The role of human resource systems in fostering proactive behaviors in companies: a multilevel analysis

Proactive behavior is seen as being anticipatory or future oriented, self-initiated, and about taking control to make things happen. Increased focus has been dedicated to proactivity especially with broader workplace changes. This is even more important nowadays with increased competition, and technological development which consequently leads to workplace flexibility and, instability. Proactivity was been associated with various outcomes going from higher levels of innovation, leadership effectiveness, task performance, and greater career success. As such, we analyze whether the presence or absence of commitment and compliance human resource systems, as two diametrically opposed systems, influence the development of proactive behaviors in companies. Drawing on human resource system theory and multilevel theory, we propose that when commitment human resource system is in place, it triggers a proactive behavior in employees. In contrast, when a company adopts a more compliance alike systems, this cause lower proactive behavior. We further suggest that these effects are reliant on different motivational climates, which interaction we explored. Using a sample of 25 companies and 211 employees, we tested these relationships using hierarchical linear modeling. Our findings somewhat contradict theoretical predictions, which would suggest that the interaction of commitment human resource system and communal-sharing climate may be suitable for stimulating employee proactive behavior. Contrastingly, we found a positive interaction between compliance HR system and market-sharing climate. Implications for companies and employees are discussed and directions for future research are proposed.
Keywords: HRM system, organizational climate and proactive behavior