Abstract
Objective: Present times, in a global context, ask for organizations and individuals that “act in a proactive way”. Organizations claim it, individuals pursue it, but do we understand what proactivity is? Is it relevant in actual times? Who, when and where it should be appropriate and imply an advantage if adopted as a behavior? And if so, how may we approach Proactivity, and how much of it will be beneficial for individuals and organizations? Proposing Proactivity as a process, a triad of variables can we understand the concept and its relevance? These are some of the challenges we aim to understand.
Methods: Using secondary and primary data, experience, and qualitative research the authors developed in the book they published on Proactivity, and a research survey they developed for the present work, the authors compare and analyze sources and develop proposals to consolidate the hypothesis.
Results: The qualitative and quantitative analysis results, supported by primary and secondary research methods and critical thinking, strengthen the view of relevance of the proactive approach, clarifying the perspective of proactivity as a process.
Conclusion: Our analysis supports the thesis that proactivity is relevant, and that it should be thought about as a process, and that explicit and implicit overall advantages of the adoption of this behavior are relevant for individuals and organizations. Proactivity is, in this sense, proposed as a relevant, favorable, dynamic, and developing process, if well prepared and planned, that includes the interaction between the individual, others, and the context.
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O’Neill, A., Marques, M. (2024). Proactivity, a Need, or a Trendy Word?. In: Montenegro, C., Rocha, Á., Cueva Lovelle, J.M. (eds) Management, Tourism and Smart Technologies. ICMTT 2023. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 773. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44131-8_38
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