Minimizing strain and maximizing learning: The role of job demands, job control, and proactive personality

Using a sample of 268 Production employees, this study extended research on R. Karasek's (1979) demands-control model of stress in 2 ways. First, resu lts show that R. Karasek's proposed interaction between demands and control when predicting strain occurred only for more proactive employees. This 3- way interaction helps reconcile previous inconsistent findings about the in teraction between demands and control when predicting strain. Second, the s tudy extends research by investigating the demands-control interaction and the moderating influence of proactive personality in relation to learning-o riented outcomes (perceived mastery, role breadth self-efficacy, and produc tion ownership). There were no 3-way interactions among the variables when predicting these learning-oriented outcomes, but all were important predict ors. These results show (a) that demands and control can influence learning as proposed in the dynamic version of the demands-control model and (b) th at proactive personality plays an important moderating role.