Proactive personalities, trait competitiveness and well-being among retail employees: job burnout as a mediator
Journal of Asia Business Studies
ISSN: 1558-7894
Article publication date: 17 February 2022
Issue publication date: 17 January 2023
Abstract
Purpose
As the literature reveals contrasting arguments regarding the positive effect of a proactive personality on well-being, this paper aims to investigate the negative consequences of a proactive personality on employee well-being. The paper tests the relationships between a proactive personality, trait competitiveness and well-being. It also examines the mediating effect of job burnout on these relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected from 213 employees working in the retail sector across Malaysia. AMOS’s structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses of the study.
Findings
Overall, the findings showed that a proactive personality negatively affected employee well-being. Job burnout had a partially mediating effect on this relationship. However, the effect of trait competitiveness on employee well-being was insignificant and the mediating effect of job burnout on this relationship also found no support.
Originality/value
The main contributions of this study are twofold. First, this study shows that a proactive personality can have negative repercussions for employee well-being. In contrast to many previous findings on the proactive personality, this study tests and verifies the possibility of an adverse impact of being proactive. Second, this study reveals that job burnout can play a vital role in mediating the adverse effect of a proactive personality on well-being. This suggests that depending on the context, being proactive will not always result in desirable outcomes, especially if job burnout is present. Therefore, organizations need to prepare contingency plans to offset the negative effects of such burnout.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Compliance with Ethical Standards.
Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Data statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.
Citation
Wahab, M.A. and Blackman, D. (2023), "Proactive personalities, trait competitiveness and well-being among retail employees: job burnout as a mediator", Journal of Asia Business Studies, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 185-202. https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-04-2021-0171
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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