Proactivity with image in mind: How employee and manager characteristics affect evaluations of proactive behaviours

• Published in: Journal of occupational and organizational psychology Vol. 83; no. 2; pp. 347 - 369
• Main Authors: de Stobbeleir, Katleen E. M., Ashford, Susan J., de Luque, Mary F. Sully
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-06-2010; British Psychological Society
• Subjects: Attribution theory; Behavioural psychology; Cost benefit analysis; Employees; Feedback; Feedback seeking; Human performance; Managers; Motivation; Occupational psychology; Occupations; Organizational behavior; Organizational behaviour; Organizational culture; Personality traits; Proactivity; Studies; Working conditions; Working life; Workplaces
• ISSN: 0963-1798; 2044-8325
• DOI: 10.1348/096317909X479529

This paper investigates image cost as a potential downside of proactivity. Drawing on attribution theory, we examine how people construct subjective evaluations of one manifestation of proactivity, feedback‐seeking behaviour. Using a scenario methodology, we examined how employees' performance history, their manager's implicit person theory (IPT), and the frequency of their feedback‐seeking affect how managers evaluate employees' feedback seeking. Results indicate that manager attribute average performers' feedback seeking significantly less to performance‐enhancement motives than superior performers' seeking. Results further show that the frequency of feedback seeking and a manager's IPT interact in influencing managers' attributions for feedback seeking, with more entity oriented managers attributing frequent feedback seeking significantly more to impression‐management motives than infrequent feedback requests. These results highlight the importance of not only the instrumental benefits of employee proactivity, but also its potential costs.