Workers' personal initiative as a moderator of the relations between job characteristics and well-being

Having personal initiative means that workers are self-starting, pro-active, and persistent in pursuing their goals. This study examined whether personal initiative contributed to the prediction of two aspects of well-being (emotional exhaustion and learning motivation). Personal initiative was expected to have direct effects on well-being as well as moderate the effects of relevant work characteristics such as job demands and control. As expected, stepwise hierarchical regression using data from 834 Dutch telecommunications workers yielded positive main effects of personal initiative on both aspects of well-being. Moreover, personal initiative moderated the relationship between control and learning motivation: the positive effect of control on learning motivation was stronger for workers with high initiative. These findings support the hypothesis that personal initiative is a predictor of well-being.