Abstract:

In an era marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, the probability of crises unfolding continues to rise. Employee proactivity plays a critical role in an organization's process of turning crises into safer outcomes or even new opportunities. Although crisis events offer potential opportunities to activate employee proactivity, organizations often face the dilemma of employee inactivity during crises. The influence of crisis events on employee proactivity exhibits a paradoxical tension. On one hand, crises often induce emotional pressure and limit cognitive resources, leading employees to avoid risks and stick to familiar routines. On the other hand, crises also spark a drive for change, pushing employees to seek innovative solutions and improve existing norms. Based on this contradiction, our study integrated the threat-rigidity and threat-flexibility theories, indicating that the crisis event strength has a double-edged sword effect on employee proactivity, with crisis leadership playing a significant moderating role.

Our research employed a field survey (Study 1) and a scenario-based experiment (Study 2) to test our hypotheses. In Study 1, we gathered multi-wave and multi-source data from a Chinese educational training group experiencing a crisis, amassing 340 valid responses. To overcome the causal identification challenges inherent in field surveys, we then conducted a scenario experiment (Study 2). Study 2 involved 202 participants in an online setting, employing a 2(crisis event strength: high vs. low) x2(crisis leadership: high vs. low) experimental design to probe the effect of the interaction between crisis event strength and crisis leadership on employees’ emotional exhaustion and cognitive flexibility. This combination of research designs effectively enhances both the internal validity and external validity of the conclusions. Results from Studies 1 and 2 revealed that, under conditions of high crisis leadership, crisis event strength could activate employee proactivity by enhancing cognitive flexibility. Conversely, under low crisis leadership, it suppressed proactivity through emotional exhaustion.

Focusing on the impact of crisis event strengths on employee proactivity from the perspective of crisis leadership, this research makes the following contributions: First, by delving into how crisis events affect individual employee behavior, this study offers a micro-level perspective for crisis management studies. Second, grounded in the threat-rigidity and threat-flexibility theories, this study elucidates the mechanisms through which crisis events can both inhibit and activate employee proactivity, encouraging a dialectical view of crisis impacts. Third, by highlighting crisis leadership as a critical boundary condition for the influences of crisis event strength, this study enhances our understanding of both the effects of crisis events and the role of crisis leadership. Last, this study advances the antecedents of proactivity by proposing that crisis event strength may also serve as a potential motivator for employee proactivity.

Key words: crisis event strength, employee proactivity, crisis leadership, crisis management