“I want to serve but the public does not understand:” Prosocial motivation, image discrepancies, and proactivity in public safety

Scholars typically find that prosocial motivation is positively related to employee proactivity. However, we argue that in highly visible contexts such as public safety, this relationship is contingent on how employees think the public sees their jobs. Specifically, drawing on image discrepancy theories, we hypothesize that the relationship between prosocial motivation and proactive behavior is weakened when employees believe that the public...