Abstract:
The aim of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive review of research on newcomer proactive behavior. We start by outlining why proactive behavior is important for new employees today and situating this within the broader proactive behavior literature. Following this, the chapter has six main sections. First, we outline the range of proactive behaviors that newcomers use, under the three categories of changing the role or environment (e.g., changing work procedures), self-change (e.g., feedback seeking), and mutual development (e.g., networking). Second, we discuss the consequences of each proactive behavior by newcomers that has been studied in detail and third, we examine the antecedents of newcomer proactive behaviors. Fourth, we outline longitudinal patterns of change in newcomer proactive behavior. Fifth, we present ideas around the potential for proactive behavior to be maladaptive for organizations and also for newcomers themselves. This is followed with a sixth section on practical implications, comprising a review of the sparse research to date on interventions to increase newcomer proactive behavior. We finish with ideas for future research and concluding thoughts.