Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine whether leaders' proactive personality leads them to pursue self-oriented career development and organization-oriented strategy implementation motives, which in turn influences their strategic renewal behavior, with perceived career success acting as a boundary condition in this process. Design/methodology/approach This quantitative study examines the empirical data gathered from 13 business units of a Dutch private organization, involving 263 leaders and 1,296 direct reports. Findings Leaders’ proactive personality is associated with their strategic renewal behavior, and this relationship is mediated by their organization-oriented strategy implementation motive. Perceived career success moderates this relationship such that the negative relationship between self-oriented career development motive and strategic renewal behavior is stronger for leaders with high levels of perceived career success, while the positive relationship between organization-oriented strategy implementation motive and strategic renewal behavior is stronger for leaders with low levels of perceived career success. Research limitations/implications These findings highlight that leaders' proactive personality does not uniformly translate into strategic renewal behaviors but is shaped by their motives and career perceptions. Originality/value This study contributes to leadership and organizational change research by revealing why and when leaders’ strategic renewal behavior is driven by self-oriented and organization-oriented motives, which is an area with limited prior exploration.
Oskan et al. (Tue,) studied this question.