KNOWLEDGE,SKILLS AND ABILITIES
Parker (2000) proposed two types of contextrelevant knowledge antecedents. The
first is ‘integrated understanding’, or the degree to which an employee understands the
wider work system and the relationships amongst its components (e.g. knowledge about
customers, suppliers, and other departments). The more an individual has an
understanding of the wider system, the more likelythey are to behave in a proactive
manner. The second was ‘perspectivetaking’, or the extent to which employees adopt the
view point of others. A recent study showed that the more employees adopted their
suppliers' perspective, the more likely they were to help them (Parker & Axtell, 2001).
The relationship between perspectivetaking and proactivity has not been investigated,
although it is likely that such a relationship will exist