Creating meaning by taking initiative: Proactive work behavior fosters work meaningfulness

Abstract

We argue that proactive work behavior's future orientation allows individuals to establish a connection with the future and thus to experience their work as meaningful. We further expect that this effect is enhanced when individuals are faced with an unpredictability of the future in their core job. We tested our hypotheses in three independent studies with employees. We first established the effect of proactive work behavior on work meaningfulness in a scenario-based experiment (n = 140). A second experiment (n = 116) replicated this and also demonstrated that the effect was not driven by the benefits of proactive work behavior to others. A daily diary study (n = 107, k = 391) showed that day-level proactive work behavior was positively associated with daily work meaningfulness and that this effect was again independent from having benefitted others. The results also confirmed that this relationship was stronger when an individual's job was characterized by unpredictability of the future. Our findings highlight the active role employees play for the experience of work as meaningful and suggests that encouraging proactive work behavior may be one avenue to promote work meaningfulness.