European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology

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Why and when proactive employees take charge at

work: the role of servant leadership and prosocial
motivation

Angela J. Xu, Raymond Loi & Cheris W. C Chow

To cite this article: Angela J. Xu, Raymond Loi & Cheris W. C Chow (2022) Why and
when proactive employees take charge at work: the role of servant leadership and prosocial
motivation, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 31:1, 117-127, DOI:
10.1080/1359432X.2021.1934449

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Published online: 10 Jun 2021.

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EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
2022, VOL. 31, NO. 1, 117–127
https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2021.1934449

Why and when proactive employees take charge at work: the role of servant
leadership and prosocial motivation
Angela J. Xua, Raymond Loib and Cheris W. C Chowc
a
Associate Professor of Management, School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China; bProfessor of Management, Department of
Management and Marketing, University of Macau, Address: Avenida Da Universidade, Taipa, Macau; cAssociate Professor of Marketing, Department
of Management and Marketing, University of Macau, Address: Avenida Da Universidade, Taipa, Macau

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Understanding how leaders can promote proactive employees’ prosocial motivation and encourage Received 18 August 2020
them to contribute to the organization in the form of taking charge is theoretically and practically Accepted 19 May 2021
important. By integrating trait activation theory and proactive motivation model, we propose servant KEYWORDS
leadership as a crucial work context enhancing proactive employees’ prosocial motivation, which in turn Proactive personality;
prompts their engagement in taking charge. Three-wave data collected from retail employees and their prosocial motivation; servant
store managers in Hong Kong, China supported our hypotheses. We find that prosocial motivation is leadership; taking charge
a key mediating mechanism underlying the positive relationship between proactive personality and
taking charge. The presence of servant leadership makes this indirect effect stronger. This research
enriches extant taking charge and proactivity literature. It also brings important implications for organi­
zations to capitalize on proactive employees.

Introduction
cues (i.e., servant leadership in our case) are present. We first
Taking charge, which involves implementing functional contend that proactive personality, the most relevant trait
changes in work methods, policies, or procedures within one’s associated with proactive behaviours (Bakker et al., 2012;
work, team, or organization (Morrison & Phelps, 1999), is an Crant, 1995; Marinova et al., 2015; Thomas et al., 2010), may
important employee proactive behaviour sustaining organiza­ be a notable antecedent of prosocial motivation. Proactive
tions’ competitiveness under the current dynamic and uncer­ personality denotes individuals’ relatively stable behavioural
tain business environment (Kim et al., 2015; Moon et al., 2008). tendency to spot opportunities to act on and problems to
It reflects the essence of proactive behaviours (i.e., self- prevent (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Unlike their passive counter­
initiation, future-oriented, and implementation of constructive parts who maintain the status quo, prototypical proactive
changes) (Fuller et al., 2015), with a focus on implementation employees possess a change-oriented mindset and strive to
rather than communication alone (e.g., voice). Because taking heedfully relate to others to create a positive impact on the
charge ultimately benefits the organization and its members world around them (Crant, 1995). They are thus more moti­
with constructive changes (Moon et al., 2008; Parker & Collins, vated to expend efforts to benefit others through their work
2010) while the initiator him- or herself runs the risk of being (i.e., holding prosocial motivation) (Grant, 2008).
labelled a “troublemaker” (Burnett et al., 2015), it is basically an Parker et al. (2010) further noted three possible motivational
other-oriented rather than a self-concerned proactive beha­ states underlying the relationship between proactive person­
viour (Belschak & Den Hartog, 2017). Unfortunately, extant ality and proactive behaviours like taking charge, namely, “rea­
literature fails to capture such an other- or relation-focused son to” (i.e., Why should I do it?), “can do” (i.e., am I confident to
aspect of taking charge, and knowledge on the motivational do it?), and “energized to” (i.e., am I in a positive state to do it?).
states preceding taking charge remains limited to self- or task- Even if individuals have the ability and energy to be proactive,
focused factors, such as self-efficacy, felt responsibility they still need a compelling reason to do so. We thus focus on
(Morrison & Phelps, 1999), role-breath self-efficacy (Fuller the “reason to” motivation which has been regarded as the
et al., 2012; McAllister et al., 2007; Parker et al., 2006), and most important but largely overlooked motivational state
positive affect (Fritz & Sonnentag, 2009). among the three (Belschak & Den Hartog, 2017; Fuller et al.,
The present research strives to fill this gap by integrating 2012). In contrast with traditional organizational citizenship
trait activation theory (Tett & Burnett, 2003) with Parker et al.’s behaviour (OCB), which captures “modest, some would even
(2010) proactive motivation model. Accordingly, proactive per­ say trivial” (Morrison & Phelps, 1999, p. 403) behaviours that
sonality is more likely to be transmitted into proactive beha­ sustain the status quo, taking charge aims to benefit the orga­
viours (i.e., taking charge in our case) via proactive motivations nization by bringing about constructive changes that challenge
(i.e., prosocial motivation in our case) when relevant situational the status quo. It is an other-oriented while risky behaviour. We

CONTACT Angela J. Xu [email protected]

Submitted to European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology (July, 2020)
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
118 A. J. XU ET AL.

therefore consider prosocial motivation is a particularly rele­ examined that some leaders may appreciate proactive employ­
vant “reason to” motivation preceding taking charge. ees while others may view them distracting (Fuller et al., 2012,
Scholars however caution that sometimes proactive 2015; Zhang et al., 2012). This study thus adds new answers to
employees might conduct self-serving proactive behaviours these inquires by highlighting servant leadership’s role in esca­
that harm the organization (Bateman & Crant, 1993; Hirschfeld lating proactive employees’ prosocial motivation and their sub­
et al., 2011; Wu et al., 2018). According to trait activation theory sequent taking charge attempts, which advances the existing
(Tett & Burnett, 2003) and Parker et al.’s (2010) proactive moti­ theoretical understanding of proactive personality.
vation model, the immediate leader stands as a proximal con­
text sending cues that (dis)encourage proactive employees to
behave consistently with certain aspects of their traits (Crant Theoretical background and hypotheses
et al., 2017). Therefore, further understanding how leaders can development
bring out the prosocial (rather than self-serving) side of proac­
Parker et al.'s (2010) proactive motivation model and trait
tive employees and promote their subsequent taking charge is
activation theory
another objective of this research. Being other-oriented and
group-focused, servant leaders go beyond self-interest to serve Parker et al. (2010) regard proactivity as a conscious, motivated,
others, promote close interpersonal connections, and encou­ and goal-driven process. Accordingly, more distal variables,
rage their followers to contribute to the wider community (Eva such as individual differences (e.g., personality, knowledge,
et al., 2019; Hu & Liden, 2011, 2015). As such, we contend that ability), contextual variations (e.g., leadership, work design,
servant leadership serves as an important context sending cues interpersonal climate), and their interactions, exert influence
like proactively benefiting others is positively valued in this on proactive action by triggering motivational states that are
organization, and that such leadership enhances the prosocial more proximal to goals and actions. One way that contexts
motive of proactive employees, thus enabling them to take (e.g., servant leadership) interact with dispositions (e.g., proac­
charge more often. Figure 1 presents our conceptual model. tive personality) to affect individuals’ proactive motivations
The present research contributes to extant taking charge (e.g., prosocial motivation) and subsequent proactive attempts
and proactivity literature in two notable ways. First, by integrat­ (e.g., taking charge) is by providing trait-relevant cues. This way
ing trait activation theory with Parker et al.’s (2010) proactive of interaction can be explained by trait activation theory (Tett &
motivation model, we enrich extant taking charge literature by Burnett, 2003), which suggests that personality traits affect
painting a more complete picture on why, how, and when work behaviour when relevant situational cues arise. Trait-
employees take charge. Specifically, by identifying prosocial relevant situations generally result in better job performance
motivation as a core driving force, we add to the limited knowl­ when individuals are in trait-relevant situations since their char­
edge of “reason to” motivations preceding taking charge and acteristic adaptations – or their enduring habits, attitudes, roles,
highlight the importance of addressing the precursors of taking interests, and value – naturally translate into effective job per­
charge from its other-oriented (vs. self-concerned) behavioural formance (Tett & Guterman, 2000).
nature (Belschak & Den Hartog, 2017). Moreover, in contrast By integrating trait activation theory with Parker et al.’s (2010)
with mainstream studies investigating leaders’ direct influence proactive motivation model, we expect that proactive employ­
on employee proactive process (S. L. Li et al., 2015; Li et al., ees should more likely engage in proactive behaviours when
2013; R. Li et al., 2016; Van Dierendonck, 2012), we contribute to situated in contexts delivering cues like acting with their proac­
extant literature by theorizing how servant leadership might tive personality is desirable. Nevertheless, proactive personality
affect this process indirectly. has different manifestations (Bateman & Crant, 1993; Crant et al.,
Second, our model represents one of the few attempts to 2017), which should lead to different proactive motivations and
reveal when and why proactive employees engage their traits behaviours when receiving different situational cues. Consistent
to take charge (Crant et al., 2017). Although research indicates with this logic, prior research has found that, compared with
that proactive personality is an antecedent of proactive beha­ their passive counterparts, proactive individuals felt more
viours like taking charge, the correlation between the two is responsible for change and voiced more when having access
modest and the underlying mechanism is largely unknown to resources (Fuller et al., 2006), performed more OCBs in groups
(e.g., Fuller & Marler, 2009; McCormick et al., 2019). In particular, with a high procedural justice climate (Li et al., 2010), reported
it has been widely acknowledged but empirically under- less strain in handling enriched jobs (Parker & Sprigg, 1999), and

Servant leadership
(Time-1)

Group-level (+)
Individual-level

Proactive Prosocial
Taking charge
personality motivation
(+) (+) (Time-3)
(Time-1) (Time-2)

Figure 1. Conceptual model.

 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 119

were more satisfied with their jobs when working in organiza­ Hypothesis 1: Proactive personality is positively related to pro­
tions that fit them (Erdogan & Bauer, 2005). During daily inter­ social motivation at work.
actions, leaders can play an important role in providing
situational cues such as informal prescriptions about job
demands to their proactive employees (Tett et al., 2013). In this
Prosocial motivation and taking charge
research, we expect the unique focus of servant leadership (i.e.,
advocating contributions to the collective goods) to be a crucial As mentioned earlier, taking charge, though constructive in
context providing cues that augment the prosocial side of nature, still bears the image and political costs that adversely
proactive employees and instigate their desire to take charge. affect the initiators’ reputations and promotions (Burnett et al.,
2015; Chiaburu & Baker, 2006; Grant et al., 2009). Indeed, prior
studies have demonstrated that those who take charge might
Proactive personality and prosocial motivation be punished by supervisors with lower performance ratings
(Fuller et al., 2012, 2015). Employees thus need a sound reason
Two individuals in the same position may perform their work in to convince themselves that it is worthwhile to do so. We
quite different ways: one always tackles issues and crusades for contend that prosocial motivation is a plausible reason.
constructive change (i.e., proactive employees) while the other Prosocially motivated employees regard their work as a means
just “goes with the flow” (i.e., passive employees). Proactive to the end goal of benefiting others (Grant, 2007). They show
personality captures the former group of employees and refers genuine concern for those who work around and the organiza­
to the relatively stable tendency to effect environmental tion as a whole, even if doing so brings them personal costs
change (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Prototypical proactive (Batson, 1987; Bolino & Grant, 2016; Bolino & Turnley, 2005). It
employees identify opportunities, take actions, and persevere would follow that prosocially motivated employees might chal­
until they bring about meaningful changes in the workplace lenge the status quo to implement functional changes that
(Crant, 2000; Crant & Bateman, 2000). Conversely, less proactive increases the welfare of the organization. Moreover, though
employees passively wait to see or react to what happens realizing the potential costs associated with promoting con­
around them. They fail to anticipate opportunities for construc­ structive change where deficiency is noted, prosocially moti­
tive changes, let alone make efforts to improve their surround­ vated employees are still willing to do so because they value
ings. Prosocial motivation denotes employees’ “desire to more on the benefits accompanied by their taking charge
expend effort in order to benefit other people” (Grant & attempts such as saving time and cost for customers and mak­
Sumanth, 2009, p. 928). Given proactive personality’s nature ing co-workers’ tasks more enjoyable (MacKenzie et al., 2011;
of change orientation and future focus, with a behavioural Moon et al., 2008). Consistent with our prediction, accumulated
inclination to make a positive impact and wide interpersonal research has shown that a desire to benefit others makes indi­
connections (Crant, 1995), we contend that proactive employ­ viduals less calculative of personal costs and drives them to carry
ees possess prosocial motivation for at least three reasons. out work in a more creative way (De Dreu & Nauta, 2009; Grant,
First, the ultimate goal of proactive employees is to make 2008; Grant & Berry, 2011; Lebel & Patil, 2018).
a positive impact on the world around them (W. D. Li et al., Further, among various individual traits, proactive personality
2014). When envisioning how to create a better work environ­ is the most theoretically relevant to taking charge (Parker et al.,
ment, they will take the interests of co-workers and the organi­ 2010). Indeed, research in the past two decades has shown that
zation at large into consideration. Their willingness and proactive personality explains unique variance in employee
determination to pursue a course of action to enact positive proactive behaviours, beyond the “Big Five” personalities
environmental changes are closely related to the desire to make (Bakker et al., 2012; Crant, 1995; Marinova et al., 2015; Thomas
a difference to benefit others (Grant, 2007). Second, to achieve et al., 2010). Nevertheless, existing studies fail to reveal the under­
their goals, proactive employees constantly search for better lying mechanism explaining why proactive employees are willing
solutions and persist in their efforts until meaningful changes to run the risks of challenging the status quo to take charge. As
occur (Bateman & Crant, 1993). They view themselves as pio­ articulated previously, considering themselves a driving force for
neers for constructive changes in the workplace (S. L. Li et al., constructive changes, proactive employees are motivated to ben­
2015). Working with a change-oriented and future-focused efit others through their work, which in turn promotes their taking
mindset thus makes them more likely to construe positive charge at work. Combining these arguments, we postulate:
meaning for their jobs (Rosso et al., 2010). A meaningful job
further motivates proactive employees to contribute to others’ Hypothesis 2: Prosocial motivation at work mediates the posi­
well-being (Grant, 2008; Rodell, 2013). Third, research has shown tive relationship between proactive personality and taking
that proactive employees make great efforts to integrate them­ charge at work.
selves into their organizations (Chan, 2006), network with col­
leagues (Thompson, 2005), obtain sponsorship from
experienced seniors and leaders (Liang & Gong, 2013; Zhang
The moderating role of servant leadership
et al., 2012), and become more involved in community service
activities (Bateman & Crant, 1993). The frequent and wide con­ Personality traits require relevant, situational cues for their
nections with those working around them (e.g., leaders, co- expression (Tett & Burnett, 2003). Context is central when it is
workers, customers) further trigger proactive employees’ desire trait relevant – that is, the degree to which trait-consistent
to exert efforts out of concern for them. Thus, we propose: behaviours are appropriate in a given context (Tett &
120 A. J. XU ET AL.

Guterman, 2000). This increases the importance of incorporat­ prosocial motivation at work, such that the positive indirect
ing the role of leaders, who usually send cues to their followers effect is stronger when the supervisor practices high rather
during their daily interactions, as an important context altering than low servant leadership.
the effect of proactive personality. As an other-centred and
group-focused approach to leadership (Van Dierendonck,
2011), we expect servant leadership to be a crucial context
delivering cues that enhance the prosocial motivation of proac­ Methods
tive employees.
Sample and procedure
When conceptualizing servant leadership, Greenleaf (1977,
p. 7) argued that “it begins with the natural feeling that one We collected three-wave data from 614 employees working in
wants to serve, to serve first”. He particularly highlighted “going 211 stores of a grocery retail chain located in Hong Kong, China.
beyond self-interest” as the core of servant leaders. Servant The grocery store offers world-wide snacks, food groceries,
leaders put their followers’ needs first and further encourage household and personal care products to customers. Each
them to create value for the wider community (Eva et al., 2019; store has one supervisor and an average of four employees,
Liden et al., 2008). They serve as role models who advocate and they work closely (i.e., interdependently) to achieve collec­
teamwork and convey the importance of personal integrity, tive goals. Employees in each store take shifts to handle respon­
honesty, and fairness to their followers (Russell & Gregory sibilities of different roles including baggers, scanners,
Stone, 2002), which triggers them to work openly and collabora­ customer service representatives, and cashiers. At Time 1,
tively with one another (Parris & Peachey, 2013). Such other- employees provided ratings on their own proactive personality
oriented and group-focused behaviours signal to employees and their direct supervisors’ engagement in servant leadership
that proactive contributions to benefit others are positively behaviours. We received 511 completed questionnaires, repre­
valued in this organization. Indeed, empirical evidence indicates senting a response rate of 83%. Three months later (Time 2),
that the presence of servant leadership makes employees care employees who had participated in the Time 1 survey were
more about the welfare of others (e.g., co-workers, customers) asked to report their prosocial motivation. We obtained 389
and contribute more to collective success (Chen et al., 2015; Hu questionnaires, for a response rate of 76%. Four months later
& Liden, 2011, 2015; Liden et al., 2014; Schaubroeck et al., 2011). (Time 3), we asked these 389 employees to assess their level of
As articulated previously, the ultimate goal of proactive employ­ engagement in taking charge at work. We obtained 287 ques­
ees is to exert a positive impact on their surroundings (Crant, tionnaires, representing a 74% response rate.
2000; Crant & Bateman, 2000). In response to the relevant cues Before conducting our three-wave questionnaire survey, we
sent by servant leaders, proactive employees demonstrate more obtained approval from our university’s independent ethics
desire to benefit others through their initiatives (i.e., be more committee and sponsorship from top management of the retail
prosocially motivated). chain as well. At each wave, we had an updated employee
By contrast, the absence of servant leadership may neutra­ name list offered by their human resource department. We
lize the positive relationship between proactive personality and trained several research assistants to hand over hard copy of
prosocial motivation. Without servant leaders, employees do our questionnaires to these employees and collect data in
not receive a strong signal encouraging their input to collective person. They visited each store for several times to ensure
goods. Accordingly, we put forth the following: that employees at different work shifts have been reached.
The cover page of each questionnaire explained the voluntary
Hypothesis 3: Servant leadership moderates the relationship nature of the survey and assured respondent anonymity and
between employee proactive personality and prosocial motiva­ confidentiality. Souvenirs were given to the respondents by our
tion at work, such that the positive relationship between research assistants to thank them for their time and efforts. We
employee proactive personality and prosocial motivation is assigned a unique code for each employee and stamped this
stronger when the supervisor practices high rather than low code on the right corner of each questionnaire, which allowed
servant leadership. us to match the responses received from the three waves.
After accounting for missing data in the three waves and
Further, according to Parker et al.’s (2010) proactive motiva­ excluding groups with less than 60% response rates
tion model and trait activation theory, proactive actions like (Timmerman, 2005), our final sample consisted of 191 employ­
taking charge are more likely to occur when context provides ees nested within 84 supervisors, indicating the overall
relevant cues for traits to engage their connections with rele­ response rate of 31.1%. Of the respondents, 78.6% are women
vant proactive motivations. As mentioned previously, servant and 64.7% are aged below 35 years. On average, respondents
leaders could deliver cues that proactive contributions to col­ have worked for the current store for 15.67 months
lective goods are desirable in this organization. Working with (SD = 15.16). To alleviate the concern about any systematic
servant leaders, proactive employees are more motivated to differences between our final sample and our original sample,
exert efforts for others’ welfare and subsequently engage in we conducted an analysis of variance (ANOVA) comparing the
taking charge. Accordingly, we derive the following moderated two groups on five demographic variables including gender,
mediation hypothesis: age, education, organizational tenure, tenure with the super­
visor, and two key variables that measured at Time-1, i.e.,
Hypothesis 4: Servant leadership moderates the indirect effect proactive personality and perception of servant leadership.
of employee proactive personality on taking charge through Only two of the differences were significant. Our final sample
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 121

was slightly older (Mfinal = 3.08 vs. Moriginal = 2.67, F(1, female vs. male employees’ inclination to take charge at work
514) = 8.10, p < 0.01) and less educated (Mfinal = 2.07 vs. (Kidder & Parks, 2001).
Moriginal = 2.15, F(1, 514) = 4.05, p < 0.05) than our original
sample. Nevertheless, prior research has shown that age and
Analytical strategy
education do not significantly affect employees’ level of taking
charge (Fuller et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2015). Taken as a whole, we Given our data is nested in nature, we employed hierarchical
consider our results stand low chance of being biased by linear modelling (HLM) to analyse the data (Hofmann et al.,
sample mortality. 2000). First, we entered proactive personality as a Level-1 inde­
pendent variable to examine its relationship with prosocial
motivation (i.e., Hypothesis 1). Second, we constructed
Measures
a slopes-as-outcomes model to test the moderating effect of
Unless otherwise indicated, respondents rated our study mea­ servant leadership on the relationship between proactive per­
sures on a five-point Likert-type scale with anchors of 1 sonality and prosocial motivation (i.e., Hypotheses 3). To ade­
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). quately model within-group and between-group variances, we
Proactive Personality (α = .85). We used Seibert et al.’s (1999) group-mean centred the Level-1 predictor and grand-mean
10-item scale to measure employees’ proactive personality. centred the Level-2 predictor (Hofmann & Gavin, 1998).
Sample items were “Wherever I have been, I have been Guided by Preacher and Hayes (2008) recommendations, we
a powerful force for constructive change” and “I am always adopted two analytical approaches to test the mediating
looking for better ways to do things”. hypothesis (i.e., Hypothesis 2). First, we employed Kenny
Prosocial Motivation (α = .94). We used Grant’s (2008) four- et al.’s (1998) procedures to perform a series of hierarchical
item scale to evaluate the respondents’ prosocial motivation at regression analyses. We can infer the mediation effect when
work. Sample items included “I am motivated to work because proactive personality affects prosocial motivation, and proso­
I want to have positive impact on others” and “I am motivated cial motivation exerts influence on taking charge while control­
to work because it is important to me to do good for others ling for proactive personality. Second, to assess the significance
through my work”. of the indirect effect, we employed the Monte Carlo bootstrap­
Taking Charge (α = .88). Respondents reported their level of ping method to construct 95% confidence intervals (CIs). The
engagement in taking charge on the four-item scale of Fuller significant indirect effect can be inferred when CIs obtained
et al. (2015). Sample items were “I often institute new work from repeated samplings do not contain zero (Preacher & Selig,
methods that are more effective for the store” and “I often 2012).
bring about improved procedures for the store”. To evaluate Hypotheses 4, we estimated first-stage moder­
Servant Leadership (α = .81). We asked employees to assess ated mediation model following Edwards and Lambert (2007)
their direct supervisors’ servant leadership behaviours on procedures. Specifically, at one standard deviation above (high)
Liden et al.’s (2014) seven-item scale. Sample items read and below (low) the mean of servant leadership, we assessed
“My store manager emphasizes the importance of giving the conditional indirect effects of proactive personality on tak­
back to the community” and “My store manager gives me ing charge through prosocial motivation. We also adopted
the freedom to handle difficult situations in the way that I feel Monte Carlo bootstrapping to determine the significance of
is best”. The analysis of variance results revealed that the the conditional indirect effects.
practice of servant leadership differed significantly across
supervisors (F(145, 129) = 1.147, p < .05). The intra-class
Results
correlation ICC(1) was .17, ICC(2) was .40, and the average
within-group agreement (rwg) was .87, which supported the We conducted confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL 8.70 to
aggregation of individual perceptions of servant leadership at assess whether our respondents could distinguish our study
the group level (Bliese, 2000). The relatively low ICC(2) value constructs. The results showed that the four-factor measure­
implies that it may be difficult to detect emergent relation­ ment model (i.e., proactive personality, prosocial motivation,
ships using group means; however, it should not prevent taking charge, and servant leadership) had a good fit
aggregation if aggregation is justified by theory and sup­ (χ2 = 562.99, df = 269, p < .01; CFI = .90; SRMR = .06) and fit
ported by a high rwg and significant between-group variance the data better than the one-factor model in which all items
(Chen & Bliese, 2002; Kozlowski & Hattrup, 1992; Liao & were loaded on the same factor (χ2 = 1938.84, df = 275, p < .01;
Chuang, 2007). As servant leadership is a group-focused CFI = .41; SRMR = .15), evidencing the construct distinctiveness
approach to leadership (Hu & Liden, 2011, 2015) and has of our study variables.
between-group differences in our sample, we treat it as Table 1 reports the descriptive statistics for the study vari­
a group-level construct. ables. As expected, proactive personality was positively related
Control Variables. Consistent with previous studies on taking to prosocial motivation (r = .36, p < .001) and taking charge
charge and proactivity (Fuller et al., 2012; Grant et al., 2009; Kim (r = .27, p < .001), and prosocial motivation was positively
et al., 2015; Patil & Lebel, 2019), we controlled for respondents’ related to taking charge (r = .39, p < .001). Nevertheless, gender
gender and tenure with the store. Senior employees usually and organizational tenure were not correlated with any of the
have more knowledge and skills to implement functional variables of interest in our sample. Thus we removed these two
changes that benefit the organization (Morrison & Phelps, controls from our final analyses, following researchers’ recom­
1999). Also, the pervasive gender stereotype might affect mendations regarding erroneous use of control variables (e.g.,
122 A. J. XU ET AL.

Table 1. Construct means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations.

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Level 1 Variables
1. Proactive personality (Time-1) 3.47 .53 .85
2. Prosocial motivation (Time-2) 3.67 .74 .36*** .94
3. Taking charge (Time-3) 3.06 .64 .27*** .39*** .88
4. Servant leadership (individual perception; Time-1) 3.55 .52 .20*** .18** .16* .79
5. Gender a (Time-1) .78 .42 −.02 .06 .01 −0.06 –
6. Store tenure b (Time-1) 15.67 15.16 .05 .05 −.02 −0.13* .17*** –
7. Age c (Time-1) 2.85 1.55 .13* .33* .10 −0.02 .32* .23* –
8. Education d (Time-1) 2.11 .39 .05 −.09 −.15* −.02 −.18* −.27* −.27*** –
9. Tenure with the supervisor b (Time-1) 10.38 8.89 .05 .08 .01 .11 .24*** .56*** .24*** −.10 –
Level 2 Variables
10. Servant leadership (Time-1) 3.55 .52 – – – – – – – – – .87
Note. n = 191 for Level 1 variables and 84 for Level 2 variable. Reliability coefficients are reported on the diagonal.
*p < .05, **p < .01, *** p < .001 (two-tailed test).
a: In 2 categories (0 = male, 1 = female). b: In months. c: In 6 categories (1 = 25 or below, 2 = 25–30, 3 = 31–35, 4 = 36–40, 5 = 41–45, 6 = above 45).
d: In 6 categories (1 = primary school or below, 2 = middle school, 3 = high school, 4 = college, 5 = bachelor degree, 6 = master degree or above).

Becker, 2005; Bernerth & Aguinis, 2016). Results with and with­ through prosocial motivation. These results lent support to
out any controls were identical in the estimates for the para­ Hypothesis 2.
meters of interest. Model 2 shows that servant leadership amplified the positive
Table 2 reports the HLM results. Model 1 reveals that proac­ impact of employees’ proactive personality on their prosocial
tive personality was positively related to prosocial motivation motivation (γ = .35, p < .05). The cross-level interaction explained
(γ = .48, p < .001), in support of Hypothesis 1. Model 4 shows around 2% variance in employees’ prosocial motivation.
that prosocial motivation exerted a positive impact on taking Following Aiken and West (1991) procedures, we examined the
charge (γ = .26, p < .001) after accounting for the effect of relationship by plotting the interactive effect. As displayed in
proactive personality (γ = .04, ns), which indicated a full med­ Figure 2, the pattern indicates that the positive relationship
iating effect. The 95% CI (.052 and .213) indicates that proactive between proactive personality and prosocial motivation is stron­
personality had a significant indirect effect on taking charge ger when the store manager practices high servant leadership.
We further conducted simple slope tests to examine the nature
of such interaction. The results showed that proactive personality
Table 2. HLM results: moderated mediating hypotheses testing. was significant in promoting prosocial motivation when servant
Prosocial leadership is high (γ = .66, p < .001) more than low (γ = .30,
motivation Taking charge p < .05; slope difference = .36, p < .05). Thus, Hypothesis 3 is
Variables Model Model Model Model supported. Finally, the 95% bias-corrected CIs suggested that the
1 2 3 4
Intercepts 3.67*** 3.66*** 3.04*** 3.04***
conditional indirect effect of proactive personality on taking
Level 1 Independent Variable charge through prosocial motivation was positive and significant
Proactive personality .48*** .43*** .18 .04 at high servant leadership (indirect effect = .66 × .26 = .17; 95%
Prosocial motivation .26***
Level 2 Independent Variable
CI: .075 and .292), which supported Hypothesis 4.
Servant leadership .43
Cross-level Interaction
Proactive personality * Servant .35* Discussion
leadership
A richer understanding of why and when proactive employees
Note. γs were reported with robust standard errors.
*p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 (two-tailed tests). n (individuals) = 191; would take charge at work is crucial for modern organizations’
n (groups) = 84.

Figure 2. The moderating effect of servant leadership on the relationship between employee proactive personality and prosocial motivation.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 123

survival and success. By integrating trait activation theory with proactive personality) and contextual factor (i.e., servant leader­
Parker et al.’s (2010) proactive motivation model, we revealed ship), our findings not only shed new light on extant proactivity
that servant leaders boosted proactive employees’ prosocial literature but also enhance our current understanding about
motivation, which in turn increased their engagement in taking how such proactive motivation can be enhanced, i.e., by arran­
charge. ging servant leaders and proactive employees working
together.
Third, by demonstrating the enabling role of servant leader­
Theoretical implications
ship in the relationship between proactive personality and
The results of this study contribute to extant taking charge and taking charge through prosocial motivation, we echo the unre­
proactivity literature in several ways. First, our findings outline mitting calls for exploring leaders’ role in encouraging
a more comprehensive route to elicit employees’ taking charge. employee proactivity (Den Hartog & Belschak, 2017; Wu &
Existing studies mainly identified either contextual features Parker, 2017; Zhang et al., 2012) and go one step further to
(e.g., top management openness, organizational justice, per­ explain how this happens. In particular, our findings extend
ceived organizational support) or individual factors (e.g., expert recent findings on the positive interactive impact of proactive
power, self-efficacy) as precursors of taking charge (e.g., personality and servant leadership. Newman et al. (2017) found
McAllister et al., 2007; Moon et al., 2008; Morrison & Phelps, that employees with high proactive personality are more likely
1999). They paid limited attention to the individual-context to take opportunities offered by servant leaders and subse­
dynamic in promoting employees’ prosocial motivation and quently develop better relationships with them and conduct
their subsequent taking charge endeavours (for a review, see more citizenship behaviours. Panaccio et al. (2015) proposed
Den Hartog & Belschak, 2017). Our findings reveal proactive but failed to find that employees with high proactive person­
personality and servant leadership as distal and co- ality have higher psychological contract fulfilment when work­
determinants of employees’ taking charge through the prox­ ing with servant leaders. Different from these studies that treat
imal antecedent of prosocial motivation. The integration of trait servant leadership as the independent variable, our findings on
activation theory with Parker et al.’s (2010) proactive motiva­ its moderating role based on trait activation theory extend this
tion model model further enriches the theoretical foundation inquiry. These findings also add servant leadership to our lim­
of the proactive process. ited understanding of what kind of leaders elicit positive atti­
Second, our results regarding the mediating role of prosocial tudes and behaviours from proactive employees, beyond
motivation directs researchers’ attention to other-oriented current knowledge on proactive leaders (Zhang et al., 2012)
motives driving taking charge (Belschak & Den Hartog, 2017). and transformational leaders (McCormick et al., 2019). As such,
While prior studies have evidenced the “can do” (e.g., role these findings advances our theoretical understanding about
breath self-efficacy) and “energized to” (e.g., positive state proactive personality and servant leadership as well.
affect) motivations (e.g., Fritz & Sonnentag, 2009; McAllister
et al., 2007; Parker et al., 2006), a dearth of research has inves­
Managerial implications
tigated “reason to” motivation preceding taking charge, per­
haps the most important motivational state among the three Although recruiting employees with proactive personality is
because it explains why individuals select or persist with parti­ a first step, our findings indicate that organizational leaders
cular proactive goals (Parker et al., 2010). In the limited studies could consider other interventions to capitalize on proactive
exploring “reason to” motivations, researchers have mainly employees and encourage their taking charge. First, to develop
followed Morrison and Phelps (1999) to focus on self- proactive employees’ full potential and coax them to be more
concerned motivations, such as felt responsibility for construc­ prosocially motivated, organizations should train their leaders
tive change (Fuller et al., 2012) and work engagement (Wang to be servants. Emphasizing appreciation of employee proac­
et al., 2017). Our findings thus add new knowledge to the tivity and showing concern for the larger community are top
“reason to” motivation promoting taking charge and address priorities in servant leadership training. From the perspective of
recent calls for more research attention on the interpersonal proactive employees, they should take charge and contribute
motives fostering taking charge (Kim et al., 2015; R. Li et al., more to their organizations when they observe their leaders
2016). practicing servant leadership. In addition, organizations should
Meanwhile, most existing studies on prosocial motivation match proactive followers with servant leaders so as to elicit
have either focused on investigating its consequences or trea­ more taking charge out of concern for others. When realizing
ted it as a trait and thus ignored exploring its antecedents (for their followers’ desire to make a positive impact, supervisors
a review, see Bolino & Grant, 2016). In proactivity literature for should particularly practice servant leadership practices, such
example, Moon et al.’s (2008) revealed that dutiful (one aspect as creating an effective community of care, support, and
of prosocial) employees often take charge, Lebel and Patil encouragement.
(2018) demonstrated that prosocially motivated employees Second, given the important role of prosocial motivation in
act more proactively in tasks even working under discouraging driving employees’ proactive engagement in taking charge,
supervisors, and Patil and Lebel (2019) showed that proactive leaders should emphasize to employees the meaning and sig­
motivation drives employees to proactively serve their custo­ nificance of their jobs in relation to co-workers, customers, the
mers only when perceiving positive public image. By revealing organization, and society at large (Grant, 2007). Organizations
prosocial motivation as a psychological state that can be fos­ should also design jobs that allow more interdependence
tered by the dynamic between individual difference (i.e., between their employees in the same or different teams to
124 A. J. XU ET AL.

elicit proactive employees’ desire to benefit others (Grant, Finally, we encourage future research to explore whether the
2008). In the service sector, assigning proactive employees to prosocial motivation activated by servant leaders would also
interact with service recipients might also be an effective way prompt proactive employees to do other proactive behaviours
to enhance employees’ beliefs that they can improve others’ in the workplace. For example, helping co-workers or the orga­
lives through their work. nization is an other-oriented proactive behaviour (Grant et al.,
2009) that proactive employees might conduct when working
with servant leaders. Constructive voice, or employees’ voluntary
Limitations and future research directions expression of ideas, information, or opinions focused on effect­
ing organizational functional change to the work context
As with all studies, the current study has some limitations that
(Maynes & Podsakoff, 2014), is another pro-organizational whilst
should be noted for future research. First, as employees self-
challenging proactive behaviour that particularly needs prosocial
reported all the variables, some relationships found in our
motivation. Proactive employees thus might also engage in con­
study might be affected by common method bias. Although
structive voice when prosocially motivated by servant leaders.
we have followed some procedures Podsakoff et al. (2003,
2012) recommend to reduce this concern including the time-
interval research design, distinct questionnaire sections and Conclusion
instructions, and assurance of confidentiality, future research
is encouraged to better address this issue by asking leaders or Proactive employees and their proactive endeavours are of
co-workers to report the focal employees’ taking charge great value to organizations. This research reveals that servant
behaviours. leadership is a crucial context reinforcing the prosocial side of
proactive employees and enabling them to take charge at
Second, despite our efforts to develop our conceptual
work. We hope our study findings stimulate further research
model firmly in Parker et al.’s (2010) proactive motivation
to extend the positive interactive effect of servant leadership
model and collect data in the three time phases, the causality
and proactive personality to other important organizational
among our study variables should still be taken with caution.
outcomes to reveal how this happens.
Cross-lagged longitudinal data are warranted for future
research. Experimental design (e.g., manipulating the level of
prosocial motivation; Grant & Berry, 2011) can also be consid­ Acknowledgments
ered to address the limitations of causality and common
method bias. This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China
under Grant [No. 71902070]; Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research
Third, we only collected data in a retail chain with small Foundation under Grant [No. 2019A1515011592]; Cultivation and innova­
group size in China. Future studies should validate our findings tion programs of the institute for enterprise development, Jinan University
in larger groups (with 3 or more employees per group). under Grant [No. 2020CP01]; and University of Macau under Grant [No.
Moreover, the nature of work in the retail industry (e.g., inter­ MYRG2014-00090-FBA]. In addition, our research has been approved by the
acting with customers) makes prosocial motivation and taking Social Science & Humanities Ethics Committee of University of Macau under
the reference no. MYRG2014-00090-FBA.
charge particularly important. Future research should replicate
our study in other industries to ensure the robustness and
generalizability of our findings. Our findings might also be Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
culturally bounded. For example, in collectivist societies char­
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
acterized by diffuse and mutual obligations and expectations
(Oyserman et al., 2002), proactive employees are more likely to
turn on their prosocial motivation to take charge. Cross-cultural Funding
studies thus are also encouraged.
In addition, we only investigated the contextual moderating This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
[71902070]; Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation
role of servant leadership, one of the bottom-up leadership [2019A1515011592]; University of Macau [MYRG2014-00090-FBA].
styles with an emphasis on followers. Future research can
further explore how other bottom-up leadership styles could
activate proactive employees to take charge. For example, References
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