, this research introduces social learning theory into proactive behavior field. Based on the results, supervisor can work as a role model to stimulate subordinate’s proactive behavior through being initiate instead of trying to build high quality relationship with their subordinates. Secondly, it is helpful for companies to understand the proximal antecedent of subordinate’s proactive behavior through demonstrating mediation effect of outcome expectation. Combined with supervisor’s proactive behavior, which is a distant antecedent, this research can help companies set proper rewards for their workers. Thirdly, power dependence moderated the relationship between perceived supervisor’s proactive behavior and subordinate’s outcome expectation. Thus, in order to stimulate subordinate’s proactive behavior, supervisor can adjust their strategy according to different level of power dependence.

Date of Award	15 May 2020
Original language	Chinese (Traditional)
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Ziguang CHEN (Supervisor) & Kai Yao (External Supervisor)