Proactive personality in the workplace and its relevance in South Africa

Employees are inclined to be passive or proactive, and proactive individuals are particularly valued in situations which call for action beyond that which is accepted as the customary, namely situations requiring contingency actions, as often experienced in the hospitality industry and the allied sectors. As the proactive personality (PP) was conceptualised in the United States of America (USA), and as it is associated with several valuable outcomes, the validation of the concept (via a measure thereof), within the South African context constitutes the aim of this study. South African employees (more than 3 000), across different organisations provided information on their inclinations to be proactive in their respective work contexts. A cross-sectional survey design was used, collecting quantitative data generated through standardised instruments, assessing PP traits, and correlations thereto, in order to test theoretically informed hypotheses. All the measures had acceptable reliability, with PP having an alpha of .881. As hypothesised, PP correlated more with innovative work behaviour (r = .489) than with organisational citizen behaviour (r = .302) as outcomes, and more with innovation climate (r = .202) than with human resource practices (r = .199) as antecedents. In line with USA findings, PP correlated, as theoretically conceptualised, with constructs in the SA context. As the PP seems to be a valid construct within the SA context, it is recommended that PP be assessed regularly in SA, particularly in selecting individuals who are required to take control of unstructured situations.