Bachelor’s Thesis:
Proactive Personality and Innovative Work Behaviour:
The Mediating Effect of Mastery Goal Orientation
Universiteit van Amsterdam Faculty of Economics and Business
Business Administration Jiří Morawiec; 12392294
29th June 2021
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Jiří Morawiec who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document: I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the
supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract
Innovation is essential for organisations in today’s fast paced economy; therefore, research should aim to fully understand how it can be realized. Based on the theory of proactive motivation, this study identified mastery goal orientation as a possible mediator to an already established relationship of proactive personality and innovative work behaviour. This is because individuals with proactive personality need to generate motivation to be able to produce
innovative behaviours; motivation which mastery goal orientation can supply. To test the mediating and supporting hypotheses, a digital survey was constructed and primary data collected. Using convenience sampling, 206 responses were recorded. The results were in line with the supporting hypotheses and indicated a partial support for the mediation hypothesis, suggesting a partial, yet substantial, mediation of mastery goal orientation in the relationship of proactive personality and innovative work behaviour. These results theoretically enhance
innovation and goal orientation literature, as well as validate the motivation theory in which this research was grounded.
Introduction
Innovation is necessary as businesses cannot afford to stay behind competition when it comes to dealing with change, especially in today’s fast paced economy. It is a source of competitive advantage (Anderson et al., 2014) and has been claimed to be a crucial element for organisational performance and long-term survival (Janssen, 2000). Innovative work behaviour is the intended generation and implementation of novel beneficial ideas into the workplace (Janssen, 2000). It is key for organisational competitiveness (Chen et al., 2013) and has been shown as substantial predictor of both job (Purwanto et al., 2020) and organisational
performance (Shanker et al., 2017).
The behaviours that employees engage in at work can stem from their individual traits and characteristics. Proactive personality has been identified as an important antecedent to innovative work behaviour at the individual level (Chen et al., 2013; Parker & Collins, 2010), as proactive people are those that look for opportunities and persevere to bring about environmental change (Bateman & Crant, 1993). However, the specific mechanism through which this
relationship occurs remains underexplored. This invokes the question: through what means does proactive personality link to innovative work behaviour?
The present research identifies mastery goal orientation as a possible factor that explains this relationship, theoretically based on Parker’s et al. (2010) model of proactive motivation.
This model explains that the process leading to innovative work behaviour requires motivation, as for the individual engaging in the process to be able to complete it and thus implement an innovative idea in the workplace. People with proactive personality act to change the
environments around them (Bateman & Crant, 1993), which means they often manage to generate enough motivation to see this challenging process through. Mastery goal oriented individuals strive to develop new competencies (Kaplan & Maehr, 2007), while appreciating the learning process it involves (Kim & Lee, 2013). This means that such individuals gain
motivation as they are trying to change the environments around them; they are motivated by the process itself. In the literature, proactive personality has been shown to positively correlate with mastery goal orientation (Setti et al., 2015; Tolentino et al., 2014), which, in turn, was shown to positively correlate with innovative work behaviour (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004; Kim & Lee, 2013; Parker & Collins, 2010). This research argues that mastery goal orientation is what enables individuals with proactive personality to display innovative work behaviour, as it acts as an
essential source of motivation during the innovative process.
Exploring this possible mediator will help broaden the theoretical understanding of the proactive personality – innovative work behaviour relationship, specifically by clarifying the processes through which innovative results can be achieved. Simultaneously, it also contributes to the goal orientation literature, as the understanding of mastery goal orientation’s role will be improved. Moreover, this research carries practical implications for those pursuing higher levels of innovative behaviour, be it individuals or organisations. It will increase managers’ and HR practitioners’ understanding of what truly drives innovative behaviour, improve their
professional toolkit, and help them create informed innovation strategies.
The theoretical background of these concepts will now be explained in detail. This will be followed by the method of this research and finally with results, discussion, and conclusion.
Proactive Personality and Innovative Work Behaviour
Innovative work behaviour is defined as the intended generation and followingly
promotion and implementation of new ideas at work (Janssen, 2000; West & Farr, 1989) with the aim to benefit performance at any level (individual / team / organisational). Teams or even organisations could be thought of as actors of innovative behaviour (Anderson et al., 2014).
However, this research focuses on the individual because it considers mastery goal orientation, which is an individual, rather than team or organisational, characteristic (Kaplan & Maehr, 2007). This does not mean that this research loses its relevancy to innovation at a team level, as individual level innovation has been shown to link with the team level (Chen et al., 2013).
It is important to make a distinction between innovation and creativity, as they are very similar concepts. Creativity is the generation of useful and novel ideas (Gong et al., 2012).
Therefore, it manifests itself within the first step of innovation: idea generation. However, innovation will always require the whole process, from generation to implementation (Anderson et al., 2014). This research is concerned with innovation as it theorizes motivational benefits that some individuals might have during the whole innovative process, therefore a focus on creativity would be restrictive and less practically relevant. Since innovation is a broad term and present research focuses on the business world, innovative work behaviour is specifically used as the dependent variable in this study. It is important to explore this topic given that innovative work behaviour has been shown to be significantly related to many valuable work environment
outcomes such as job performance (Purwanto et al., 2020), or more specifically task performance
(Dörner, 2012) and role performance (Leong & Rasli, 2014), organisational performance (Shanker et al., 2017), and employee well-being (Sharifirad, 2013).
Innovative work behaviours seem to align well with proactive personality which can be defined as one’s predispositions to taking initiative (Seibert et al., 2001). A person with proactive personality is rather unconstrained by situational forces and acts to change the environments around them (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Individuals with these tendencies take action to identify opportunities and subsequently pursue them to enact meaningful changes (Crant, 2000). By definition, there is a clear link between proactive personality and innovative work behaviour, as innovative work behaviour can be seen as a proactive behaviour in itself (Crant, 2000; Fuller &
Marler, 2009). That is because intended generation, promotion and implementation of useful ideas (innovation) is helpful and requires personal initiative, therefore meeting the criteria to classify as a proactive behaviour under Crant’s (2000) definition: “taking initiative in improving current circumstances” (p. 436). Proactive personality and innovative work behaviour have been confirmed to positively correlate in the literature (Chen et al., 2013; Giebels et al., 2016; Kong &
Li, 2018; Li et al., 2017; Parker & Collins, 2010; Zhengang et al., 2016), including Seibert’s et al. (2001) longitudinal study which suggests a causal relationship between the two concepts. This leads to the first hypothesis of this research, namely:
H1: Proactive personality is positively associated with innovative work behaviour.
The Mediating Role of Mastery Goal Orientation
Motivational factors are crucial for innovative work behaviour (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004), which is why it is important to explore by which means this motivation is captivated in the relationship of proactive personality and innovative work behaviour. Goal orientation theory deals with the motivational processes that are in play during achievement tasks (Dweck, 1986), that is why and how one achieves a task (Kaplan & Maehr, 2007). There are different goal orientations, namely mastery goal orientation (or sometimes referred to as learning), where the aim is to develop one’s competence (Dweck, 1986), and performance goal orientation (further divided into avoidance and approach), where the aim is to hide the lack of / showcase existing competence (Kaplan & Maehr, 2007). Mastery goal oriented individuals strive to develop new skills and to master new situations while appreciating the learning process involved (Kim & Lee, 2013). In order to do this they seek challenging tasks (Dweck, 1986; Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004; Seijts et al., 2004) and they are not unnecessarily bothered by their mistakes (Sujan et al.,
1994). Mastery goal orientation has mostly been studied in educational settings, with results indicating a positive relationship with academic performance (Cerasoli & Ford, 2014; Hsieh et al., 2007) and a temporal relationship with intrinsic motivation (Cerasoli & Ford, 2014). Some research has also been conducted in professional context, indicating a connection to innovative behaviours (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004; Kim & Lee, 2013; Parker & Collins, 2010).
One could reasonably expect that people who are inclined towards making changes (proactive personality) would generally be motivated to deal with them. This includes developing and learning strategies for optimal performance within the newly changed
environments and cultivating required competencies; this well describes Mastery goal orientation (Dweck, 1986). Parker’s et al. (2010) theory of proactive motivation suggests this link between proactive personality and mastery goal orientation with greater detail. This framework identifies proactivity as a goal-driven process and thus explains that firstly, it is through changing the self or the situation (or both in many cases) that one can produce a change to the environments around them (a marker of proactive personality (Crant, 2000)); and secondly, that motivation is crucial to achieve this outcome, as it fuels the process in which one firstly sets a goal and followingly strives to accomplish it, resulting in the envisioned change. Individuals with
proactive personalities tend to change the environments around them (Seibert et al., 2001). This means that they are often able to generate enough motivation to fuel this process of change, indicating that they possess a quality that allows them to do so. Mastery goal orientation could be this supporting quality, as it helps generate motivation from the process of change itself, adding to the total pool of motivation that enables its completion. That is because changing the self includes developing one’s skills (Parker et al., 2010), which is what mastery goal oriented individuals not only strive for, but also generate motivation from as they appreciate the learning process involved (Kim & Lee, 2013). A correlation between proactive personality and mastery goal orientation has also been identified empirically in previous studies (Setti et al., 2015;
Tolentino et al., 2014), leading to the second hypothesis:
H2: Proactive personality is positively related to mastery goal orientation.
Innovative work behaviours are change focused, which makes them challenging.
Changed tasks are likely to require some readjustment of strategies and development of new competencies, so that they can be completed effectively (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004). In the organisational context, the natural alternative to innovative behaviour would be a task-compliant
(or reactive) behaviour, which is often less challenging than the former (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999, as cited in Parker et al., 2010). Since mastery goal oriented individuals strive to participate in challenging activities (Button et al., 1996), they are likely to often engage in innovative
behaviours. Moreover, motivational factors are crucial for successful participation in innovative work behaviours (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004); mastery goal oriented individuals are able to accumulate them as they are motivated by the act of performing the challenging innovative behaviours (Kim & Lee, 2013), which, in turn, helps them to accomplish these behaviours in the first place. In addition, innovative work behaviour is likely to meet resistance from other
employees, which makes the process more demanding; however, individuals with mastery goal orientation are likely to overcome this challenge by exerting considerable effort into the
innovative process (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004). A positive relationship between mastery goal orientation and innovative work behaviour has also been identified in the literature (Janssen &
Van Yperen, 2004; Kim & Lee, 2013; Parker & Collins, 2010). This results in the third hypothesis:
H3: Mastery goal orientation is positively associated with innovative work behaviour.
Hinging upon these hypotheses, this research hypothesizes the mediation of mastery goal orientation. That is because of the motivation required for individuals with a proactive
personality to achieve an innovative work behaviour and the theorized motivational gains that individuals with mastery goal orientation can benefit from when engaging in the innovative process. Based on Parker’s et al. (2010) theory, those that can consistently congregate motivation should be better able to fuel their efforts of reaching their goals. Therefore, it is expected that proactive individuals will enact beneficial changes in their environments using the motivation they gain through their mastery goal orientation during the process of striving to implement these changes (see Figure 1), or formally:
H4: Mastery goal orientation mediates the relationship between proactive personality and innovative work behaviour.
Figure 1
Conceptual Model
Proactive Personality
Mastery Goal Orientation
Innovative Work Behaviour
H2 H3
H1 Mediation = H4
Method
Sample
Participants were recruited using convenience sampling restricted to the adult (over 18 years old) population and did not receive any incentives to participate in the study. 206 responses were collected in total. The respondents’ gender was balanced, as 48% were male (N = 98) and 52% female (N = 108). Their mean age measured in whole years was 40.70 (SD = 11.38) and mean tenure was 79.07 months (SD = 89.16). The participants’ highest achieved education level was judged based on 6 categories and the corresponding sample frequencies were as follows:
elementary school < 1% (N = 1), general education 3% (N = 7), high school 22% (N = 45), bachelor’s degree 35% (N = 72), master’s degree 36% (N = 74), and doctorate degree 3% (N = 7).
Design and Procedure
The data was collected over a two week period, using a cross-sectional, digital survey, which was developed in collaboration with other fellow researchers working on proactive personality, innovative work behaviour research. As a result, this survey also gathered data on variables not relevant to this study, such as perceived organisational support, measured by a scale developed by Eisenberger et al. (1997), or transformational leadership, measured by two
dimensions (intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration) of a scale developed by Bass and Avolio (1996), discussion of which will be omitted.
At the beginning, the survey informed the respondents about its goal and procedure, the fact that participation is voluntary, that standard University of Amsterdam liability insurance applies, that their privacy is guaranteed, and provided a contact for questions. This was followed by a consent statement, required for further participation. Data collection started with a few demographic questions, followed by questions measuring the research variables. These had a fully randomised order for each respondent in order to maintain veracity and integrity (Loiacono
& Wilson, 2020). The median time to complete the survey was 12.35 minutes. This was recorded from the first interaction with the survey until the submission, including any breaks the
participants took in between.
Measures
Innovative Work Behaviour
This variable was measured using a scale developed by Janssen (2000) (see Appendix A),
which measures innovative work behaviour at the individual level. It is a 9-item measure comprised of three dimensions with three items each. First one refers to idea generation, for example: “creating new ideas for difficult issues,” second one to idea promotion, for example:
“mobilizing support for innovative ideas,” and the last one to idea realization, for example:
“transforming innovative ideas into useful applications.” The respondents were asked to indicate how often they perform these innovative behaviours in the workplace on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = never, to 7 = always. None of the items were reverse coded. Cronbach’s α equalled to .93, displaying a high reliability of this scale.
Proactive Personality
Proactive Personality is an individual characteristic and was measured using Seibert’s et al. (1999) scale (see Appendix A). It consists of 10 items, none of which are reverse coded. They included for example: “If I see something I don’t like, I fix it,” and “I excel at identifying
opportunities.” The respondents were asked whether these statements describe them, and their responses were collected using a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 7 = strongly agree. Cronbach’s α was calculated to be .86, pointing to a high scale reliability.
Mastery Goal Orientation
A Scale developed by Button et al. (1996) (see Appendix A) has been used to measure mastery goal orientation at the individual level. This is an 8-item scale with no reverse-coded items. The respondents were asked to what degree they agree with the items. Example items are:
“I prefer to work on tasks that force me to learn new things,” and “When I have difficulty solving a problem, I enjoy trying different approaches to see which one will work.” The responses were recorded on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 7 = strongly agree. The reliability of this scale was also high, with its Cronbach’s α at .86.
Control Variables
In order to bolster internal validity, age, gender, tenure, and education level were considered as control variables. Age was considered because it can affect work motivation throughout one’s life (Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004) and has been correlated with innovative work behaviour (Kalyar, 2011). Furthermore, age can also influence goal orientation (Ebner et al., 2006). Gender was considered as a control variable as it has been shown that it can influence innovative work behaviour (De Jong & Den Hartog, 2008). Tenure has also been identified as potentially influencing innovative behaviours at work (Kalyar, 2011). Finally, education level
was considered a control variable as more educated individuals are likely better at generating, as well as implementing, innovative ideas (Chen et al., 2013). Education has been shown to
correlate with innovative behaviours (Giebels et al., 2016; Scott & Bruce, 1994), as well as with mastery goal orientation (Button et al., 1996).
Method of Analysis
Correlations were computed between the proposed control variables, innovative work behaviour and mastery goal orientation (dependent variables in certain analyses). These were used to decide whether to include the control variables in the subsequent analyses. Linear regression was used to test hypothesis 1, the relationship between proactive personality and innovative work behaviour. Proactive personality was the independent variable and innovative work behaviour the dependant variable in this analysis. To test hypothesis 2, the relationship between proactive personality and mastery goal orientation, linear regression with proactive personality as the independent and mastery goal orientation as the dependant variable was utilized. Linear regression was also used in testing hypothesis 3, the relationship between mastery goal orientation and innovative work behaviour. In this iteration, mastery goal
orientation was the independent variable and innovative work behaviour the dependant variable.
Hypothesis 4, the mediating effect of mastery goal orientation in the relationship between
proactive personality and innovative work behaviour, was tested using model 4 of Hayes’ (2017) PROCESS macro v3.4.
Results
Descriptive Analysis
Table 1 shows the calculated correlations, as well as the variables’ means and standard deviations. In total, 206 datapoints were collected for each variable, apart from tenure (N = 154).
The incomplete data was likely a result of a software error of the infrastructure on which the survey was constructed. Moderate correlations were found between all three main variables.
Specifically, proactive personality was correlated with both mastery goal orientation (r = .51, p <
.001) and innovative work behaviour (r = .56, p < .001), and mastery goal orientation was correlated with innovative work behaviour (r = .51, p < .001).
Furthermore, only two out of the four proposed control variables were correlated with either mastery goal orientation or innovative work behaviour (dependent variables in
respectively H2; and H1, 3, and 4). Age correlated weakly with innovative work behaviour (r = .15, p = .032) and education level correlated weakly to mastery goal orientation (r = .15, p = .035). Based on these correlations, age and education level were controlled for in all subsequent analyses. Although the controls do not both correlate with dependent variables of each
hypothesis, they were used together for consistency reasons.
Table 1
Descriptive statistics and correlations.
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Proactive Personality 5.44 .75 (.86)
2. Mastery Goal Orientation 5.96 .67 .51*** (.86)
3. Innovative Work Behaviour 4.73 1.12 .56*** .51*** (.93)
4. Gendera 1.52 .50 -.06 -.12 -.07
5. Ageb 40.70 11.38 .07 .06 .15* -.18*
6. Tenurec 79.07 89.16 .06 -.13 -.06 -.00 .44***
7. Education Leveld 4.13 .94 .19** .15* .04 .00 .22*** .08 Notes: N = 206, except for cTenure, where N = 154; Cronbach’s Alphas are displayed in parentheses; a1 = male, 2 = female; bAge was measure in whole years; cTenure was measured in months; d1 = elementary, 2 = general, 3 = high school, 4 = bachelor, 5 = master, 6 = doctorate;
* p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.
Hypotheses Testing Assumption Checks
As linear regressions were employed to test the hypotheses, first step was to check whether the data adhered to the relevant assumptions. These are independence of observations,
linearity, normality, homoscedasticity, and the absence of outliers that exert high influence on the regression (see Appendix B). Given the cross-sectional design of data collection,
independence of observations was not violated. All variables appeared to be normally
distributed, with skewness values ranging from -.96 to -.19 and kurtosis from -.20 to 1.44. All three relationships (proactive personality x innovative work behaviour, proactive personality x mastery goal orientation, and mastery goal orientation x innovative work behaviour) appeared to be linear and homoscedastic in nature and their estimation errors were normally distributed. To explore potential outliers, a linear regression was computed for each relationship in order to analyse the standardized residuals and centred leverage values. There were 27 data points which had their standardized residuals >│2│in the regressions. The centred leverage values were investigated for these datapoints, which indicated that 6 of them had high leverage (based on a cutoff of .02, as calculated by: 2 x (number of independent variables + 1) / n). These six
datapoints were removed from further analyses as influential outliers with the ability to skew the regressions.
Proactive personality and innovative work behavior
To test hypothesis 1, which stated that proactive personality is positively associated with innovative work behaviour, a linear regression was computed with innovative work behaviour as the dependent variable. The control variables (age and education level) were entered in the first model, followed by proactive personality in model 2 as the independent variable. The results indicated that there was a positive relationship between proactive personality and innovative work behaviour (Β = .89, SE = .09, t = 9.57, p < .001). After having controlled for age and education level, adding the independent variable explained additional 31.14% of the variance (ΔR2 = .31, F(3,196) = 32.80, p < .001), confirming hypothesis 1.
The mediating role of mastery goal orientation
Hypothesis 2 stated that proactive personality is positively related to mastery goal orientation. To test this, a linear regression was used with mastery goal orientation as the dependent variable. The control variables (age and education level) were entered in model 1, after which proactive personality was added as the independent variable in model 2. The results showed a positive relationship between proactive personality and mastery goal orientation (Β = .42, SE = .06, t = 7.63, p < .001). Adding proactive personality in model 2 increased the
explained variance by 22.15% (ΔR2 = .22, F(3,196) = 22.21, p < .001), thus confirming hypothesis 2.
Linear regression was also used to test hypothesis 3, which theorized that mastery goal orientation is positively associated with innovative work behaviour, the dependent variable of this analysis. Yet again, model 1 was formed from the control variables (age and education level) and model 2 added mastery goal orientation as the independent variable. The results indicated a positive association between mastery goal orientation and innovative work behaviour (Β = .87, SE = .11, t = 7.82, p < .001), with model 2 explaining further 23.24% of the variation in
innovative work behaviour (ΔR2 = .23, F(3,196) = 22.40, p < .001), compared to the control model 1. Therefore, hypothesis 3 was also confirmed.
Hypothesis 4 stated that mastery goal orientation mediates the relationship of proactive personality and innovative work behaviour. This was tested using Hayes’ (2017) PROCESS v3.4, model 4, using 5000 bootstrap samples and a 95% confidence interval. Innovative work behaviour was entered as the Y variable, proactive personality as the X variable, mastery goal orientation as the M variable, and control variables (age and education level) as covariates. The analysis revealed (see Figure 2) a significant positive indirect effect of proactive personality on innovative work behaviour through mastery goal orientation (Β = .21, SE = .07, 95% CI = [.08, .33]). This was in line with the hypothesis. However, the direct effect of proactive personality on innovative work behaviour persisted to an extent (Β = .68, SE = .10, t = 6.69, p < .001, 95% CI = [.48, .88]). This suggested a partial, yet substantial mediation as the indirect effect accouted for 23.60% of the total effect. Therefore, hypothesis 4 was partially supported by the results.
Figure 2
The mediating role of mastery goal orientation
Proactive Personality
Mastery Goal Orientation
Innovative Work Behaviour
a = .42*** b = .50***
c' = .68***
a*b = .21, 95% CI [.08, .33]
Notes: all effects are unstandardized; *** p < .001.
(c = .89***)
Discussion
Key findings
This research aimed to deepen the understanding of the relationship between proactive personality and innovative work behaviour, by investigating the means through which they link together. Specifically, the present thesis proposed mastery goal orientation as a possible mediator of this relationship (hypothesis 4). Several supporting hypotheses were developed: hypothesis 1 was about the main relationship between proactive personality and innovative work behaviour, hypothesis 2 tested whether proactive personality is linked to mastery goal orientation and hypothesis 3 was focused on the relationship between mastery goal orientation and innovative work behaviour. The results fully supported hypotheses 1 – 3, leading to the conclusion that proactive personality has a positive relationship with innovative work behaviour and mastery goal orientation; and, in addition, mastery goal orientation has a positive relationship with
innovative work behaviour. Hypothesis 4 was partially supported as the results indicated a partial mediating role of mastery goal orientation in the proactive personality and innovative work behaviour relationship. This suggests that mastery goal orientation works as a mechanism through which people with proactive personality can achieve innovative work behaviours.
Theoretical implications
Firstly, the results suggest a positive relationship between proactive personality and mastery goal orientation (in line with hypothesis 2), meaning that individuals with proactive personality are likely to possess mastery goal orientation and vice versa. This positive
relationship was recorded in studies conducted by Setti et al. (2015) and Tolentino et al. (2014), however, these studies did not specifically hypothesize, nor explain this link. The present study argues that since individuals with proactive personality take action to identify and pursue
opportunities to enact meaningful changes (Crant, 2000), and since changing one’s environment is a challenging process that requires motivation (Parker et al., 2010), individuals with proactive personality are inherently able to often generate this motivation, as to be able to proactively implement meaningful changes (the very essence of proactive personality). This reasoning implies that certain attributes which provide motivation during these challenging behaviours would be present in individuals with proactive personality. Mastery goal orientated individuals are motivated by such circumstances (Kim & Lee, 2013) and a temporal relationship between mastery goal orientation and intrinsic motivation has been identified (Cerasoli & Ford, 2014).
This suggests the reason why the relationship between proactive personality and mastery goal orientation was observed in this study is the motivational gains of mastery goal orientation during the innovative process.
Secondly, the results indicated that mastery goal orientation partially mediates the proactive personality - innovative work behaviour relationship (hypothesis 4). This follows on the presented reasoning behind hypothesis 2 specifically extended to innovative work behaviour as the measure of change that proactive individuals implement. That is, mastery goal orientation functions as a mechanism through which those with proactive personality can harness enough motivation to follow through with the innovative process resulting in innovative work behaviour.
Although mastery goal orientation was responsible for a substantial part of the proactive
personality – innovative work behaviour relationship, it was not fully mediating it, meaning there could be other mechanisms like mastery goal orientation that enable proactive individuals to enact innovative behaviours. As explained earlier, according to Parker et al. (2010), one can realize changes to his environment by changing the self, or the situation. This research identified mastery goal orientation as a mediator, given the motivational gains from developing one’s skills; this relates to changing the self within Parker’s et al. (2010) framework. Therefore, it is likely that another mechanism is in play when a proactive individual achieves innovative work behaviours through changing the situation. Present findings enhance innovation and goal
orientation literature by empirically identifying the mediating role of mastery goal orientation in the proactive personality – innovative work behaviour relationship, while simultaneously
validate Parker’s et al. (2010) theory of proactive motivation, as it was used as the foundation to identify the inherent theoretical connection between proactive personality and mastery goal orientation.
Additionally, the results indicated that a positive relationship exists between proactive personality and innovative work behaviour. This means that individuals with high levels of proactive personality are likely to display high levels of innovative behaviour in the workplace and, inversely, those who display such behaviours are likely to score high on proactive
personality measures. The results also showed a positive relationship between mastery goal orientation and innovative work behaviour. This indicates that, similarly to those with proactive personality, individuals with high levels of mastery goal orientation are also likely to display high levels of innovative work behaviour and vice versa. This validates previous studies which
also concluded that there is a connection between innovative work behaviour and proactive personality (Chen et al., 2013; Giebels et al., 2016; Kong & Li, 2018; Li et al., 2017; Parker &
Collins, 2010; Seibert et al., 2001; Zhengang et al., 2016) and between innovative work
behaviour and mastery goal orientation (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004; Kim & Lee, 2013; Parker
& Collins, 2010), thereby bolstering both, the innovation and goal orientation literature.
Practical implications
The presented conclusions carry with them important practical implications for organisations, especially those which recognize innovative behaviour as an ingredient of organisational performance and success. Such organisations can benefit from these findings in their recruitment process by identifying individuals with proactive personality and accompanying high levels of mastery goal orientation. These individuals, if employed, are likely to display innovative behaviours, therefore aiding the organisation navigate through a changing environment.
Moreover, organisations (or individuals) should also aim to maintain mastery goal orientation in their existing employees with proactive personalities. Goal orientations can differ throughout one’s life (Ebner et al., 2006), therefore, as organisation’s workforce ages, the individuals who exhibited proactive personalities might show decreasing levels of innovative work behaviours as a result of goal orientation shift. Environmental cues or structures might be effective in maintaining mastery goal orientation as they have been shown capable of influencing goal orientations in groups (Ames, 1992; Kaplan & Maehr, 2007), however, this has been studied in educational and classroom settings.
Limitations and direction for future research
It is important to note that, as with any research, this study is subject to certain
limitations, the most prevalent of which will be discussed here. Firstly, the cross-sectional design of the survey restricts the ability of the analyses to assess whether a temporal relationship exists.
The relationships measured could be subject to reverse causality, as opposed to the theoretically identified direction. This means that even though the literature suggests proactive personality to (causally) lead to innovative work behaviour (Seibert et al., 2001), the same causality claims cannot be asserted from the computed results of this research. It is therefore possible that innovative behaviours, for example, cause individuals to adopt mastery goal orientation, which in turn makes them develop a proactive personality. Although the literature supports the validity
of the presented conceptual model, future research should aim to replicate these results, using longitudinal data collection, or even an experimental design to manipulate mastery goal orientation in a controlled manner.
Secondly, convenience sampling was employed even though this research was concerned with general adult population. This, for example, led to the fact that 74% of the sampled
individuals have obtained at least a bachelor’s degree, as compared to 38% of a broader Dutch population (OECD, 2019). Therefore, the generalizability of the results and conclusions is uncertain. Future research with different samples and preferably sampling methods would assist in generalizing the results to specific, or even to the general population, however, since the current results are in line with the theoretical foundation used to construct this study, it is likely that generalizability is not a substantial issue.
Thirdly, it is possible that the data suffered from a non-response bias. As a result of the combination of convenience sampling and collaborative data collection in the digital
environment, the total number of individuals reached by the surveywas not recorded and
therefore, the response rate could not have been calculated. This makes assessing the risk of non- response bias ambiguous. This is a design flaw and should be avoided in any future research.
Fourthly, the way in which the variables were measured could have resulted in a number of issues. The fact that all data were collected using a single survey could have introduced the common method variance issue and since the variables were assessed only using self-reports, it is possible that the measurements do not reflect the true values due to the consistency motif, or the social desirability effect (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). A more resourceful research could tackle these biases by introducing multiple measurements from multiple sources, such as a supervisor ratings combined with respondent self-reports, to reflect the values of the variables more accurately.
Lastly, the fact that this study pointed to a partial mediating role of mastery goal
orientation suggests that the relationship of proactive personality and innovative work behaviour merits additional research as there could be other mechanisms mediating this relationship.
Specifically, following the theory of proactive motivation (Parker et al., 2010), it is likely that when an individual realizes innovative work behaviour through changing the situation (like influencing his peers, or persuading a leader to change strategic direction (Parker et al., 2010)), mastery goal orientation’s role will not be as pronounced. This is because mastery goal
orientation is theoretically not well connected to such influence behaviours, unlike it is to the development of one’s skills when realizing changes to the environment through changing the self. If that is the case, it is then also likely that a different mechanism which stimulates such influence behaviours would be present in individuals with proactive personalities, possibly mediating the proactive personality – innovative work behaviour relationship. Extraversion is of specific interest as it has been recorded to correlate with proactive personality (Major et al., 2006) and has been suggested as a predictor to the use of many influence techniques (Caldwell &
Burger, 1997). Moreover, the present research investigated innovative work behaviour as a whole. This means that it is not clear whether mastery goal orientation relates to idea generation, promotion, or implementation. Future research should firstly explore the mediating role of mastery goal orientation in the proactive personality - innovative work behaviour relationship, as it relates specifically to innovative behaviours achieved through changing the self and / or
changing the situation, while distinguishing between the different parts of the innovative process (idea generation, promotion, and implementation). Further, the mediating roles of other
variables, like the proposed extraversion, should be investigated alongside mastery goal orientation.
Conclusion
In previous research, proactive personality has been shown to result in innovative work behaviour (Seibert et al., 2001), however, the processes through which this happens remained unclear. The present study theoretically proposed mastery goal orientation as a mediator to this relationship, mainly based on Parker’s et al (2010) theory of proactive motivation. The results empirically identified mastery goal orientation as a partial mediator to the relationship between proactive personality and innovative work behaviour. This indicates that individuals with high levels of proactive personality can be expected to often exert innovative work behaviour by virtue of their mastery goal orientation, possibly as a result of the theorized motivational gains it supplies.
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Appendix A
Innovative Work Behaviour Scale
This measure was published by Janssen (2000). It is a 9-item scale, with the items equally spread within three dimensions: idea generation, idea promotion and idea realization. The respondents were asked how often they perform described innovative behaviours in the workplace, with possible answers presented on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 = never to 7 = always.
Items:
- Idea Generation:
1. Creating new ideas for diffcult issues.
2. Searching out new working methods, techniques, or instruments.
3. Generating original solutions for problems.
- Idea Promotion:
4. Mobilizing support for innovative ideas.
5. Acquiring approval for innovative ideas.
6. Making important organizational members enthusiastic for innovative ideas.
- Idea Realization:
7. Transforming innovative ideas into useful applications.
8. Introducing innovative ideas into the work environment in a systematic way.
9. Evaluating the utility of innovative ideas.
Proactive Personality Scale
This is a scale published by Seibert et al. (1999). It is a shortened version of Bateman and Crant’s (1993) original. It consists of 10 items, with responses collected on 7-point scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree.
Items:
1. I am constantly on the lookout for new ways to improve my life.
2. Wherever I have been, I have been a powerful force for constructive change.
3. Nothing is more exciting than seeing my ideas turn into reality 4. If I see something I don’t like, I fix it.
5. No matter what the odds, if I believe in something I will make it happen.
6. I love being a champion for my ideas, even against others’ opposition.
7. I excel at identifying opportunities.
8. I am always looking for better ways to do things.
9. If I believe in an idea, no obstacle will prevent me from making it happen.
10. I can spot a good opportunity long before others can.
Mastery Goal Orientation Scale
The following measure has been developed by Button et al. (1996). It is an 8-item measure and the responses were collected using a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree.
Items:
1. The opportunity to do challenging work is important to me.
2. When I fail to complete a difficult task, I plan to try harder the next time I work on it.
3. I prefer to work on tasks that force me to learn new things.
4. The opportunity to learn new things is important to me.
5. I do my best when I’m working on a fairly difficult task.
6. I try hard to improve on my past performance.
7. The opportunity to extend the range of my abilities is important to me.
8. When I have difficulty solving a problem, I enjoy trying different approaches to see which one will work.
Appendix B
Table B1
Skewness and Kurtosis
Variable Skewness Kurtosis
Statistic SE Statistic SE
1. Proactive Personality -.57 .17 .68 .34
2. Mastery Goal Orientation -.96 .17 1.44 .34
3. Innovative Work Behaviour -.40 .17 .34 .34
5. Agea -.19 .17 -.84 .34
7. Education Levelb -.40 .17 -.20 .34
Notes: N = 206; aAge was measure in years; b1 = elementary, 2 = general, 3 = high school, 4
= bachelor, 5 = master, 6 = doctorate.
Figure B1
Scatterplot of proactive personality and innovative work behaviour.
Figure B2
Scatterplot of proactive personality and mastery goal orientation.
Figure B3
Scatterplot of mastery goal orientation and innovative work behaviour.
Figure B4
Homoscedasticity scatterplot of proactive personality and innovative work behaviour.
Notes: independent variable = proactive personality; dependent variable = innovative work behaviour.
Figure B5
Homoscedasticity scatterplot of proactive personality and mastery goal orientation.
Notes: independent variable = proactive personality; dependent variable = mastery goal orientation.
Figure B6
Homoscedasticity scatterplot of mastery goal orientation and innovative work behaviour.
Notes: independent variable = mastery goal orientation; dependent variable = innovative work behaviour.
Figure B7
Normal probability-plot of standardized residuals for the proactive personality and innovative work behaviour relationship.
Notes: independent variable = proactive personality; dependent variable = innovative work behaviour.
Figure B8
Normal probability-plot of standardized residuals for the proactive personality and mastery goal orientation relationship.
Notes: independent variable = proactive personality; dependent variable = mastery goal orientation.
Figure B9
Normal probability-plot of standardized residuals for the mastery goal orientation and innovative work behaviour relationship.
Notes: independent variable = mastery goal orientation; dependent variable = innovative work behaviour.
Figure B10
Scatterplot of centred leverage values and standardized residuals for the proactive personality and innovative work behaviour relationship.
Notes: independent variable = proactive personality; dependent variable = innovative work behaviour; dotted line indicates the standardized residuals cutoff of│2│; horizontal line indicates the centred leverage cutoff of 0.02, as calculated by 2 x (1 + 1) / 206; deleted outliers are marked in red.
Figure B11
Scatterplot of centred leverage values and standardized residuals for the proactive personality and mastery goal orientation relationship.
Notes: independent variable = proactive personality; dependent variable = mastery goal orientation; dotted line indicates the standardized residuals cutoff of│2│; horizontal line indicates the centred leverage cutoff of 0.02, as calculated by 2 x (1 + 1) / 206; deleted outliers are marked in red.
Figure B12
Scatterplot of centred leverage values and standardized residuals for the mastery goal orientation and innovative work behaviour relationship.
Notes: independent variable = mastery goal orientation; dependent variable = innovative work behaviour; dotted line indicates the standardized residuals cutoff of│2│; horizontal line indicates the centred leverage cutoff of 0.02, as calculated by 2 x (1 + 1) / 206; deleted outliers are marked in red.
