The objective of this conceptual article is to illustrate how differences in societal culture may affect employees’ proactive work behaviors (PWBs) and to develop a research agenda to guide future research on cross-cultural differences in PWBs. We propose that the societal cultural dimensions of power distance, individualism–collectivism, future orientation, and uncertainty avoidance shape individuals’ implicit followership theories (IFTs). We discuss how these cross-cultural differences in individuals’ IFTs relate to differences in the mean-level of PWB individuals show (whether), in the motivational states driving individuals’ PWBs (why), in the way individuals’ enact PWBs (how), and in the evaluation of PWBs by others (at what cost). We recommend how future research can extend this theorizing and unpack the proposed cross-cultural differences in PWBs, for example, by exploring how culture and other contextual variables interact to affect PWBs.

本概念文章的目的是说明社会文化差异如何影响员工的积极工作行为（PWB），并制定研究议程以指导有关PWB中跨文化差异的未来研究。我们认为，权力距离，个人主义-集体主义，未来取向和回避不确定性的社会文化维度塑造了个人的隐性追随者理论（IFT）。我们讨论了个人IFT的这些跨文化差异如何与PWB个人平均水平差异显示（是否），驱动个人PWB的动机状态（为什么），个人制定PWB的方式（如何） ，以及其他人对PWB的评估（费用为）。我们建议未来的研究如何扩展这种理论并解开PWB中所建议的跨文化差异，例如，通过探索文化和其他上下文变量如何相互作用来影响PWB。