Impact of Proactive Personality on Innovative Work Behavior of Employees: Study of Banking Officers of People's Bank in Western Province of Sri Lanka

Abstract

As a result of globalization and the tremendous development of information and communication technology, innovations are identified as key to gain a competitive advantage in today’s work environment. Organizations are moving forward by using innovations as their differentiation strategy. To innovations, organizations need employees with innovative work behavior because innovation is the key to success and long-term survival in the competitive market. Personality is one of the major roles in considering innovative work behavior and proactive personality is considered as most suitable for changes surrounding the environment. The purpose of this study was to examine how proactive personality affects the innovative work behavior of banking officers of People's Bank branches in the Western province, Sri Lanka. Proactive personality was used as the independent variable and innovative work behavior was the dependent variable. The relationship of independent variables and dependent variable were moderated by co-worker conflict. The sample was 341 respondents selected from banking officers of People's Bank branches in the western province. Questionnaires were used to collect the data from the banking officers. Respondents were asked to indicate the frequency that they engage in activities in the questionnaire on the Seven Point Likert Scale as the scaling method. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. Mean and Standard Deviation were used for univariate analysis of all the variables and correlation coefficient was used for bivariate analysis. The hypotheses were tested using correlation and regression analysis and linear regression analysis. The finding of the study proved that proactive personality has significant impact on innovative work behavior and there is strong positive correlation between proactive personality and innovative work behavior. This study findings will support the management of organizations to promote innovative culture in the workplace and gain competitive advantages through ideas.