How does the social context fuel the proactive fire? A multilevel review and theoretical synthesis

• Author: Zijun Cai,Wing Lam,Sharon K. Parker,Zhijun Chen
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2347
• Date: 01 February 2019

THE JOB ANNUAL REVIEW

How does the social context fuel the proactive fire? A

multilevel review and theoretical synthesis

Zijun Cai

1

|Sharon K. Parker

2

|Zhijun Chen

3

|Wing Lam

4

1

Business School, Beijing Normal University,

Beijing, China

2

Centre for Transformative Work Design,

Future of Work Institute, Faculty of Business

and Law, Curtin University, Perth, Australia

3

College of Business, Shanghai University of

Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China

4

Department of Management & Marketing,

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,

Kowloon, Hong Kong

Correspondence

Zhijun Chen, College of Business, Shanghai

University of Finance and Economics,

Shanghai, China.

Email: chen.zhijun@mail.shufe.edu.cn

Funding information

Australian Government Research Training

Program (RTP) Scholarship; Australian

Research Council Australian Laureate Fellow-

ship, Grant/Award Number: FL160100033;

Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/

Award Number: 71573172; Research Grant

Council of the Hong Kong Special Adminis-

trative Region, China, Grant/Award Number:

GRF no. 155130/16B and GRF no. 155042/

17B

Summary

The role of social context (e.g., leadership, team climate, and organizational support) in

shaping employee proactive behavior has received considerable attention and has

been investigated across multiple forms of proactive behavior. However, the research

has not been well integrated. In this review, we adopt a multilevel approach to syn-

thesize what is known about how social context factors influence employees' proac-

tive behavior, as well as what mechanisms underpin these effects. Our analyses

show that leader‐, team‐, and organization‐related social context factors mainly influ-

ence employee proactivity through shaping “reason to,”“can do,”and “energized to”

states (i.e., proactive motivational states) via individual‐, team‐, and cross‐level pro-

cesses. That has been most frequently investigated is the effect of the discretionary

social context, particularly leadership, on proactive behavior. We also review the

interaction effects between social context factors and other factors on employee pro-

active behavior and found inconsistent support for the motivational‐fit perspective

that stimuli with the same directions enhance each other's effect. We offer a research

agenda to advance theoretical insights on this important topic.

KEYWORDS

multilevel, proactive behavior, proactive motivation model, socialcontext

1|INTRODUCTION

Given its positive implications for enhancing individual and organiza-

tional effectiveness, a fast‐growing body of literature has focused on

employee work‐based proactive behavior, or employees' self‐initiated

efforts to bring about future‐focused changes (Parker & Collins, 2010).

Aiming to change and improve the situation or oneself (Bindl & Parker,

2017; Parker, Williams, & Turner, 2006), a fundamental component of

proactivity

1

is the idea that people do not passively accept environ-

mental exigencies but instead can intentionally take actions to change

the work environment they encounter (Parker & Collins, 2010).

Existing literature has mainly examined why proactive behavior

happens in the workplace, identifying a variety of individual attributes

and job features, such as proactive personality and job autonomy, as

antecedents (for reviews, please see Marinova, Peng, Lorinkova, Van

Dyne, & Chiaburu, 2015; Ohly & Schmitt, 2017; and Wu & Li, 2017).

However, as individuals become more independent on each other in

the workplace (Grant & Parker, 2009; Griffin, Neal, & Parker, 2007),

to affect the environment and initiate changes, employees need to

seek support from, cooperate with, and build allies with others.

Indeed, an interactionist perspective on proactivity would assume that

the social context shapes individual decisions to be proactive. Simply

stated, “Interactionism notes that the person, environment, and

behavior continuously influence one another”(Crant, Hu, & Jiang,

2017, p. 194). Consistent with such a perspective, in recent years,

there has been an increase in studies focusing on social factors as

antecedents to work‐based proactive behavior (e.g., Hong, Liao, Raub,

& Han, 2016; Parker et al., 2006).

Despite the growth in research focusing on the role of social pro-

cesses, there is a lack of clarity about the full set of social context fac-

tors that might shape multiple forms of proactive behavior. First, most

scholars have focused on a single social context variable at a time. For

1

In this paper, we use proactive behavior and proactivity interchangeably.

Received: 29 November 2016 Revised: 14 December 2018 Accepted: 20 December 2018

DOI: 10.1002/job.2347

J Organ Behav. 2019;40:209–230. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 209

example, Parker and Wu (2014) examined how leadership affects pro-

active behavior but did not consider other social processes. Thus, we

need to develop a clearer picture of the full range of social context

factors that affect proactive behavior. Second, when research has con-

sidered multiple social factors, it has tended to do so for just one form

of proactivity. For instance, Ng and Feldman's (2012) meta‐analysis

identified a set of social factors that shape employee voice behavior.

Supporting a resource‐conservation argument (Hobfoll, 1989), the

authors concluded that social stressors decrease voice behavior. How-

ever, although their study reviewed multiple social antecedents, it

focused only on voice behavior, so we do not know if different sorts

of social context variables are needed depending on the form of pro-

active behavior. Third, the level of the social context variable has

received little attention. For example, Farrell and Strauss (2013) pro-

posed a model of how work‐based social relationships affect proactive

behavior, but they did not consider the possibility that these relation-

ships could vary across different levels, such as leader–member

exchange (LMX) at a leader–subordinate level and team support at a

team level. Accordingly, the multilevel nature of social context factors

was obscured. Thus, there is a need to synthesize research on the mul-

tilevel set of social context factors that shape different types of proac-

tive behaviors (Chen, Farh, Campbell‐Bush, Wu, & Wu, 2013; Chen &

Kanfer, 2006).

Once we identify the social context antecedents for employee

proactive behavior, this paves the way for recognizing the mechanisms

that underlie social cues for proactive behavior. For example, Detert

and Burris (2007) found that transformational leadership influences

individual voice behavior through psychological safety, whereas Liu,

Zhu, and Yang (2010) found social and relational identification to be

the mechanisms. Further investigation is needed to synthesize the

mediating mechanisms that influence proactive employee behavior

(Chiaburu, Lorinkova, & Van Dyne, 2013).

Our review has three major purposes. First, we identify different

social context factors across multiple proactive behavior domains to

clarify the association between the social context and the proactive

behavior. Second, we adopt an integrated approach to summarize

the mediating mechanisms for the impact of social context predictors

on proactive behavior, spelling out multilevel pathways to understand

why and under which circumstances employees engage in proactive

behavior. Finally, we offer a research agenda to build on what is

known as well as to further advance theoretical insights on this topic.

2|DOMAIN AND SCOPE OF THE REVIEW:

SOCIAL CONTEXT AND PROACTIVE

BEHAVIOR

In what follows, we define what we mean by social context and proac-

tive behavior and then describe how we identified papers linking these

concepts for the review.

2.1 |Clarifying social context

The notion of “context”was originally conceptualized as the stimuli

and phenomena surrounding individuals that “illuminate”their

behaviors (Cappelli & Sherer, 1991), implying a moderating role of

context for shaping behavior. Later, scholars developed an extended

meaning of context, identifying it as a predictor of behavior. Mowday

and Sutton (1993) argued that the context serves as opportunities and

constraints for behaviors in organizational settings. Bamberger (2008)

recognized that context is both a moderator and a predictor of behav-

ior, defining it as “surrounding phenomena or temporal conditions that

directly influence lower‐level phenomena and condition relations

between one or more variables at different levels of analysis”

(p. 841). Building on this perspective, Johns (2018) pointed out that

context “provides constraints and opportunities that affect the occur-

rence of organizational behavior and shape its meaning”and defined

context as “situational or environmental stimuli that impinge upon

focal actors and are often located at a different level of analysis from

those actors”(p. 22).

Guided by this literature, we recognize social context as both a

predictor of proactive employee behavior and a moderator of the rela-

tionship between other factors and proactive behavior. We follow

Johns (2018) to define the social context as the multilevel interper-

sonal stimuli that surround, and are external to, the individual(s). This

definition encompasses a broad scope of interpersonal stimuli. Thus,

besides direct interpersonal interactions and relationships, such as

coworker support and LMX, the social context also includes leader-

ships, team climates, organizational values, industry norms, and

national values. Collective values and norms are social factors relevant

to employee work‐based proactive behavior because they emerge

from the interactions among individuals who are involved in the par-

ticular context. These interactions frequently provide diagnostic cues

and criteria against which individuals interpret and evaluate their

own behaviors and others'.

By focusing on social context as being “multilevel,”we recognize

that social factors can differ in levels of theorization, measurement,

and analysis. Leadership, for example, has been measured and ana-

lyzed at both individual and team levels, with the former reflecting

individuals' perceptions of their leaders and the latter reflecting the

teams' shared perception of the leader (Chen & Bliese, 2002). In their

multilevel model of team motivation, Chen and Kanfer (2006) differen-

tiate discretionary inputs, or person‐oriented stimuli directed toward a

specific individual (an individual‐level process), from ambient inputs, or

team‐oriented stimuli that pervade the team as a whole (a team‐level

process). Similarly, we adopt a multilevel perspective and classify the

social context into discretionary social context factors and ambient

social context factors. Discretionary social context factors are usually

theorized, measured, and analyzed at the individual level, reflecting

individual social experiences or perceptions of the social context, such

as perceived leadership and LMX. Ambient social context factors func-

tion at higher levels, reflecting social experiences or shared properties

common to collectives, such as team leadership, team climate, and

LMX diversity.

2.2 |Clarifying proactive behavior

Proactive behavior refers to self‐initiated behavior to bring about

future‐focused change (Parker et al., 2006). There are many forms of

210 CAI ET AL.