Organizational Psychology

Proactivity in the behavior of employees is a desirable attribute of a modern organizationstriving for innovation, which is prepared to meet the constant challenges of a technological society. Proactivity at the individual and organizational levels is characterized by the mindset of employees to transformation, useful activity, long-term planning and initiative, which brings the organization towards innovation. Prupose. The goal of the study is to identify the indirect relationships between perceived organizational culture and proactivity. Our hypothesis is the existence of a positive relationship between innovative organizational culture and proactivity through the following mediators: innovative self-efficacy and autonomy. The importance of innovative culture for proactivity is illustrated by thehypothesis of the negative indirect effect of bureaucratic culture on proactivity through the same mediators. Study design. The unconventional approach of the study — investigation of organizational characteristics useful for innovation through students’ perception of their activities at the university.This idea stems from the similarity of the attributes of a modern, constantly learning innovative organization with the characteristics of a university of a new format — with design work, academic mobility and competitive environment. As a result, the regression analysis of the mediation model involving 191 students from different faculties of the university showed a significant indirect effect of innovative organizational culture on personal and organizational proactivity through innovation self-efficacy. Findings. The bureaucratic culture, on the contrary, did not have an indirect negative effecton both levels of perceived proactivity. Additional analysis revealed direct relationships between the innovation / bureaucratic organizational culture and autonomy: an innovative culture has a positive direct relationship with autonomy, and a bureaucratic culture has a negative direct relationship.Thus, it is possible to talk about the benefits of an innovative organizational culture for the proactive personality and organizational member proactivity, provided the individual maintains a high innovation self-efficacy — belief in his/her ability to innovate. Implementation in practice. In practical application, the research contributes to one of the future scenarios of an innovative organization aimed at learning, employee independence and hierarchy reduction, and also utilizes characteristics rarely studied in Russian organizational psychology: proactivity and innovation self-efficacy.