The Effect of Proactive Personality on Creativity: The Mediating Role of Feedback-Seeking Behavior

Heesun Chae,Jisung Park

doi:10.3390/su14031495

Heesun Chae, Jisung Park

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031495

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Abstract

While the effects of a proactive personality on creativity have been well established, the behavioral mechanism underlying this relationship remains poorly understood. This study suggests the salience of the mediating mechanism of feedback-seeking behavior in explaining the process by which proactive individuals can perform creative outcomes. Specifically, based on the two axes—the types (inquiry vs. monitoring) and the methods (frequency vs. breadth)—this study proposes that four methods of feedback-seeking behavior (frequency of feedback inquiry, breadth of feedback inquiry, frequency of feedback monitoring, and breadth of feedback monitoring) mediate the relationship between the proactive personality and creativity. The results, which are based on data collected from 367 individuals across Korean companies, reveal that the proactive personality has a significant indirect effect on creativity via two methods only: frequency of inquiry and frequency of monitoring. Finally, this study represents a theoretical and practical contribution to academic research on creativity and proactivity in the workplace.

Highlights

In today’s rapidly changing and decentralized environment, managers cannot anticipate all situational contingencies in advance and struggle to specify behaviors that they expect from employees [1]
For Hypothesis 4, this study suggested that the effect of the proactive personality on creativity is mediated distinctly by the frequency of feedback inquiry (H4a) and monitoring (H4b)
This study aims to enhance researchers’ understanding of employee dispositional proactivity and self-initiated behavior in the workplace

Summary

Introduction

In today’s rapidly changing and decentralized environment, managers cannot anticipate all situational contingencies in advance and struggle to specify behaviors that they expect from employees [1]. Organizations must increasingly rely on employees’ personal initiative to identify and solve problems [2]. Personality traits— those that reflect a willingness to change—are increasingly recognized as a driver of competitive advantage both within and for an organization [3,4]. A proactive personality describes an individual’s natural inclination toward promoting constructive changes [5,6,7]. Empirical evidence suggests that employees who exhibit this trait are more highly engaged in additional job activities beyond the formal requirements of their roles [8] and take initiative to change procedures while executing tasks [2]. Researchers have not yet carefully examined mediating factors through which a proactive personality finds expression in creativity-enhancing ways [9,10,11]. Crant and Bateman [12] have called for more research showing the intervening mechanisms that link proactive personality to work outcomes

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