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'''Proactivity''' is anticipating and taking charge of situations.
'''Proactivity''' is anticipating and taking charge of situations.



Revision as of 04:28, 24 May 2012

Proactivity is anticipating and taking charge of situations.

In Organizational Behavior and Industrial/Organizational Psychology, proactive behavior (or proactivity) by individuals refers to anticipatory, change-oriented and self-initiated behavior in the work place. Proactive behavior involves acting in advance of a future situation, rather than just reacting. It means taking control and making things happen rather than just adjusting to a situation or waiting for something to happen. Proactive employees generally do not need to be asked to act, nor do they require detailed instructions.

Proactive behavior can be contrasted with other work-related behaviors, such as proficiency, i.e. the fulfillment of predictable requirements of one’s job, or adaptivity, the successful coping with and support of change initiated by others in the organization. In regard to the latter, whereas adaptivity is about responding to change, proactivity is about initiating change.

Proactivity is not restricted to extra role performance behaviors. Employees can be proactive in their prescribed role (e.g. by changing the way they perform a core task to be more efficient). Likewise, behaviors labeled as Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) can be carried out proactively or passively. For example, the altruistic OCB s can be proactive in nature (e.g. of offering help to co-workers in anticipation, even before they ask, is an example of a proactive action. Other OCBs concerned with the compliance with rules and expectations might even be incompatible with proactivity.

The use of the word proactive, sometimes also written pro-active was limited to the domain of experimental psychology in the 1930s.[1] Oxford English Dictionary (OED)[2] credits Paul Whiteley and Gerald Blankfort, citing their 1933 paper discussing proactive inhibition as the "impairment or retardation of learning or of the remembering of what is learned by effects that remain active from conditions prior to the learning".[3] The 1946 book Man's Search for Meaning brought the word to the wider public domain. The author, Austrian existential neuropsychiatrist Dr. Viktor Emil Frankl, used the word proactive to describe a person who took responsibility for his or her life, rather than looking for causes in outside circumstances or other people. Frankl stressed the importance of courage, perseverance, individual responsibility and awareness of the existence of choices, regardless of the situation or context.[4]

Much of this theory was formed in Nazi concentration camps where Frankl lost his wife, mother, father and family, but decided that even under the worst circumstances, people can make and find meaning.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ proactive - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Merriam Webster dates the origin of the word to 1933.
  2. ^ proactive - Definition from the Oxford English Dictionary
  3. ^ Whiteley, Paul L.; Blankfort, Gerald (1933), "The Influence of Certain Prior Conditions Upon Learning", Journal of Experimental Psychology, 16, APA: 843–851
  4. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=6N9Iq1CIjT0C&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=proactive+frankl&source=web&ots=2qNn86WbL0&sig=WI-MEfycszhs4vDVr5c1CAO2glc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result

General

  • Bateman, T. S., & Crant, J. M. (1993). The proactive component of organizational-behavior: A measure and correlates. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14(2), 103-118.
  • Campbell, D. J. (2000). The proactive employee: Managing workplace initiative. Academy of Management Executive, 14(3), 52-66.
  • Crant, M. J. (2000). Proactive behavior in organizations. Journal of Management, 26(3), 435-462.
  • Frese, M., & Fay, D. (2001). Personal initiative: An active performance concept for work in the 21st century. Research in Organizational Behavior, 23, 133-187.
  • Frese, M., Kring, W., Soose, A., & Zempel, J. (1996). Personal initiative at work: Differences between East and West Germany. Academy of Management Journal, 39(1), 37-63.
  • Grant, A. M., & Ashford, S. J. 2008. The dynamics of proactivity at work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 28: 3-34. http://www.unc.edu/~agrant/publications.htm
  • Griffin, M. A., Neal, A., & Parker, S. K. (2007). A new model of work role performance: Positive behavior in uncertain and interdependent contexts. Academy of Management Journal, 50(2), 327 - 347.
  • Parker, S. K., & Collins, C. G. (2010). Taking stock: Integrating and differentiating multiple forms of proactive behavior. Journal of Management. 36, 633-662. http://parker.zydec.net.au/publications/Parker&collins_ProactivityDimensions_JOM_InPress.pdf
  • Parker, S. K., Williams, H. M., & Turner, N. (2006). Modeling the antecedents of proactive behavior at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(3), 636-652. http://parker.zydec.net.au/publications/parker_et_al_modelingProactiveBehavior_JAP_2006.pdf
  • Parker, S. K., Bindl, U. K., & Strauss, K. (2010). Making things happen: A model of proactive motivation. Journal of Management. Vol, 36, 827 - 856. http://zydec.net.au/parker/publications/Parker,%20Bindl,%20Strauss,%20Making%20it%20happen_JOM-2010.pdf