Individual and contextual predictors of team member proactivity: what do we know and where do we go from here?

Abstract

Contemporary organizations are placing greater emphasis on team work in order to meet the challenges of an increasingly turbulent business environment. In this context, the relationship between team member proactivity and overall team performance has been the focus of growing interest among management scholars and practitioners alike. Whereas extant scholarship acknowledges that team member proactivity is different from other forms of proactivity (i.e., individual and organization member proactivity), there is still only limited understanding of the factors that predict team member proactivity. Therefore, this paper extends current scholarship by identifying the individual and contextual predictors of team member proactivity and explaining how, taken together, they jointly influence team member proactivity. Building on these findings, the paper also identifies gaps in the current literature and proposes a model of team member proactivity to be tested in future research.