97 Proactive Vitality Management, Work Engagement, and Creativity (Parker et al., 2010) aimed at changing the environment, proactive vitality management is a new form of proactive behavior that is aimed at changing the self (see also, Grant & Ashford, 2008). Proactive vitality management is directed to creating an internal state that allows one to focus, think, and feel inspired. This bottom-up approach to creativity could be an important addition to more common top-down approaches. It should be noted that the present study focused specifically on the predictive validity of proactive vitality management for a specific type of performance: creativity. It is highly likely that proactive vitality management will also be able to predict other performance indicators, including in-role performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). High-level in-role performance demands considerable effort, engagement, andmotivation (Bakker et al., 2014), which could be proactively mobilized by employees. In addition, employees are most likely to show extra-role behaviors (OCB) when they have a surplus of energetic and motivational resources. Future research should investigate the predictive validity of proactive vitality management for these other performance indicators. Second, we used a repeatedmeasures design to test whether proactive behavior aimed at managing vitality relates to creativity, through work engagement. Thus, we complement previous survey studies (see, for a review, Shalley et al., 2004) with a five-week followup study and show that employees may be able to influence their own creativity, on a weekly basis. In the weeks employees proactively manage their vitality, they become sufficiently engaged in their work to be creative. However, in the weeks they do not look for inspiration or try to experience positive emotions, their levels of work engagement are relatively low, and do not offer the fuel needed to be creative at work. At this point, we would like to discuss the possibility that work engagement may also predict proactive vitality management (i.e. reversed causation). Indeed, several scholars have argued and shown that positive affect – particularly high-activated positive affect (i.e. feelings of being inspired, energized and enthused) that is rather similar to work engagement – is positively related to proactive behavior (e.g., Bindl, Parker, Totterdell, & Hagger-Johnson, 2012; Den Hartog & Belschak, 2007). Bindl and colleagues argue that high-activated positive affect prompts forward-thinking, change-oriented behavior, and can be considered the fuel (the energy) of the self-starter. Using Job Demands-Resources theory, Bakker and Demerouti (2017) have argued that employees who are engaged in 4
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