Entrepreneurial Leadership and Employees’ Proactive Behaviour: Fortifying Self Determination Theory
Open Access
- 16 July 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by MDPI AG in Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity
- Vol. 7 (3), 176
- https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc7030176
Abstract
The prevailing pandemic (COVID-19) has increased socioeconomic problems and caused psychological distress due to work uncertainty, specifically in emerging economies. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies have been severely affected. Particularly, work uncertainty is becoming a hindrance towards proactive work behaviour (PWB) that can be improved by an effective entrepreneurial leadership role and proactive personality attribute. Based on fortifying self-determination theory, this research answered the question to what extent proactive personality moderates the relationship between work uncertainty and PWB and strengthens the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and PWB. To empirically examine the study’s underlying theoretical framework, respondents were selected from SMEs working in Pakistan from the high-tech industry. Multisource data were accumulated from 420 workers and their leaders utilizing a two-wave, time-lagged research design. Conclusions revealed that entrepreneurial leadership first reduced individuals’ work uncertainty, which in turn, led to enhanced proactive work behaviour of employees. Furthermore, the results revealed that work uncertainty mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and proactive work behaviour. Moreover, proactive personality moderates the link concerning work uncertainty and proactive work behaviour, such that this association is significant only when proactive personality is low. Additionally, the moderated mediation analysis indicated that less proactive people, compared with their extraordinarily proactive colleagues, trusted entrepreneurial leadership to be more proactive in the workplace. These findings have important implications to induce PWB among employees.Keywords
This publication has 81 references indexed in Scilit:
- Developing a measure of work uncertaintyJournal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 2012
- Development and validation of the job crafting scaleJournal of Vocational Behavior, 2012
- Exploring the Entrepreneurial Behavior of Family Firms: Does the Stewardship Perspective Explain Differences?Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2011
- Conceptualizing Corporate Entrepreneurship StrategyEntrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2009
- Regulatory focus as a mediator of the influence of initiating structure and servant leadership on employee behavior.Journal of Applied Psychology, 2008
- Addressing Moderated Mediation Hypotheses: Theory, Methods, and PrescriptionsMultivariate Behavioral Research, 2007
- 4. Personal initiative: An active performance concept for work in the 21st centuryResearch in Organizational Behavior, 2001
- Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.American Psychologist, 2000
- The role of communication in managing reductions in work forceJournal of Applied Communication Research, 1996
- The general causality orientations scale: Self-determination in personalityJournal of Research in Personality, 1985