PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY 2010, 63, 539–560 WHY DOES PROACTIVE PERSONALITY PREDICT EMPLOYEE LIFE SATISFACTION AND WORK BEHAVIORS? A FIELD INVESTIGATION OF THE MEDIATING ROLE OF THE SELF-CONCORDANCE MODEL GARY J. GREGURAS Singapore Management University JAMES M. DIEFENDORFF University of Akron We integrated the proactive personality and the self-concordance model literatures to hypothesize and test a model that explicates the processes through which proactive personality relates to employee life satisfaction, in-role performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Across 3 time periods, data were collected from 165 employees and their supervisors. Results indicated that more proactive individuals were more likely to set self-concordant goals and attain their goals, which in turn predicted psychological need satisfaction. Psychological need satisfac- tion subsequently predicted employee life satisfaction, in-role perfor- mance, and OCBs. Further, goal attainment directly predicted employee life satisfaction. Our results also indicated that proactive personality’s relations with employee life satisfaction, in-role performance, and OCBs were entirely indirect through goal self-concordance, goal attainment, and psychological need satisfaction. Research indicates that proactive personality relates to favorable individual and organizational outcomes including employee performance (Crant, 1995), career success (Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001), and pro- motions (Seibert, Crant, & Kraimer, 1999). Despite proactive personality’s efficacy in predicting outcomes, little is known about how or why proactive tendencies influence employee attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Thompson, 2005). In his review and synthesis of the literature on proactivity, Crant (2000) urged researchers to develop models that include goals or motiva- tional constructs that might mediate the relations between proactivity and work-related criteria. One theoretical framework that focuses precisely on The research reported in this paper was funded by the Wharton-SMU Research Center, Singapore Management University (05-C207-SMU-041). We thank Jochen Reb for his constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Gary Greguras, Singapore Management University, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, 50 Stamford Road, Singapore 178899, Singapore; garygreguras@smu.edu.sg. C  2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 539