Abstract
In the VUCA era, organizations that are bound by rigid regulations often find themselves lagging behind in their ability to adapt to the dynamic external environment, consequently missing out on potential opportunities. Organizational innovation often stems from employees' proactive and spontaneous pro-social rule breaking behavior. This study, based on situation-strength theory under the framework of trait activation, investigates the impact of proactive personality on employees' pro-social rule breaking behavior and its underlying mechanisms through a scenario experiment and a questionnaire survey. The results reveal that proactive personality is not significant for pro-social rule breaking behavior, with one positive and one negative effect counteracting each other. Proactive personality positively influences promotion focus, but it also negatively affects pro-social rule breaking behavior through promotion focus. Moreover, psychological safety climate plays a weakening moderating role between promotion focus and pro-social rule breaking behavior. With an increase in the level of psychological safety climate, the negative effect of proactive personality on prosocial rule-breaking behavior through promotion focus gradually attenuates. This study offers novel insights for a more comprehensive comprehension of the role of proactive personality on favorable organizational behavior and deepens the understanding of the effect mechanisms and boundary conditions in the association between proactive personality and pro-social rule-breaking behavior.
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We would like to thank all participants in this study.
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This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72161014; 72162017), and the Social Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province(22JY23).
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WAN Jin: conceptualization, methodology, revision. QIN Mingyue: writing, data analysis. ZHOU Wenjun: translation. WU Yuanbing: questionnaire collection, and reference collection. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
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Ethical review and approval were not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Before filling in the questionnaire, we asked for the consent of the respondents, but written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with national legislation and institutional requirements.
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Appendix 1
Appendix 1
A high psychological safety climate is described as follows: The climate in your team is harmonious and the other members are friendly. Everyone in the team feels safe and bold enough to express their thoughts and feelings without fear of whether they will be punished or others will complain, be jealous, or ostracize them for it. Team members respect each other, trust each other, and support each other. There was a time when a colleague in your team failed to complete a task on time because of his own work mistakes. Instead of complaining, others not only comforted and encouraged him, but also helped him figure out a solution together. Your professionalism and expertise are also valued in the team, and your leaders often praise you, and your colleagues usually ask you for advice. Now you find that the whole workflow is a bit cumbersome and one of the processes is very redundant, which not only reduces efficiency but also increases the company's expense cost. But the company has strict rules not to skip every process in the workflow, otherwise, you will be responsible for the consequences. Before this, no employee has ever proposed to improve this redundant work process, and no other employee has privately omitted this process, so you don't know what consequences will come from skipping this link and breaking the rules.
A low psychological safety climate is described as follows: The members of your team conflict with each other. Everyone in the team is afraid of being blamed by the leader and given the cold shoulder by your colleagues for saying or doing the wrong thing, so you don't usually express your thoughts. Leaders and colleagues never pay attention to what unique skills you have, only focus on their work, much less teach their skills to others. There was a time when a colleague in your team failed to complete a task on time because of his own work mistakes. The leader was very angry and thought that he alone had delayed the whole team and brought shame to the team, and others also ostracized him and did not invite him to private gatherings. Now you find that the whole workflow is a bit cumbersome and one of the processes is very redundant, which not only reduces efficiency but also increases the company's expense cost. But the company has strict rules about not skipping every process in the workflow, otherwise, you will be responsible for the consequences. Before this, no employee has ever proposed to the leader to improve this redundant work link, and no other employee has privately omitted this process, so you don't know what consequences will come from skipping this process and breaking the rules.
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Wan, J., Qin, M., Zhou, W. et al. Effect of proactive personality on employees' pro-social rule breaking: the role of promotion focus and psychological safety climate. Curr Psychol 43, 12768–12781 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05362-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05362-x