Insights into Key Determinants of Personal Initiative among Palestinian Professionals

Abstract

The aim of this study is to get an understanding of whether contemporary research on key determinants of employees’ personal initiative is applicable in the context of a developing Middle Eastern country in the midst of a tumultuous period in its history – a country in which, in spite of it all, life continues for its residents and the organisations that serve them. We collected survey data from 144 office workers of several organisations operating in Palestine to examine the relationship between personal initiative and a list of its theoretical determinants, namely: self-efficacy, need for achievement, perceived supervisor support and cultural orientation towards individualism. Our findings support the conclusions of contemporary research about the effects of self-efficacy and the need for achievement on personal initiative - thus indicating that Palestinian office workers are, in many respects, quite similar to their counterparts in other parts of the world. But our expectations regarding the link between perceived supervisor support, the cultural value of individualism and personal initiative are not supported by our findings.