ABSTRACT
A growing body of evidence has linked proactivity at work to positive outcomes. Yet little
research to date has investigated whether employees’ proactive behavior in organizations can
be facilitated through training and development. Nor has research considered which variables
shape employees’ responses to such interventions. We investigate the effects on proactivity of
two theoretically distinct training and development interventions in a randomized field
experiment with police officers and police support staff (N = 112). We hypothesized that a
problem-focused intervention, which made discrepancies between the status quo and the ideal
present more salient, would lead to increases in individual task proactivity; whereas a visionfocused
intervention, which made discrepancies between the status quo and an ideal future
more salient, would increase organization member proactivity. Intervention effects were
moderated by role overload and future orientation, respectively. Only individuals with high
levels of role overload increased their individual task proactivity as a result of the problemfocused
intervention, and only individuals high in future orientation increased their
organization member proactivity as a result of the vision-focused intervention. Our study
integrates different cybernetic perspectives on how proactivity is motivated, and provides
novel insights into moderators of interventions designed to capture these different
mechanisms. From a practical perspective, our study supports organizations seeking to
implement training and development interventions, and helps them to determine who might
benefit most from interventions.
Keywords: proactive behavior, training and development, field experiment, future work self,
resources

刚查了一下，这么新的文献，学校库里还真没有。