Employees’ attitudinal reactions to supervisors’ weekly taking charge behavior: the moderating role of employees’ proactive personality

Purpose

Researchers have studied supervisors’ proactive personality in its relationship with employees’ attitudes. However, little attention has been given to how employees react to instances of supervisors’ proactive behavior. Drawing from P-E fit theory, we propose that the relationship between supervisor weekly taking charge behavior (TCB, the quintessential proactive behavior) and employees’ weekly job attitudes depends on employees’ proactive personality.

Design/methodology/approach

Utilizing a diary study, we investigate how employees’ proactive personality moderates the within-person relationship between supervisor TCB and employees’ attitudes (measured as job satisfaction and affective commitment). We surveyed 39 employees ten times over ten weeks.

Findings

Multi-level analyses partially supported our predictions on the differential effects of weekly supervisor TCB on employees’ job attitudes. Supervisors’ above-average TCB was significantly related to higher levels of employees’ job satisfaction and marginally related to affective commitment for employees with high proactive personality, but not for those with low proactive personality. Supplemental analyses revealed that our results are unique to supervisor TCB and not to supervisor helping behavior.

Originality/value

Our study is among the first to utilize a dynamic approach to understand the consequences of supervisors’ proactive work behavior in the context of P-E fit research. Our findings will open several fruitful avenues for future research that continue to understand the powerful effects of supervisors’ proactivity.