Understanding the impact of proactive personality on job performance: the roles of tenure and self-management.

The current study investigated the moderating impact of job tenure and the mediating process of self-management on the relationship between proactive personality and performance. Using a sample of 95 sales executives, results indicated a significant interaction between proactive personality and job tenure. In addition, there was an indirect effect of self-management behavior on the relationship between proactive personality and performance. Such findings suggest that a proactive personality may be differentially related to performance dependent on job tenure and that self-managing behaviors may be a key linking mechanism between proactive personality and performance. Implications for both research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: proactive personality," self-management; job tenure

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Over the past 20 years, the dispositional approach to understanding performance has once again come back into favor (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1993). This resurgence of research on the role of individual differences has come with the caveat that it is no longer enough to simply say that personality is related to performance--we now must investigate the conditions that may impact these relationships. Personality research often first seeks to establish relationships between dispositional variables and organizationally relevant outcomes and then progresses to understand the extent to which these relationships are influenced by other factors. It has been suggested that the relationship between personality and performance may not be consistent across all individuals in all settings and that identifying moderators and mediators at work in these relationships may increase the validity of predicting performance (Beaty, Cleveland, & Murphy, 2001; Schneider & Hough, 1995).

Of particular interest in the current study is the relationship of the trait of proactive personality to performance. Originally conceptualized by Bateman and Crant (1993), proactive personality is characterized by initiative taking and opportunity seeking. The core idea that an individual can actively shape his or her own environment, rather than passively react to events, is at the heart of proactive personality research. Since its emergence in the early 1990s, proactive personality has gained steam as a valid construct and a predictor of organizationally relevant outcomes, including performance (Crant, 1995), work adjustment (Kammeyer-Mueller & Wanberg, 2003), and career success (Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001).

As proactive personality research has progressed, a call has come for researchers to address missing elements in this line of study. To date, the majority of research on proactive personality has primarily examined main effects of the construct, rather than the examination of potential mediators or moderators of proactive personality and subsequent outcomes (Crant, 2000).

In terms of moderators, research has explored the idea that certain individual differences may relate differentially to performance at different phases of a job (for exceptions see Heimreich, Sawin, & Carsrud, 1986; Moser & Galais, 2007; Murphy, 1989; Stewart, 1999; Thoresen, Bradley, Bliese, & Thoresen, 2004). According to Stewart (1999), "Because different individual characteristics may correspond to performance at various stages of job tenure..., personality-performance relationships may not be stable across stages of employee tenure" (p. 959).

In terms of potential mediators in the proactive personality-performance relationship, past studies have shown individual differences in tendencies to engage in self-management (Gerhardt, Rode, & Peterson, 2007). Specifically, conscientiousness was found to be positively related to self-management, whereas neuroticism was negatively related. Initial research suggests that proactivity may be conceptually linked to self-management behaviors (Saks & Ashforth, 1996). However, the connection between proactive personality and self-management behavior has not yet been tested empirically.

In the following, we review the field of proactive personality and the existing research on the impact of job tenure on personality-performance relationships. Next, we discuss the conceptual rationale for why we believe proactive personality will differentially relate to performance dependent on job tenure. Finally, we explore the potential linking mechanisms that may exist between proactive personality and performance by reviewing the theoretical underpinnings suggesting that this relationship may be mediated by self-management behaviors. Therefore, the goal of this study is twofold: to build upon existing research that has demonstrated the role of job tenure in the personality-performance relationship and clarify the role of proactive personality on performance by investigating when and how this trait may impact performance.

The Role of Job Tenure

It is well established that the tasks and expectations of a person working in a specific job tend to change systematically as a result of job tenure (Murphy, 1989). What comprises successful work performance is dynamic, and the particular behaviors or traits needed for such success tend to shift over time (Henry & Hullin, 1987; Murphy, 1989; Stewart, 1999). Therefore, the investigation of the relationship between personality and performance should take this idea into account.

The theoretical underpinnings of this concept can be found in Murphy's (1989) two-stage model of performance. This model divides performance into the stages of transition and maintenance and suggests that the relative importance of individual differences as predictors of performance varies across these stages. Early on in a job, an individual is focused on learning the skills and knowledge necessary for successful performance and the pursuit of opportunities to demonstrate and apply this knowledge (Ackerman, 1987; Murphy, 1989). Work that is done in this stage tends to be novel and unfamiliar as well as challenging (Heimreich et al., 1986; Stewart, 1999). Therefore, successful performance in the transition stage involves both a focus on the acquisition of knowledge needed to do the job correctly and recognizing the opportunities to apply this information.

In contrast, the maintenance stage of a job occurs once an individual has successfully learned the skills and knowledge needed to perform the job responsibilities and understands what is expected and necessary for solid performance. During this stage, successful performance tends to depend on persistence and motivation rather than learning and applying knowledge or seeking out new opportunities (Heimreich et al., 1986). Given these differential descriptions of success, it follows that the personality traits that relate to such behaviors would differentially relate to performance, dependent on job tenure.

It is important to note that the role and impact of job tenure may vary dependent on the nature of the organization. In more traditional organizations, where individuals have clear job descriptions and well-defined career paths, it is logical that Murphy's (1989) two-phase model of job tenure would be valid. However, in more organic learning organizations, it is possible that such a model may not be applicable. In learning organizations, individuals are expected to constantly adapt to new demands and changes on an ongoing basis, regardless of their length of job tenure.

To our knowledge, to date the only traits examined in light of the moderating effects of job tenure on the trait-performance relationship are the Big Five factors of personality and self-monitoring (Moser & Galais, 2007; Stewart, 1999; Thoresen et al., 2004). Stewart (1999) examined both broad and narrow traits associated with conscientiousness and found that the broad trait of conscientiousness was related to performance regardless of job tenure, yet the order component was more strongly related to performance during the earlier stage of job tenure, whereas the achievement component was more strongly related to performance during the later stage of job tenure.

Thoresen et al. (2004) examined the relationship of each of the Big Five factors of personality with performance during the transition and maintenance stages of a job and found conscientiousness and extraversion to be positively related to differences in sales performance only among maintenance employees. For transitional employees, both agreeableness and openness to experience predicted differences in performance. In this vein, Moser and Galais (2007) investigated the moderating role of job tenure on the relationship between self-monitoring and performance, finding self-monitoring to be a significantly salient predictor of performance for employees with less tenure on the job while actually yielding a significant negative relationship with performance overall.

These findings confirm that a consideration of job tenure is an important element in clarifying the complex nature of personality-performance relationships and the identification of dispositional constructs that may actually have higher predictive validity in predicting performance during the early stages of job tenure, such as proactive personality.

Proactive Personality and Job Tenure

A key question raised by this study is whether proactive personality consistently relates to performance at all phases of a job. Past research has suggested that proactivity is particularly important early on in an individuals job tenure (Ashford, 1986; Kammeyer-Mueller & Wanberg, 2003; Miller & Jablin, 1991). Individuals new to a job must acquire knowledge, learn the ropes of a new work environment, and adapt their behavior to fit the requirements of their new job, and predisposition toward proactive behavior has been found to be beneficial in these endeavors (Kammeyer-Mueller & Wanberg, 2003).

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