The relationship between high performance work systems and employee proactive behaviour: role breadth self-efficacy and flexible role orientation as mediating mechanisms

Drawing on the contextual perspective, this study provides novel empirical evidence on how the organisational context (specifically, the firm's human resource strategy) has an effect on employee proactivity. We use matched data from managers and employees in 102 Spanish professional service firms to examine how high performance work systems contribute to enhance employee proactive behaviours through two motivational variables: role breadth self-efficacy and flexible role orientation. Results of a multilevel study demonstrate that role breadth self-efficacy mediates between HPWS and employee proactivity, but flexible role orientation does not mediate this relationship.This research was supported by University Jaume I (Grant ref. P1.1B2013-26), by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ref. ECO2015-66671-P) and by Generalitat Valenciana (Grant ref. AICO/2015/029)