Making things happen : a model of proactive motivation

Being proactive is about making things happen, anticipating and preventing problems, and seizing opportunities. It involves self-initiated efforts to bring about change in the work environment and/or oneself to achieve a different future. The authors develop existing perspectives on this topic by identifying proactivity as a goal-driven process involving both the setting of a proactive goal (proactive goal generation) and striving to achieve that proactive goal (proactive goal striving). The authors identify a range of proactive goals that individuals can pursue in organizations. These vary on two dimensions: the future they aim to bring about (achieving a better personal fit within one’s work environment, improving the organization’s internal functioning, or enhancing the organization’s strategic fit with its environment) and whether the self or situation is being changed. The authors then identify “can do,” “reason to,” and “energized to” motivational states that prompt proactive goal generation and sustain goal striving. Can do motivation arises from perceptions of self-efficacy, control, and (low) cost. Reason to motivation relates to why someone is proactive, including reasons flowing from intrinsic, integrated, and identified motivation. Energized to motivation refers to activated positive affective states that prompt proactive goal processes. The authors suggest more distal antecedents, including individual differences (e.g., personality, values, knowledge and ability) as well as contextual variations in leadership, work design, and interpersonal climate, that influence the proactive motivational states and thereby boost or inhibit proactive goal processes. Finally, the authors summarize priorities for future researc

A Newton-like iterative process for the numerical solution of Fredholm nonlinear integral equations.

In this paper, we give a semi-local convergence result for an iterative process of Newton-Kantorovich-type to solve nonlinear integral equations of Fredholm type and second kind. We also illustrate with several examples the technique for constructing a functional sequence that approaches solution

A new third-order iterative process for solving nonlinear equations.

In this paper, we build up a modification of the Midpoint method, reducing its operational cost without losing its cubical convergence. Then we obtain a semilocal convergence result for this new iterative process and by means of several examples we compare it with other iterative processes

Modification of the Kantorovich assumptions for semilocal convergence of the Chebyshev method.

This study obtains two semilocal convergence results for the well-known Chebyshev method, which is a third-order iterative process. The hypotheses required are modifications to the normal Kantorovich ones. The results obtained are applied to the reduction of nonlinear integral equations of the Fredholm type and first kind

Indices of convexity and concavity. Application to Halley method.

We define an index to measure the convexity of a convex function f at each point. We use this index to establish conditions on the convergence of the Halley method in the complex plane and in Banach spaces

How to solve nonlinear equations when a third order method is not applicable.

In this paper, we use a one-parametric family of second-order iterations to solve a nonlinear operator equation in a Banach space. A Kantorovich-type convergence theorem is proved, so that the first Fréchet derivative of the operator satisfies a Lipschitz condition. We also give an explicit error bound

Calculus of nth roots and third order iterative methods

A family of iterative methods is analyzed for the problem of extracting the nth root of a positive number R. The method is used to solve the nonlinear equation t n - R = 0. For each value of n, the method is used for the family for which the highest order of convergence is reached

Remark on the convergence of the midpoint method under mild differentiability conditions.

We establish a convergence theorem for the Midpoint method using a new system of recurrence relations. The purpose of this note is to relax its convergence conditions. We also give an example where our convergence theorem can be applied but other ones cannot. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

The application of an inverse-free Jarratt type approximation to nonlinear integral equations of Hammerstein type

We consider an inverse-free Jarratt-type approximation, whose order of convergence is four, for solving nonlinear equations. The convergence of this method is analysed under two different types of conditions. We use a new technique based on constructing a system of real sequences. Finally, this method is applied to the study of Hammerstein's integral equations. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved