Research has suggested that employees who possess a proactive personality have greater job satisfaction. However, contextual factors that may serve as boundary conditions have received insufficient attention in the research. Accordingly, this study proposed psychological safety as a moderator in the positive relationship between proactive personality and job satisfaction. We recruited 207 employees to complete a two-wave panel survey that was conducted over 3 months. When job satisfaction was controlled for at Time 1, this study found that having a proactive personality was positively associated with changes in job satisfaction over time. Furthermore, the relationship between proactive personality and changes in job satisfaction was strengthened when psychological safety was low. The implications and applications are discussed. JEL classification: I31, J28, L83, L84

No abstract

How to promote employees to be proactive behaviourally is a significant issue in the literature because it would benefit organisations in several ways. Drawing on the acceptance and commitment model, we proposed a new antecedent, psychological flexibility that might contribute to employees proactive work behaviour. Furthermore, we investigated how the contextual role of supervisor need for structure exhibits a cross-level moderating effect on the relationship between employee psychological flexibility at work and proactive work behaviour based on interactionism. Data from 241 full-time employees and their corresponding 45 managers indicated that employee psychological flexibility was positively associated with proactive work behaviour. More importantly, the supervisor need for structure played a moderating role, suggesting that employees would demonstrate greater proactive work behaviour especially when the supervisors have a high need for structure. Implications for psychological flexibility, proactivity, and personsituation interactional research are discussed.