Proactivity , job characteristics , and engagement

Purpose – This paper sets out to examine proactive personality in relation to job demands, job resources and engagement. Design/methodology/approach – The current study employed a two-wave complete panel study among 794 Dutch government employees. Based upon the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, previous studies, job crafting theories, and Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, hypotheses on the associations of proactive personality with job demands, resources, and engagement were developed. Findings – Analyses revealed that proactive personality was associated with an increase in engagement 18 months later. Moreover, proactive employees perceiving high social support reported the highest levels of engagement over time. Research limitations/implications – A first shortcoming is that proactive personality was only measured at one point in time, which restricted the testing of causal relationships of proactive personality with engagement. Second, this study only measured engagement as outcome measure and third variables may have affected the associations of proactive personality with job demands and resources and engagement. Third, only small effect sizes of proactive personality (and job demands and resources) on engagement over time were found. With regard to theoretical implications, this study suggests a refinement of the JD-R model by perceiving proactive personality as a personal resource which coincides with job resources such as social support and/or is triggered by (low) external job demands in increasing engagement. Practical implications – Since this study’s findings suggest that proactive personality is a personal resource with beneficial effects on employees’ levels of work-related engagement, employers are advised to promote the behavior expressed by proactive employees. When employees are under challenged due to a low level of quantitative job demands or when they want to optimize their work environment in case of high job demands, proactive personality may have a positive impact on their engagement over time, in particular when combined with high levels of support from their colleagues and supervisor. Originality/value – This study’s value consists of its innovative effort to relate proactive personality to engagement 18 months later. In addition, the longitudinal design of this study made it possible to examine the associations of proactive personality, job demands and resources with engagement over time.