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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cultural Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1487464
Examining the Impact of Total Rewards on Proactivity Among Chinese Knowledge Employees: The Moderating Role of Vertical and Horizontal Collectivist Orientations
Provisionally accepted- 1 School of Business Administration, Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China
- 2 Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, China
In practice, the phenomenon of employees "lying flat"-characterized by poor proactive behaviorreflects a failure in the organization's compensation incentive policy. Currently, the most effective compensation practice is total rewards, yet previous research seems to overlook the impact of TR on proactivity and has not considered when its effects may vary across different forms of proactive behavior. Based on social exchange theory and role theory, this study uses hierarchical regression and self-help methods to conduct a two-wave survey of the new generation of Chinese knowledge employees (N=336). The results show that total rewards significantly enhance both individual task proactivity and team member proactivity, with a greater positive effect on the former. Additionally, the study finds that vertical collectivism orientation weakens the total rewardsindividual task proactivity relationship, while horizontal collectivism orientation weakens the total rewardsteam member proactivity relationship. Surprisingly, the study does not support a positive moderating effect of vertical collectivism orientation on total rewards -team member proactivity or horizontal collectivism orientation on total rewards -individual task proactivity. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of compensation practices through the lens of intracultural heterogeneity and provide valuable insights for managers seeking to foster various forms of proactivity among the new generation of knowledge employees.
Keywords: Total rewards (TR), Individual Task Proactivity, Team member proactivity, vertical collectivism, horizontal collectivism, Cultural orientations
Received: 28 Aug 2024; Accepted: 02 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhou, Yang and Faye. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Junqing Yang, School of Business Administration, Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, Taiyuan, 030006, Shanxi Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.