Affective commitment and proactive behavior: the roles of Autonomous Motivation and Team Communication Climate

The link between affective organizational commitment and proactivity is not well understood and its underlying process and boundary conditions are under-investigated. To fill this gap, we conducted two studies to examine how and when affective organizational commitment contributes to proactive work behavior. Using multilevel, multisource survey data from 172 nurses in 25 teams, Study 1 found that at the individual level, affective organizational commitment had a positive relationship to proactive behavior that was fully mediated by autonomous motivation. Team-level communication climate was further found to moderate this relationship at both stages of the mediation. Specifically, affective organizational commitment was more strongly related to autonomous motivation and the latter was more strongly related to proactive behavior when team communication climate was higher in openness, satisfaction, and mutual understanding. Through a cross-lagged panel model, Study 2 ( N = 918) instead found autonomous motivation to be indirectly related to enhanced proactive behavior through stronger affective commitment. However, affective commitment was a stronger driver of autonomous motivation than the reverse. We discuss the implications of these complex findings for commitment and proactivity research and for practice and suggest directions for future research.