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LODJ
34,8
724
Received 31 January 2012
Revised 31 May 2012
2 December 2012
3 December 2012
Accepted 4 December 2012
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
Vol. 34 No. 8, 2013
pp. 724-740
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0143-7739
DOI 10.1108/LODJ-01-2012-0014
The moderating effect of
perceived job characteristics
on the proactive
personality-organizational
citizenship behavior relationship
Eric W. Liguori
California State University, Fresno, California, USA, and
Benjamin D. McLarty and Jeffrey Muldoon
Rucks Department of Management, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore relationships between proactive personality
and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Moderators between these constructs are proposed in
order to explain varying levels of dispositional impact on work behavior. These relationships were
also tested to see whether proactive personality should be considered a strong or weak trait. Trait
activation theory and social exchange theory are used to develop hypotheses.
Design/methodology/approach – Data collected via a targeted sampling strategy from 178
supervisor-subordinate dyads spanning multiple industries and organizations were used. Hypotheses
were tested using hierarchical linear regression.
Findings – Results indicate a positive relationship exists between proactive personality and
organizationally directed citizenship behaviors, and that this relationship is moderated by both job
autonomy and job meaning.
Originality/value – The paper is one of the first to explore the relationship between proactive
personality and citizenship behaviors directed at the organization. It also bolsters the strong trait
argument by demonstrating that, even in conditions of low autonomy and meaning, highly proactive
individuals will still perform OCBs.
Keywords Autonomy, Meaning, OCB, Proactive personality
Paper type Research paper
With recent developments in the global economic picture, organizations are looking
for ways to promote proactive behaviors on the part of their workers. The spread of
flattening organizational hierarchies, more complex work structures, and increased
work autonomy have made the concept of proactive personality an important topic for
the both scholarly literature and practitioners (Fuller et al., 2010). Accordingly, firms
may put into place managerial interventions to encourage workers to act more
proactively. One of these interventions is to attract, select, and hire individuals who are
high in proactive personality. Proactive personality is the tendency of an individual
toward the performance of organizationally relevant behaviors, whether it is more
positive job performance through the identification and implementation of improved
work methods, the creation of favorable work conditions, challenging the status
The authors thank Dr Jen Morgan and Dr Kerry Sauley for their help in collecting data for the
paper.
quo, engaging in extraordinary learning behaviors, or the performance of Perceived job
organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs; e.g. Crant, 2000; Fuller and Marler, characteristics
2009). Despite its relative newness, proactive personality has been studied often
enough to enable the publication of multiple meta-analyses including those by
Fuller and Marler (2009) and Thomas et al. (2010). This work has helped to establish
the concept of proactive personality in such a way that makes it an accepted area for
further research. 725
Scholars have also recently begun to debate whether proactive personality is a weak
or a strong personality construct (Fuller et al., 2010). Locke and Latham (2005) noted
the need for further examination regarding the differences between strong and weak
personalities, defining a strong personality as one that “should be less constrained by
situations than weak ones” (p. 395), and a weak personality as one that is highly
influenced by situational factors. Strong personalities are less susceptible to situational
factors than weak personalities. Barrick and Mount (2005) have also examined
situational factors and their effects on personality, so that we may understand the
relationship between performance and personality better. In doing so, it was hoped
that personality factors would be better able to predict performance and continue to
justify the use of personality as a selection technique. Situations matter because they
may influence the relationship between personality and performance by providing
incentives or indicating what is appropriate behavior (Mischel, 1977; Tett and Burnett,
2003). In essence, performance and personality relationships may not exist when there
are situations of reward contingency (Tett and Burnett, 2003).
Proactive personality, as originally envisioned, is a trait characterized as being
relatively unhampered by situational forces, and which impacts its surrounding
environment. Proactive individuals seek the chance to demonstrate initiative, take
charge, and persist until they are able to bring about a new desired end state. In other
words, they enjoy having a mission to discover and solve problems and consequently
are able to influence their surroundings (Bateman and Crant, 1993). The argument behind
this idea is that these individuals should be able to transform their environments,
somewhat negating the influence of situational cues and constraints. However, Fuller
et al. (2010) argue that proactive personality is not as strong of a personality trait
as has been previously suggested. In their work, proactive personality was shown to
be moderated by job autonomy and therefore, a claim was made that it should not be
defined as a strong personality trait (Fuller et al., 2010).
As a result of this research, several important theoretical and practical implications
may be derived from an examination of this claim. The first implication is that workers
with higher levels of proactive personality need to be placed in positions where they
are allowed to be proactive (Thompson, 2005). The second is the theoretical implication
that proactive behaviors are very much a function of individual differences and
situational constraints. This second implication, if true, forces scholars to reconsider
whether their current perspective of proactive personality – that people take an active
role in shaping their environment – is really warranted.
We extend the work of Fuller et al. (2010) by including job meaning as a moderator,
by using a more theoretically grounded measure of performance (i.e. OCBs targeted
toward the organization), and by basing our results on a more diverse and potentially
representative sample. Therefore, our research contributes to the ongoing search for
knowledge about the impact of personality characteristics on organizational
performance issues by providing a better understanding of the following questions
relevant to organizations: what situational factors work best with proactive personality
LODJ and what practical lessons could employers gain from the research provided? Taken
34,8 together, we believe this research contributes to the literature in a meaningful way.
This paper includes a review of the current understanding of proactive personality
and how it leads to performance, especially the kind seen in extra-role behaviors.
Hypotheses consistent with social exchange theory (SET) and trait activation
theory (TAT) are developed and tested against the information collected from 178
726 manager-worker dyads. In this case, we argue that organizational moderators such as
meaning and autonomy will interact with the proactive personality, influencing the
exchange relationship a worker enjoys with the organization. Results, both theoretical
and practical, are discussed, and future research is proposed.

Theoretical background
Proactive personality
Theorists have argued for the need to integrate personality concepts into situational
development in order to increase validity (Barrick and Mount, 2005). Accordingly,
scholars are moving beyond the Big Five and now considering compound traits
such as core self-evaluations (Judge et al., 1997) or proactive personality. The thrust
of this argument is that more specifically limited personality constructs will include
situational influences and those situational influences will lead to higher predictive
validity.
Proactive personality is rooted within the interactionist perspective (Bandura, 1977;
Crant, 1995; Schneider, 1983). The interactionist perspective holds that behavior is
internally and externally monitored, such that individuals may dramatically influence
and change their situations, thereby producing higher levels of performance
(Crant, 2000). Therefore, the interactionist component of personality, rather than
being shaped or controlled by the environment, will enable individuals to transform
their environments.
In addition to its interactionist component, proactive personality is a compound
personality trait. According to Hough and Schneider (1996, p. 57), “Compound
personality traits are comprised of basic personality traits that do not at all covary.”
As a compound trait, proactive personality is comprised of specific facets of emotional
stability, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, and extraversion;
however, these facet level components of the Big Five traits only account for 26 percent
of the variance in proactive personality, which indicates that it is something beyond a
combination of these personality factors (Major et al., 2006). Emotional stability should
impact proactive personality because people who are emotionally stabile are more
likely to be confident and grounded. Conscientiousness impacts proactive personality
because individuals with higher degrees of it are more likely to be motivated and
persist in completing goal-directed behavior. Openness influences proactive
personality because individuals are more likely to be comfortable in seeking out
new, challenging experiences and less likely to tolerate the status quo. Extraversion is
related to proactive personality because individuals who are high in proactive
personality are more likely to be decisive and open to practicing new behaviors.
Agreeableness influences proactive personality from the standpoint that it has an
altruistic characteristic which leads to the benefit of fellow coworkers. Of the major
personality traits, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness to experience are the
most positively related to proactive personality (Crant and Bateman, 2000; Major et al.,
2006). Despite these relevant and theoretically supported relationships between Big
Five traits and proactive personality, it is clear that the majority of the impact of
proactive personality is independent of the influence of the Big Five. Therefore, the Perceived job
use of proactive personality to determine its relationship with performance issues characteristics
is warranted.
Proactive personality is a “relatively stable tendency to effect environmental
change that differentiates people based on the extent to which they take action to
influence their environments” (Major et al., 2006, p. 928). Individuals who are high in
proactive personality are considered to be highly proactive. Proactive individuals 727
“identify opportunities and act on them, show initiative, take action and persevere until
meaningful change occurs” (Crant, 2000, p. 439). Proactive personality, unlike the Big
Five (Barrick et al., 1993), is thought to be relatively unconstrained by situational
factors (Fuller et al., 2010).

Personality and situational interactions

Personality influences job performance through motivation (Locke and Latham, 2004;
Pinder, 1998). Individuals with different personality types find themselves motivated
through setting particular goals. Research indicates that the relationship between
personality and performance is moderated by situational factors such as job autonomy
and meaning (Barrick and Mount, 1993, 2005). Situational factors provide clues on how
to act (Mischel, 1977). For example, autonomy is the extent to which rules exist to
monitor behavior. In jobs lacking autonomy, decision making by the worker is highly
constrained as their choices are limited to what management has deemed necessary.
Workers in these situations may lack the necessary resources to make changes to their
environment and, accordingly, act more uniform in terms of behavior (Batt, 1999).
Fuller et al. (2010) determined that autonomy moderates the relationship between
proactive personality and job performance. In conditions of high autonomy, the
relationship between proactive personality and performance is stronger. In conditions
of low autonomy, the relationship between proactive personality and performance is
weaker. Despite these interesting results, there were several limitations to their work.
First, their sample consisted of a single organization, which limits the generalizability
of the inferences that may be made. Their findings may have been influenced by
organizational factors rather than identifying a true relationship. Furthermore, their
selection of job performance as a variable may also be limited for several reasons.
For example, if the job is a specialized one, then individuals will be unable to add skills
or make corrections needed to have the influence of proactive personality. Another
limitation is that job performance is influenced by general mental ability, meaning that
individuals could very well be limited in their ability to perform relevant proactive
behaviors. In other words, individuals would not likely strive for objectives beyond
their reach (Hunter and Hunter, 1984). Because there is an underlying assumption that
proactivity is motivational in nature, a measure of job performance that examines true
motivation, rather than motivation and ability, should provide a richer understanding
of the job process.

OCBs
Because focal job performance is related to intelligence (Hunter and Hunter, 1984;
Motowildo et al., 1997; Schmidt and Hunter, 1998), examining non-focal performance
such as OCBs, should provide better explanations for the effects of proactive
personality. Organ (1977) originally developed the concept that focal and contextual
performances may be viewed as two separate domains. He, his subsequent coauthors,
and others have further defined job performance as involving three distinct domains.
LODJ Focal job performance is performance that contributes directly to organizational
34,8 performance and is the result of performing a job which is considered to be in-role
(Borman and Motowildo, 1993). Extra-role behaviors consist of tasks that are neither
required nor rewarded, thus strengthening the organization’s social and psychological
core (Motowildo et al., 1997; Organ, 1997). These behaviors range from benefiting an
individual (perhaps coworkers) or the supervisor within the organization (Williams
728 and Anderson, 1991). These behaviors have been labeled OCBI (behaviors directed at
individuals) or OCBO (behaviors directed at the organization). Behaviors that benefit
the organization include activities such as conscientiousness and courtesy. Managers
care about these behaviors because firms in which employees perform them have
higher levels of organizational performance (Podsakoff et al., 2009).
OCBs are spontaneous (Organ et al., 2006) and, as organizations struggle to
monitor performance through traditional economic exchanges (Organ, 1988), stressing
social exchanges is needed. An economic exchange has a marketplace character.
Each partner states in advance exactly what will be exchanged as well as when
the exchanges will occur (Blau, 1964). In comparison, social exchanges are built on the
“general expectation of some future return, its exact nature is definitely not stipulated
in advance” (Blau, 1964, p. 93).
Accordingly, OCBs are driven by individuals’ willingness to participate in social
exchanges (Organ, 1988). People perform OCBs because they wish to gain something
from important organizational agents. They are willing to exchange because they
expect some benefit in return (Organ, 1988). Managers pay OCBs back in terms of
higher performance ratings, pay, and promotion (Podsakoff et al., 2009), but they are
also exchanged through the social exchange process. Therefore, individuals must have
a degree of trust with their exchange partners (Organ et al., 2006). In addition, OCBs
are driven more by motivation than they are by ability (Motowildo et al., 1997).
This leads to a more interesting investigation of the role of personality on performance,
since it becomes a matter of “will do” vs “can do.” Because personality is focussed on
behaviors ( James and Mazorolle, 2002), and personality influences job performance
through motivation (Barrick et al., 2003; Kanfer, 1990; Murray, 1938), our selection of
OCBs will aid in the examination between performance and proactive personality.
Furthermore, extant research suggests that personality traits are linked to OCBs
(Podsakoff et al., 2000).

Hypotheses
Organ et al. (2006) claim that, of the Big Five personality traits, conscientiousness, and
agreeableness should have the strongest relationship with OCBs. Yet, as mentioned
above, personality research has gone far beyond the Big Five in considering constructs
that are compound in nature and tailored to situational aspects. Proactive personality
is one of those constructs. We believe that individuals with high proactive personality
will be more likely to perform OCBs just as other personality traits are linked to OCBs
(Podsakoff et al., 2000). This argument is based on the fact that OCBs are a mechanism
for which individuals may improve the social and psychological core of their
organization. Individuals who are high in proactive personality wish to change their
environments and settings, whether it is a state of knowledge (Major et al., 2006) or by
leaving the organization (Allen et al., 2005).
Individuals high in proactive personality will also be more willing to perform
pro-social behaviors in order to make the workplace more enjoyable (Penner et al.,
1997). Individuals with proactive mindsets have an action-oriented attitude toward
organizational life, likely initiating situations that create favorable workplace Perceived job
conditions while trying to intentionally make improvements to their surroundings characteristics
(Crant, 2000).
Proactivity within an employee leads that person to desire a higher quality
environment and is related to a number of positive outcomes. These include job
performance (Crant, 1995), valuable career outcomes such as salary and promotions
(Seibert et al., 1999), leadership (Bateman and Crant, 1993; Crant and Bateman, 2000; 729
Deluga, 1998), team performance (Kirkman and Rosen, 1999), and other positive
behaviors. Individuals who actively seek to make their workplace a better one should
be more likely to engage in behaviors that resemble OCBs because these behaviors, by
their very nature, nurture the organizational setting, and improve the workplace for
both the employee and the organization. Highly proactive people will be more likely to
seek to improve the organization that employs them by performing behaviors such as
having above normal attendance levels, being careful to provide notice when they are
unable to come to work, and following informal organizational rules that help to
maintain order. In addition to improving the organization, proactive individuals will
continue to perform OCBs on the basis of wishing to build their careers. Proactive
individuals place a high standard in wishing to achieve high degrees of success (Fuller
and Marler, 2009). Since OCB performance leads to high career success, it would make
sense that proactive individuals would wish to perform OCBs as a mean of achieving
success (Podsakoff et al., 2009; Fuller and Marler, 2009). Based on these arguments,
the following hypothesis will be tested:

H1. Proactive personality is positively related to OCBs; specifically those geared

toward the organization (OCBOs).

The findings between some personality measures and OCBs have been
underwhelming, especially in comparison to other work attitudes such as job
satisfaction (Borman et al., 2001; Organ and Ryan, 1995). Organ and McFall (2004)
argue that job characteristics may suppress the effects of personality, as situational
influences limit the spontaneous impulses that individuals may have. It would appear
that situational cues, such as expectations from supervisors or coworkers, might play a
role in determining personality input. As this paper’s focus is job characteristics that
stem from organizations, we focus on OCBs that are directed toward the organization,
or OCBOs (Lavelle et al., 2007).
Fuller et al. (2010) found that the relationship between proactive personality and job
performance increased in situations with high autonomy. In autonomous situations,
individuals usually find themselves more inclined to act in ways that are consistent
with their personalities (Mischel, 1977). Hence, individuals with high levels of
proactive personality will be more aggressive in pursuing new actions because they
are not constrained by the situation. Yet, interestingly, they examined job performance.
In this case, task or job performance is heavily monitored by the organization and
its agents. OCBs, on the other hand, are far more difficult to monitor, since, unlike job
performance, they are both discretionary and spontaneous actions. Omission of
this behavior is not punishable by the work contract. Another explanation for this
relationship is through TAT (Tett and Burnett, 2003). TAT argues that situational cues
may activate a trait. Accordingly, performance is then a function of personality and job
traits. Job traits press on the personality trait and may activate it if there is a match
between the personality trait and the situational characteristic. Tett and Burnett (2003)
LODJ proposed that powerful reward conditions may “wash out the effects of personality”
34,8 (Kamdar and Van Dyne, 2007, p. 1289) by creating powerful reward contingencies.
The “wash-out” would occur in that differences in personality would not have an
obvious impact on the outcome. In this case, Kamdar and Van Dyne noted that in a
positive social exchange relationship, the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), would
be triggered, meaning that individuals with low degrees of conscientiousness would be
730 the ones to perform OCBs.
Consistent with this research, Kamdar and Van Dyne (2007) found that the
relationship with leader member exchange (LMX), conscientious/agreeableness, and
social exchange was strongest when LMX was low. Following this line of reasoning,
they proposed that LMX relationships would provide an obvious benefit to the
exchange partner and would result in increased obligations (Blau, 1964).
Yet, unlike job performance, OCBs are exchanged through the process of social,
rather than economic, exchange. Fuller et al. (2010), found that in terms of job
performance, the relationship was quite different in that the relationship was stronger.
Although we should witness stronger relationships in a weak situation, we propose
that it will be the reverse, since the high autonomy situation will actually provide no
incentive to perform OCBs. Individuals with proactive personality who are already
experiencing high levels of autonomy should have an understanding that their current
work situation is more beneficial and therefore, they will not be as motivated by
this personality trait to enact OCBs. When autonomy is low, employees with higher
degrees of proactive personality will be compelled to enact OCBs in order to activate
exchange relationships with their organizations in an attempt to create a more positive
relationship with both their supervisors and the organization in order to improve their
working conditions. Spreitzer (1995, p. 1443) defines autonomy “as an individual’s
sense of having a choice in initiating and regulating actions [and] [y] examples
include making decisions about work methods, pace and effort.” In this case, autonomy
allows for self-determination, an important drive for individuals to feel that they have
the ability to achieve mastery experiences. These mastery experiences make
individuals feel better about themselves since they can demonstrate their competence.
According to SET, when individuals feel a psychological benefit from an exchange,
they will have a reason to perform the exchange, since, in essence, they would wish to
reciprocate that feeling to the organization. Since individuals desire autonomy on the
job so that they can exercise control over their lives (Spreitzer, 1995; Deci and Ryan,
1985), it would make sense that highly proactive people would perform OCBs
as a means of priming their relationship with their organization to obtain valued
exchanges in return – including more job autonomy. This same process would not
necessarily occur for regular job performance, where the job is well defined by the
economic contract.
Thus, autonomy would be the reward that they could receive from their OCB
performance. In essence, these intrinsic feelings (which, in social exchange, cannot be
separated from extrinsic benefits), would provide a feeling that an individuals’
discretionary behaviors would be paid back since they have some reason to trust the
organization (Blau, 1964; Organ et al., 2006; Organ, 1988). Because this benefit comes
from the organization it should be directed at the organization because the organization
provides the benefit (Lavelle et al., 2007).
We believe that this reward of high job autonomy would consequently “wash out”
the relationship between proactivity and OCB performance due to the improved work
condition present under high autonomy. Yet in situations of low autonomy, we would
expect that proactive personality would have a stronger relationship. In this case there Perceived job
would be no obvious intrinsic or extrinsic benefit to performing the OCB; however, characteristics
the individual’s desire to create a more positive work environment as driven by
proactive personality would lead that person to performing OCBs in an attempt to
improve their situation. Therefore, we expect to find that a relationship between
proactive personality and OCBs would increase when autonomy is low.
Because autonomy is a work situation characteristic, we expect that OCBOs would 731
be impacted. In comparison to economic exchange, individuals in social exchange
relationships tend to identify more strongly with the person or entity with which they
are engaged (Lavelle et al., 2007). Thus, individuals maintain distinct perceptions
and have different attitudes and behaviors toward multiple organizational foci. For
instance, individuals hold different opinions and levels of commitment toward
coworkers, supervisors, and the organization itself. Individuals direct their OCBs in
several different directions, including, but not limited to, coworkers, supervisors, and
the organization. As such, an organizational antecedent will lead to OCBO. Therefore,
it is expected that individuals would conduct more OCBOs when job or organizational
moderators, such job autonomy, are present in low degrees, ultimately strengthening
the relationship as described above. This occurs because the organizational moderator
directs or targets the OCB toward the organization, rather than a coworker or
supervisor. This should provide more evidence to our situation-balanced hypotheses:

H2. The relationship between proactive personality and OCBO is moderated

by autonomy, such that the positive relationship is strongest when autonomy
is lowest.

The primary focus of research in terms of situational aspects has been job autonomy
(Barrick and Mount, 1993). Accordingly, Fuller et al. (2010) were correct to select
autonomy as a moderator in the relationship. However, their focus was limited; if
individuals have no discretionary behavior, then it would not matter how strong the
personality trait is because individuals would not be able to act upon it. In traditional
scientific management designs, workers have little, if any, discretion (Batt, 1999).
This would be true even in jobs that are considered to be discretionary, so individuals
may have a degree of limitation in how they could express themselves at work. Hence,
to determine whether proactive personality is a strong trait, selecting an alternative
moderator is appropriate.
A strong candidate as a moderator might be job meaning. Meaning is the extent to
which a situation carries importance for an individual and, according to Mischel and
Peake (1982), is likely a key determinant of behavior. The more meaning a job has to
the worker, the stronger the individual’s level of performance relationship. Conversely,
the less meaning a job has, the weaker the performance relationship is. Mischel and
Peake (1982) argued that a situation would lend itself to action depending on whether
an individual finds it meaningful. As part of their situational discrimination argument
that individuals must find a situation meaningful, they also posited that individuals
must have the ability to perform the task at hand. According to James and Mazorolle
(2002), situational discrimination activates traits through three mechanisms. First, a
situation must be either intrinsically and/or extrinsically meaningful. Second, individuals
must have the ability to act on their meaningfulness. For instance, if the situation
requires skills they lack, individuals will not devote their energy to complete it.
Third, situations that are both attractive and approachable may be subsequently
LODJ even more attractive and, thus, may be pursued accordingly (Wright and Mischel, 1987).
34,8 The crux of this argument is that situations influence personality activation by having
meaning to individuals.
One way to conceptualize this is to see the extent to which a job has meaning for an
individual. Spreitzer (1995, p. 1443) defined meaning as “the value of a work goal or
purpose, judged in relation to an individual’s own ideals and standards.” Job meaning
732 may be considered an important reward contingency, similar to autonomy, that would
“wash out” the role of personality. For instance, in situations where individuals find
little meaning in their jobs, we expect the relationship between proactive personality
and OCBs to be greater, since, in this scenario, individuals will be compelled by their
proactivity tendencies to perform OCBs that are organizationally directed in order to
improve their circumstances. Similar to our aforementioned argument, we believe that
proactive personality’s relationships with OCBO will be better moderated by low
levels of meaning. In the presence of high levels of meaning, individuals feel an
intrinsic benefit that will, in essence, “wash out” the personality characteristic. In the
absence of that, in situations of low meaning, proactivity should have a strong
relationship with performance. Following this line of reasoning, we should expect that
the relationship between proactivity and OCBs will likely be stronger when meaning
is low. In addition, since OCBs do not require ability, meaning should be the sole
situational discriminant:

H3. The relationship between proactive personality and OCBO is moderated by

meaning, such that the positive relationship is strongest when meaning
is lowest.

Method
Sample and procedure
Employees were recruited with the assistance of 324 management students from a
large public university in the southern USA who volunteered to identify one to three
adults who were currently employed full time, had three years of work experience, and
were willing to participate in a research study. Students provided the researchers
with initial participant contact information for 462 individuals, each of whom was
then contacted by the researchers directly to ensure data integrity and participant
eligibility. Of these 462 individuals, 302 eligible employees elected to participate in the
study and provided their supervisor contact information. Supervisors were then also
contacted directly by the research team. This process results in a useable sample size of
178 paired supervisor-subordinate dyads. Study participants were primarily female
(62 percent), Caucasian (72 percent), had an average age of 39 years (range 19-72;
SD ¼ 12.62 years), and an average organizational tenure of seven years. They were
primarily white-collar employees (94 percent) and spanned multiple industries
including sales, customer service, transportation, retail, construction, and
telecommunications.
Three surveys were administered; two to the employees via web survey and one to
the supervisors via e-mail with telephone follow up calls to non-responders (no
significant differences were detected between these two modes). To minimize concerns
of common method biases (see Podsakoff et al., 2003), the first survey collected control
variables and proactive personality, while the second collected autonomy and meaning,
and the third collected supervisor-rated OCBO. To ensure candor, participants were
assured that individual responses would be kept confidential and that only aggregate
data would be reported. Demographic information was not collected from the Perceived job
supervisor sample due to time constraints. characteristics
Measures
Proactive personality (a ¼ 0.73). The 17-item measure by Bateman and Crant (1993)
was used. A representative item is, “I am constantly on the lookout for new ways to
improve my life.” A five-point Likert-type scale anchored “strongly disagree” and 733
“strongly agree” was utilized, with higher scores indicating greater proactive personality.
Autonomy (a ¼ 0.84). Autonomy was assessed with three items from Spreitzer
(1995). A representative item is, “I have significant autonomy in determining how I do
my job.” A five-point Likert-type scale anchored “strongly disagree” and “strongly
agree” was utilized, with higher scores indicating higher levels of autonomy.
Meaning (a ¼ 0.96). Meaning was assessed with three items from Spreitzer (1995).
A representative item is, “The work I do is very important to me.” A five-point Likert-
type scale anchored “strongly disagree” and “strongly agree” was utilized, with higher
scores indicating higher levels of meaning.
OCB (a ¼ 0.92). The six-item OCBO scale from Williams and Anderson (1991) was
used to assess OCBs. A representative item is, “Takes undeserved work breaks”
(reverse scored).
Control variables. Relationships between performance and demographic variables
have been suggested by existing research. For example, Tsui and O’Reilly (1989)
suggested that relationships may exist between age, race, gender, and performance.
Likewise, Weekley and Ployhart (2005) added that tenure may also have a relationship
with job performance. To control for these effects, the present study controlled for
age, race (0 ¼ non-minority; 1 ¼ minority), gender (0 ¼ male; 1 ¼ female), and tenure.
Additionally, formal education was included as a demographic control variable coded
categorically ranging from 1 ¼ no high school diploma to 5 ¼ graduate degree.

Analysis
Study hypotheses were assessed using hierarchical linear regression analysis.
Preliminary analyses revealed that no violations of the normality, linearity,
multicollinearity, and homoscedasticity assumptions existed in the dataset. Both
main effects variables were centered prior to creating the interaction term to minimize
any non-essential ill-conditioning effects encountered through moderated hierarchal
regression analysis (cf. Aiken and West, 1991). This was accomplished by subtracting
the mean value of the variable from the score of each respondent, thus resulting in a
variable with the mean value equal to 0. This transformation reduces the potential for
multicollinearity among main effect variables to bias the interaction term and its
interpretation (i.e. its statistical significance; Cohen et al., 2003). Control variables were
entered at Step 1, main effects at Step 2 and Step 3, and interaction effects at Step 4.

Results
Summary statistics are reported in Table I. The reliability estimate of each latent
variable scale measurement was acceptable. Results for all three hypotheses are
reported in Table II. H1 posited that proactive personality is positively related to
OCBO, and results indicated a significant main effect exists. Thus, H1 is supported.
H2 posited that the relationship between proactive personality and OCBO is
moderated by autonomy, such that the positive relationship is strongest when
autonomy is lowest. The results in Table II show that for this sample a significant
LODJ interaction effect exists but only at the po0.10 level of significance. Following Stone
34,8 and Hollenbeck (1989) OCBO was plotted at high ( þ 1 SD) and low (1 SD) levels of
proactive personality and autonomy. Figure 1 displays the interaction plot. A simple
slope test was then conducted to verify if the slopes of the lines contained in
the interaction plot were significantly different than 0. This analysis indicated the
relationship between proactive personality and OCBO was significantly different for
734 individuals perceiving high vs low autonomy (t ¼ 3.18, po0.05). Thus, H2 was
marginally supported.
H3 posited that the relationship between proactive personality and OCBO is
moderated by meaning, such that the positive relationship is strongest when meaning
is lowest. The results in Table II show that, for this sample, a significant interaction

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 OCBO 3.69 0.58 (0.92)

2 Proactive personality 3.56 0.49 0.13* (0.73)
3 Autonomy 3.55 0.96 0.25** 0.35** (0.84)
4 Meaning 4.11 0.82 0.16* 0.32** 0.36** (0.96)
5 Gender – – 0.10 0.14* 0.14* 0.05 –
6 Race – – 0.13* 0.06 0.07 0.01 0.05 –
Table I. 7 Age 41.75 12.17 0.10 0.18* 0.07 0.12 0.00 0.21 –
Means, standard 8 Education – – 0.08 0.14* 0.11 0.09 0.15* 0.07 0.06 –
deviations, correlations,
and reliabilities Notes: n ¼ 171. Numbers in parentheses are a coefficient reliabilities. *po0.05; **po0.01

Predictors Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4

Proactive personality  autonomy

Education 0.11 0.09 0.08 0.10
Race 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.12
Gender 0.10 0.13 0.12 0.12
Tenure 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02
Age 0.09 0.12 0.10 0.11
Proactive personality 0.17* 0.14 0.15
Autonomy 0.08 0.10
Proactive personality  autonomy 0.14***
R2 0.05 0.07 0.08 0.09
DR2 0.05 0.03* 0.01 0.02***
Proactive personality  meaning
Education 0.11 0.10 0.08 0.08
Race 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.15
Gender 0.11 0.13 0.13 0.13
Tenure 0.01 0.02 0.02 0.02
Age 0.10 0.12 0.13 0.10
Proactive personality 0.17* 0.16* 0.15
Meaning 0.04 0.02
Proactive personality  meaning 0.18*
Table II. R2 0.05 0.07 0.07 0.10
Results of DR2 0.05 0.03* 0.00 0.03*
hierarchical regression
analysis for OCBO Notes: n ¼ 171. Standardized b coefficients are shown. ***po0.10; *po0.05
 4.2 Perceived job
Low Autonomy
4.1 characteristics
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
High Autonomy
4
3.9
3.8
735
3.7
3.6
3.5
3.4 Figure 1.
Moderating effect of
3.3 autonomy on the proactive
personality – OCB
3.2 relationship
Low Proactive Personality High Proactive Personality

effects exist. The results were then plotted to determine whether the interaction was
consistent with our hypothesis. Again, OCBO was plotted at high ( þ 1 SD) and low
(1 SD) levels of proactive personality and meaning and the interaction plot is
displayed in Figure 2. A simple slope test was then conducted to verify if the
slopes of the lines contained in the interaction plot were significantly different than 0.
This analysis indicated the relationship between proactive personality and OCBO was
significantly different for individuals perceiving high vs low meaning (t ¼ 3.42,
po0.05). Thus, H3 was supported.

Discussion
This study sought to assess the extent to which job characteristics (namely,
autonomy and meaning) moderate the relationship between proactive personality and
OCBO. Given the organizational nature of the hypothesized moderators, it was logical
to expect that extra-role behaviors targeted at the organization would be affected.

4.2
Low Meaning
4.1
Organizational Citizenship Behavior

High Meaning
4

3.9

3.8

3.7

3.6

3.5

3.4 Figure 2.
Moderating effect of
3.3 meaning on the proactive
personality – OCB
3.2 relationship
Low Proactive Personality High Proactive Personality
LODJ Results from the present study supported this argument. When individuals high in
34,8 proactive personality perceived lower levels of both job meaning and autonomy,
the relationship between OCBOs and proactive personality strengthened. Therefore,
the strength of the personality trait seems to shine through in the presence of job
situations that could have otherwise suppressed its effect. In high autonomy situations
(e.g. situations where workers have the flexibility to manage their work flow), there is
736 no apparent impact on the proactive personality – OCBO relationship. We believe that
the impact of proactive personality is “washed out” in these situations. However, in
low autonomy situations, our results indicate that highly proactive individuals are
more likely to perform OCBOs than those with lower levels of proactive personality.
Accordingly, we have provided further evidence that may refine Fuller et al.’s (2010)
findings in terms of autonomy. Our results support the idea that proactive personality
is a relatively strong trait in situations of low autonomy and low meaning.
We found that, in low meaning and low autonomy situations, individuals with high
proactivity are still willing to perform OCBs. It also appears that, in high autonomy
and meaning situations, the situational modifiers serve to “wash out” the influence
of personality on the performance of OCBs. These results further enhance the
argument that proactive personality may be viewed as a strong personality trait under
certain conditions.
This study sought to further evaluate the extent to which proactive personality was
a strong personality trait. Tett and Burnett (2003) noted that further understanding of
situational moderators of the personality-performance relationship was necessary if
we are to understand fully this relationship (Fuller et al., 2010). In doing so, we found
that proactive personality is a fairly strong personality trait. Even if individuals do not
find a situation meaningful, they still performed OCBs. This indicates that, at least in
terms of meaning, proactivity has been shown to be relatively free of situational
modifiers. It is possible that a lack of autonomy may preclude any behavior that is not
been specified by management; however, proactive individuals may look for ways to
perform OCBs despite their lack of authority. One particularly interesting issue to note
is that the job modifier of autonomy leads to higher levels of pro-social behaviors
directed at the firm. Thus, it appears that proactive personality is, in some ways,
influenced by situational cues.
This study sought to examine whether proactive personality was a strong or weak
personality trait and how it is influenced by environmental factors. The selection of
OCBO as a dependent variable was twofold. First, organizational moderators
(autonomy and meaning) would likely influence organizational outcomes (OCBO),
rather than individual outcomes. Second, whereas examining focal performance may
present biased results, the use of extra-role performance does not. Extra roles are
proactive in nature. However, a potential issue here is that the organizational modifier
strengthened the relationship with the trait and an organizational outcome.
Our results may also have interesting managerial implications. If proactive
individuals express these behaviors in situations where they find their jobs less
autonomous or less meaningful, this may indicate that they are trying to overcome
their frustrations with their lack of autonomy or meaning. In effect, they may be
attempting to improve their current situations as predicted by proactive personality
theory in order to establish more meaning or autonomy in their work settings through
their own agency. If this is the case, the creation of greater job autonomy and more
meaningful jobs would relieve this tension and allow employees to focus their energies
on other outlets, perhaps increasing focal job performance as a result.
 Results reinforce previous findings that, for selection and classification to be Perceived job
maximized, personality traits should be matched to the specifics of the situation characteristics
at hand. In other words, if organizations wish to foster proactive behaviors, they must
provide proactive people with the resources and discretion to act (Frese et al., 1996).
Proactive personality alone is not enough to ensure proactive behaviors, whether they
are innovative in nature or pro-social. Therefore, for firms to develop proactive
behaviors, they need to hire workers who are highly proactive and provide them 737
the necessary resources to be successful. Accordingly, we urge managers to use
personality-oriented job analysis when hiring and promoting workers. Moreover,
managers seeking to foster pro-social behaviors should consider enabling more
autonomy in job duties and reinforcing the meaningfulness of the work to be done, at
least to the extent a given job allows.

Limitations and directions for future research

There are several limitations to our study. First, no experimental design was employed
and thus no casual conclusions should be drawn. Second, our use of a diverse sample
consisting of many types of jobs and organizations may have produced other
biases. For example, only individuals with strong relationships with their supervisor
may have completed the survey. It is also possible that our survey was so broad that,
for different careers or organizations, the relationship may be different. In addition,
our examination of OCBO precluded other situational modifiers such as personal
relationships. Future research should analyze whether personal interdependence
or relationships with the supervisor or coworker has any effect on the performance of
OCBIs. It is possible that a proactive person may not perform OCBIs for a supervisor
they dislike, but may perform other types of behaviors, such as various types of
workplace deviance. Because participation rates were lower than 100 percent (namely,
57 percent), some sections of the population may not have been sampled. It is also
advisable to conduct this same research on other independent samples to provide
further verification of our somewhat counterintuitive theorizing and results.
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About the authors

Dr Eric W. Liguori is an Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship in the Craig
School of Business at California State University, Fresno. His research interests include
entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and entrepreneurship education.
Dr Eric W. Liguori is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: eliguori@csufresno.edu
Benjamin D. McLarty is a Doctoral Student in the Rucks Department of Management at
Louisiana State University studying organizational behavior and human resource management.
Jeffrey Muldoon is a Doctoral Candidate in the Rucks Department of Management at
Louisiana State University. His research interests included social exchange process, management
history, and leadership.

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