When there is a will there is a way: The role of proactive personality in combating COVID-19.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted personal and work lives and created great uncertainty and stress, especially for frontline health care professionals like doctors and nurses who risk personal health while facing increased workloads and new COVID-related tasks. People can passively respond to this disruption, or they can be more active and choose to shape the conditions surrounding their work during the crisis. We designed a multiwave, multisource study examining whether a proactive orientation is a key resource for frontline health care professionals in the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing from proactive and conservation of resources theories, we studied a sample of 408 doctors and nurses at a COVID-19 hospital in the locked-down area surrounding Wuhan City, China during the first wave of the virus. Our aim is to examine how personal agency contributes to health care professionals' performance and well-being when combating COVID-19. Proactive personality as a dispositional resource was associated with higher levels of perceived strengths use, a job-related motivational resource. This effect was jointly moderated by routine disruption and perceived organizational support. Proactive personality was indirectly associated with performance and two indicators of well-being (resilience and thriving) through perceived strengths use. More frequent physical exposure to the virus magnified the effects of perceived strengths use on an archival indicator of performance during the first wave of the pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of proactive personality in job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior: a relational perspective.

Drawing from a relational approach, the authors conceptualize the quality of leader-member exchange as a mediator and procedural justice climate as a contextual moderator for understanding the role of proactive personality in job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior. Data from a sample of 200 Chinese employees within 54 work groups were used to examine the hypothesized models. Results show that having a proactive personality was associated with employees establishing a high-quality exchange relationship with their supervisors; in turn, the quality of leader-member exchange was associated with greater job satisfaction and more organizational citizenship behaviors. Additionally, the relationship between proactive personality and organizational citizenship behavior was positively moderated by procedural justice climate within the group. Implications for management theory and practice are discussed.

Handicapping: the effects of its source and frequency.

Using a sample of 246 working adults, the authors created a 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design to isolate the influence of performance outcome, source of handicapping, and frequency of handicapping on reactions to handicapping in organizations. Dependent measures were observers' allocations of credit/blame, interpersonal affect, and the perceived credibility of the explanation. Results showed direct effects on observer impressions for all 3 independent variables, along with a significant Source x Frequency interaction. Handicapping information presented by others yielded more favorable observer impressions than did self-handicapping, and frequent handicapping decreased observer impressions. The least credible handicapping strategy was multiple self-handicaps. A significant 3-way interaction showed that source and frequency affected perceived credibility differently, depending upon whether actual performance was a success or a failure.