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Based on self-regulation theory, this study aims to investigate the relationship between authentic leadership and help-seeking behavior, as well as the mediating effect of proactive goal regulation and the moderating effect of leader identification.

We conducted a questionnaire survey on 489 employees from 94 teams and tested our research model through multi-level pathway analysis.

The analysis results suggest that (1) authentic leadership positively relates to employees’ proactive goal regulation; (2) employees’ proactive goal regulation positively relates to their autonomous (dependent) help-seeking behavior; (3) employees’ proactive goal regulation plays an intermediary role between authentic leadership and help-seeking behavior; (4) leader identification positively moderates the influence of authentic leadership on employees’ proactive goal regulation and (5) leader identification positively moderates the indirect relationship between authentic leadership and employees’ help-seeking behavior through employees’ proactive goal regulation.

Based on the findings of this study, organizations should foster authentic leadership in workplace to promote employees’ help-seeking behavior. In addition, managers should also attach importance to proactive goal regulation in promoting help-seeking behavior and leader identification in enhancing the positive influence of authentic leadership on employees’ proactive goal regulation.

This study finds that proactive goal regulation plays a key mediating role between authentic leadership and help-seeking behavior, and reveals the role of leader identification in reinforcing the positive impact of authentic leadership on help-seeking behavior.

Grounded in the conservation of resources theory, this study proposes the mechanisms and conditions under which customer mistreatment affects employee proactive behavior. This study focuses on insomnia as a mediating mechanism and resilience as a boundary condition for the indirect effect of customer mistreatment on employee proactive behavior via insomnia.

We conducted a single survey in two phases, with a time lag of three weeks, among 302 frontline South Korean employees. The data collected from these two points were then analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis and the PROCESS macro.

The findings demonstrated that there was a significant negative relationship between customer mistreatment and employee proactive behavior, and this relationship was mediated by insomnia. Furthermore, the results revealed that resilience moderates both the effect of customer mistreatment on insomnia and the indirect effect of customer mistreatment on employee proactive behavior through insomnia.

This research primarily focuses on Korean frontline workers, potentially limiting cultural generalizability. The reliance on self-reported data may introduce common method bias. Future studies should diversify participant demographics and utilize multi-source feedback to validate findings. Grounded in the Conservation of Resource Theory, this study underscores the neglected linkage between customer mistreatment and proactive behavior, especially in frontline employees. We introduce insomnia as a pivotal mediator, deepening our understanding of why mistreatment dampens proactivity. Additionally, we spotlight the role of resilience, revealing its buffering effect against mistreatment’s adverse outcomes.

Organizations should be aware of the detrimental effects of customer mistreatment on frontline employees, as it can hamper proactive behavior, primarily through the exacerbation of insomnia. Implementing resilience-training programs can be a proactive step, offering frontline staff tools to buffer against such negative outcomes. Managers are encouraged to recognize and address instances of customer mistreatment and prioritize employee well-being, which in turn can foster a more proactive and resilient workforce, enhancing organizational performance and customer satisfaction.

This study underscores the broader societal challenge of customer mistreatment in the service sector, highlighting its ripple effects on employee well-being and proactive behavior. It sheds light on the importance of fostering respectful interactions in public and private spaces, emphasizing mutual respect between customers and service providers. Recognizing the adverse impacts of mistreatment can prompt societal discourse on workplace ethics and encourage organizations to advocate for their employees' rights. Ultimately, nurturing a culture that condemns customer mistreatment can lead to healthier work environments, benefitting both employees and society at large.

This study presents a novel approach by investigating the impact of customer mistreatment on employee proactive behavior, considering insomnia as a mediator, a perspective that has received limited attention in existing literature. Additionally, it introduces the concept of resilience as a moderator, offering fresh insights into how individual resilience levels can affect the relationship between customer mistreatment and proactive behavior. The research goes beyond traditional analyses of workplace dynamics to explore the broader implications of these interactions on personal well-being and sleep patterns. Through the application of a moderated-mediation framework, this study enhances understanding of complex organizational behavior dynamics, particularly in the service sector, and provides valuable implications for both theoretical understanding and practical application.

Elucidating self-determination and psychological empowerment theories, the current study aims to examine the link between psychological empowerment and proactive behavior. Additionally, it delves into the mediating role of prosocial motivation and assesses the moderating effects of horizontal collectivism between psychological empowerment and proactive behavior, examining the moderated-mediation effects of horizontal collectivism.

A structured questionnaire was distributed in three waves (T1, T2 and T3) among frontline service hotel workers, out of which only 507 were retained and found useful for analysis. The study employed PROCESS macro models 4 and 8 for the analyses.

The results indicated that psychological empowerment is connected to proactive behavior through the partial mediation of prosocial motivation. Further, when horizontal collectivism is high, the favorable association between psychological empowerment and proactive behavior via prosocial motivation is stronger.

Proactive service workers have an innate tendency to contribute optimally to their organization. Yet, research is insufficient about the factors that lead to proactive behavior among frontline service hotel workers. To date, there are hardly any empirical studies that have examined the buffering effects of horizontal collectivism between psychological empowerment and proactive behavior, which contributes to the originality and novelty of our research. In addition, this study offers practical implications related to ways to improve psychological empowerment among frontline service hotel workers in the ever-increasing era of automation.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it provides the results of a study of key characteristics of proactive salespeople and the impact of salesperson proactive behavior on selling performance. Second, it provides recommendations for sales management to implement organizational strategies designed to develop, train and coach salespeople to be more proactive.

In all, 278 business-to-business salespeople were surveyed to identify key traits and outcomes of proactive salespeople. The average subject was 28 years of age with 5 years of selling experience. Scales from the management, organizational behavior and sales performance literature were used to identify the degree that subjects engaged in proactive behavior in their selling role, a self-assessment of their sales performance and individual traits thought to predict higher levels of proactive behavior.

The findings revealed that proactive salespeople exhibited high levels of selling behavior performance – an important contributor to measurable selling results. In addition, proactive salespeople were intrinsically motivated, confident in the tasks of selling and willing to take calculated risks.

Practical implications suggest that sales managers can play a key role in fostering proactive behavior among salespeople through development, training and coaching. First, sales managers can play a role in the development of salesperson intrinsic motivation by stressing the importance of asking good questions to understand their customer’s problems to the extent that they can be proactive and recommend solutions for change. Second, training programs to make salespeople more confident should center on fully understanding product/service functionality and applications to typical customer problems. Finally, coaching tools such as win–loss reviews, post-call analysis/feedback and role-playing are useful mechanisms to reinforce the right type of risk-taking selling behavior decisions.

The value of this research is to shed light on the importance of salesperson proactive behavior as a means to drive selling organizational performance and fostering long-term customer relationships. Understanding the drivers of proactivity among salespeople is the first step for sales management to be able to operationalize organizational strategies to develop, train and coach salespeople to be more proactive in their selling approach.

This paper aims to examine the impact of the assurance and advisory role of internal audit (ADRIA) on organisational, human and technical proactive measures to enhance cybersecurity (CS).

The questionnaire was used to collect data for 97 internal auditors (IAu) from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The authors used partial least squares (PLS) to test the hypotheses.

The results show a positive effect of the ADRIA on each of the organisational proactive measures, human proactive measures and technical proactive measures to enhance CS. The study also found a positive effect of the confirmatory role of IA on both human proactive measures and technical proactive measures to enhance CS. No effect of the confirmatory role of IA on the organisational proactive measures is found.

This study focused on only three proactive measures to enhance CS, and this study was limited to the opinions of IAu. In addition, the study was limited to using regression analysis according to the PLS method.

The results of this study show that managers need to consider the influential role of IA as a value-adding activity in reducing CS risks and activating proactive measures. Also, IAu must expand its capabilities, skills and knowledge in CS auditing to provide a bold view of cyber threats. At the same time, the institutions responsible for preparing IA standards should develop standards and guidelines that help IAu to play assurance and advisory roles.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind that deals with the impact of the assurance and ADRIA on proactive measures to enhance CS. In addition, the study determines the nature of the advisory role and the assurance role of IA to strengthen CS.

This study aims to explore the role of frontline service employees’ (FSEs) awareness that their job can be substituted by smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms (STARA) in their job autonomy and proactive service performance and when these relationships can be buffered. Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, the study examined the mediating relationship between FSEs’ STARA awareness, job autonomy and proactive service performance and the moderating effects of self-efficacy and resilience on this relationship.

The authors administered two-wave online surveys to 301 South Korean FSEs working in various service sectors (e.g. retailing, food/beverage, hospitality/tourism and banking). The Time 1 survey measured respondents’ STARA awareness, self-efficacy, resilience and job autonomy, and the Time 2 survey assessed their proactive service performance.

FSEs’ STARA awareness negatively affected their subsequent proactive service performance through decreased job autonomy. The negative association between STARA awareness and job autonomy was weaker when FSEs’ self-efficacy was high than when it was low. While the authors observed no significant moderation of resilience, the author found a marginally significant three-way interaction between STARA awareness, self-efficacy and resilience. Specifically, STARA awareness was negatively related to job autonomy only when both self-efficacy and resilience were low. When either self-efficacy or resilience was high, the association between STARA awareness and job autonomy became nonsignificant, suggesting the buffering roles of the two personal resources.

Given that the measurement of variables relied on self-reported data, rater biases might have affected the findings of the study. Moreover, the simultaneous measurement of STARA awareness, self-efficacy, resilience and job autonomy could preclude causal inferences between these variables. The authors encourage future studies to use a more rigorous methodology to reduce rater biases and establish stronger causality between the variables.

Service firms can decrease FSEs’ STARA awareness through training in the knowledge and skills necessary to work with these technologies. To promote FSEs’ proactive service performance in this context, service firms need to involve them in decisions related to STARA adoption and allow them to craft their jobs. Service managers should provide FSEs with social support and exercise empowering and supportive leadership to help them view STARA as a challenge rather than a threat.

Distinct from prior research on STARA awareness and employee outcomes, the study identified proactive service performance as a key outcome in the STARA context. By presenting self-efficacy and resilience as crucial personal resources that buffer FSEs from the deleterious impact of STARA awareness, the study provides practitioners with insights that can help FSEs maintain their job autonomy and proactive service performance in times of digitalization and automation.

This study examined how inclusive leadership in the workplace promotes proactive behavior in employees based on self-determination theories and a model of motivation for proactive behavior.

Using a sample of 270 employees from various provinces in China, we investigated the relationship between inclusive leadership (measured at Time 1), workplace gratitude (measured at Time 1) and proactive behaviors (measured at Time 2). To test our hypotheses, SEM analysis was conducted to measure the path coefficients, followed by bootstrapping analysis to assess the indirect impacts of gratitude at work.

The results suggest that inclusive leadership could enhance subordinates’ propensity to be grateful, which in turn will increase the frequency of their proactive behaviors.

First, the evidence presented further validates the proposed association between inclusive leadership and proactive behavior, and it also enriches related theories. Second, our study introduced workplace gratitude as a mediator, deepening the understanding of the mechanisms linking inclusive leadership and proactive behavior.

Interest in psychological resilience has grown rapidly in the last couple of decades (Britt, Sinclair, & McFadden, 2016; King & Rothstein, 2010; Youssef & Luthans, 2007). Psychological resilience occurs when a person can “recover, re-bound, bounce-back, adjust or even thrive” in the face of adversity (Garcia-Dia, DiNapoli, Garcia-Ona, Jakubowski, & O’flaherty, 2013, p. 264). As such, resilience can be conceptualized as a state-like and malleable construct that can be enhanced in response to stressful events (Kossek & Perrigino, 2016). It incorporates a dynamic process by which individuals use protective factors (internal and external) to positively adapt to stress over time (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000; Rutter, 1987). Building on the dual-pathway model of resilience, we integrate adaptive and proactive coping to the resilience development process and add a heretofore unexamined perspective to the ways in which resilience changes over time. We propose that resilience development trajectories differ depending on the type of adversity or stress experienced in combination with the use of adaptive and proactive coping. We outline the need for future longitudinal studies to examine these relationships and the implications for developing resilience interventions in the workplace.

This article aims to provide knowledge on the antecedents and consequences of individual proactive behaviour. The proposed research model includes two unexplored antecedents (experienced meaningfulness of work and industry competitive intensity) and one consequence (individual proficiency).

Data were collected from 297 salespeople working at 105 enterprises in a range of industries. Data analysis was performed by applying confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

The results show (1) a positive association between industry competitive intensity and salespeople’s experienced meaningfulness of work and their proactivity at work; (2) a positive relationship between salespeople’s proactive behaviour and their individual proficiency and (3) that salespeople’s proactivity mediates the relation between industry competitive intensity and the experienced meaningfulness of work and individual proficiency.

The results suggest that managers could stimulate proactive behaviour by increasing the experienced meaningfulness of work. They also indicate that it is not only individual factors that are relevant in stimulating proactive behaviour at work, as contextual factors (particularly external ones) can also influence individual decisions with regard to engaging or not in proactive behaviour. Our findings regarding the positive relationship between proactivity and proficiency would help managers to encourage salespeople’s proactive behaviour.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework which sheds new light on how sustainability control systems (SCS) can be used in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Corporate sustainability pressures are identified using insights from institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm.

Findings – The paper presents an integrated framework showing the corporate sustainability pressures, proactive strategic responses to these pressures, and how organizations might use SCS in their responses to the corporate sustainability pressures they face.

Practical Implications – The proposed framework shows how organizations can use SCS in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Originality/Value – The paper suggests that instead of using traditional financial-oriented management control systems, organizations need more focus on emerging SCS as a means of achieving sustainability objectives. In particular, the paper proposes different SCS tools that can be used in proactive strategic responses to sustainability pressures in terms of (i) specifying and communicating sustainability objectives, (ii) monitoring sustainability performance, and (iii) providing motivation by linking sustainability rewards to performance.