Event Criticality And Job Performance:Roles Of Proactive Work Behavior And Mindfulness

In organization science research,how to improve the performance of employees has always been the central topic among management scholars.Many scholars focused on the perspective of the stability characteristics of the entity influencing job performance,such as personal traits(e.g.,reliability,extroversion,conscientiousness,etc),cognitive ability(e.g.,knowledge,skills,etc),organizational context(e.g.,leadership style,organizational trust,etc).Event system theory suggested that studying the steady characteristics of an entity was important,but not sufficient to fully explain the phenomena in the organization,and it was necessary to study events in the enterprise.Event system theory pointed out that event was an external dynamic experience of an entity,and explained how the event strength(event criticality,disruption,novelty)affected entity’s behavior.At the same time,previous studies pointed out that different aspects of events can be represented from event strength,and they could operate independently.Recent research also pointed out that one of the event strength could be selected as needed in specific research.In addition,some scholars have shown that event criticality exerted a positive impact on job performance.Therefore,this paper will explore the mechanism of event criticality on job performance.According to event system theory,the more critical events are,employees need to pay more attention to response preferentially.Therefore event criticality will break the employee’s work routine and further disrupt the steady working environment.Previous studies have shown that when the working environment changes,employees were not passively responding to the environment,but tried to take the initiative to change the current situation.In addition,numerous studies have confirmed that employees’ proactive work behavior can help perform their core tasks better,further improve their performance.Therefore,this paper argues that the mediated role of proactive work behavior in the relationship between event criticality and job performance.Event system theory further points out that the stable factors in previous studies do not lose its functions.On the contrary,when events occur,these stable factors(such as the individual characteristics of employees)act as “catalysts” and can promote employees to respond to events in a timely and effective manner.That is,dynamic events and steady individual features can interact with entities.In other words,due to differences in individual traits,the employees’ perception and behavior may be very different.Therefore,this paper introduces the construct of mindfulness,and discusses the role of mindfulness in moderating the relationship between event criticality and proactive work behavior.In summary,relying on event system theory,this study theorizes a conceptual model that exploring the influence of event criticality on job performance and the mediating role of proactive work behavior.In addition,the moderating role of mindfulness strengthens the positive relationship between event criticality and proactive work behavior.To verify the hypotheses,this study draws on three waves of survey data from 240 employees and their immediate supervisors.According to the results of data analysis,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)Event criticality has positive effect on proactive work behavior;(2)Proactive work behavior has positive relationship with job performance;(3)Proactive work behavior mediates the relationship between event criticality and employee job performance;(4)Mindfulness moderates the relationship between event criticality and proactive work behavior;the higher the level of mindfulness,the stronger the positive impact of event criticality on proactive work behavior,and vice versa.The above research findings further expand the relevant research of event system theory and improve the perspective of job performance.In addition,the findings also provide some guidance for enterprise managers and employees on how to adopt behavioral response in the face of event in workplace.