“Unveiling the effect of proactive work behavior on task performance through boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment”

Task performance is essential for organizations, so it continues to attract the attention of researchers, practitioners, and academics. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the effect of boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment on the task performance of employees in Indonesian companies through the mediation mechanism of proactive work behavior. Research data were obtained from 455 employees of companies in the financial, trade, service, and investment sectors in Indonesia. The paper employed accidental sampling using a Likert-scale questionnaire and structural equation modeling. The results show that boundary-spanning leadership, psychological empowerment, and proactive work behavior significantly affect task performance. Boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment significantly affect proactive work behavior. Proactive work behavior mediated the causal relationship between boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment with task performance. These findings encourage a new empirical model regarding the critical role of proactive work behavior in transmitting boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment to task performance. This model can be used by scholars, researchers, and practitioners to investigate worker task performance more thoroughly and deeply from the perspectives of boundary-spanning leadership, psychological empowerment, and proactive work behavior. It can serve as a credo for corporate management professionals seeking to maximize proactive work behavior, psychological empowerment, and boundary-spanning leadership in order to enhance employee task performance. In the interim, scholars and researchers can utilize it as a guide for next task performance investigations.


INTRODUCTION
Individual (employee) performance never recedes into an interesting hot issue because of its enormous contribution to the organization.Empirically, individual performance enhances competitive advantage (Kauppila et al., 2018) and organizational performance (Nyathi & Kekwaletswe, 2023).It reflects the value of employee work behavior positively contributing to achieving organizational goals (Ivancevich et al., 2023;Colquitt et al., 2023), so it is crucial for organizations' success and sustainability.Moreover, employees should build career success and improve welfare.Performance is a series of tasks dedicated to achieving organizational goals (Colquitt et al., 2023).Task performance is one of the essential proxies of performance, which refers to how well and effectively workers complete their tasks according to the company's formal and informal requirements (Mom et al., 2015).It concerns the effectiveness and efficiency with which staff members carry out their duties (Aslan et al., 2022), reflects the effectiveness of employees' work in completing core work or fulfilling role-based responsibilities (Singh, 2019), and highlights how important performance is to organizational objectives (Kalia & Bhardwaj, 2019).Following organizational processes to meet formal job criteria is one example of in-role behavior that reflects task performance (Hussain et al., 2022).This can be seen from three factors: the amount of work, quality of work, and time limits (Adekiya, 2024).
However, many employees are still unable to convert organizational resources into superior products or services, so they cannot optimally contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of their organization.
Empirically, task performance is affected by boundary-spanning leadership (Zhang et (Saihood & Al-Jader, 2021).Additionally, proactive work behavior, which impacts task performance, is affected by boundary-spanning leadership (Kim et al., 2022) and psychological empowerment (Nwanzu & Babalola, 2024;Gerçek, 2023).Proactive work behavior can mediate the effect of boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment on task performance.However, scarce research has specifically investigated the mediating role of proactive work behavior in the causal relationship between boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment with task performance.Therefore, it is an urgency that needs to be responded to through new research, mainly when other research is found with contradictory results.For instance, Matsuo (2024) demonstrated the effect of high-performance work systems on proactive behavior, while Gultom et al. (2022) proved the influence of proactive work behavior on psychological empowerment.Zhang et al. (2024) also found that performance pressure influences boundary-spanning leadership.These research discrepancies create research gaps that scientific research needs to clarify.).This intrinsic motivation is a reflection of an individual's orientation toward the job role and how well employees meet the needs of the position (Spreitzer, 1995).It also pertains to how much employees believe they have control over their work environment, skills, importance of their jobs, and perceived autonomy in their work (Robbins & Judge, 2022

METHOD
Participants are 455 companies' employees in the trade, services, finance, and investment sectors, providing diverse representation.These four business sectors are dominant and have large capitalization on Java Island, which is the center of Indonesian business and industry and is spread across six provinces: Jakarta, West, Central, East Java, Banten, and Yogyakarta.Adopting an accidental sampling approach, participants voluntarily completed the questionnaire without compensation (Widodo, 2021) and approved data for the material of research and publication.As presented in Table 1, the majority were females (52.1%), 56.5% were aged 20 to 25, 51.6% high school or its equivalent, 66.6% unmarried, 61.5% worked for less than five years, and 81.3% held staff positions.This paper adopted a survey method, which required the distribution of questionnaires among participants (sample), with responses measured on a Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree or never (score = 1) to strongly agree or always (score = 5).Google Forms were used to conduct the online poll, and the results were shared through WhatsApp and email.

RESULTS
The The hypotheses testing results are summarized in

DISCUSSION
This study found that boundary-spanning leadership, psychological empowerment, and proactive work behavior had a significant effect on task performance; boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment significantly affect proactive work behavior, and proactive work behavior mediates the effect of boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment on task performance.In detail, the significant influence of boundary-spanning leadership on task performance shows that boundary-spanning leadership is an essential antecedent for task performance.Consequently, if boundary-spanning leadership practices are improved intensively, task performance will increase.For example, crossfunctional collaboration can help organizational (company) effectiveness and efficiency.Likewise, employee empowerment at all levels can also encourage increased production or service quality.These results support and validate previous research, which proves a significant impact of boundary-spanning leadership on task performance (Gunawan & Widodo, 2023; Xue & Woo, 2022; Zhang et al., 2023a).Furthermore, the strong relationship between psychological empowerment and task performance shows empirical evidence that psychological empowerment is a crucial pre-dictor of task performance.This implies that improving psychological empowerment among staff members may lead to an improvement in their work performance.As an illustration, increasing employee competency can stimulate enhanced work production or the quality of company services, which has implications for the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization.This empirical evidence affirms prior studies proving that psychological empowerment affects task performance (Juyumaya, 2022;Messmann, 2023;Pacheco et al., 2023;Gao et al., 2023).
Likewise, the significant impact of proactive work behavior on task performance confirms its strong tendency to be an essential antecedent of task performance.This means that an in employee proactive work behavior will follow an enhancement in their task performance.For example, employee courage to take over work that is delayed in completion can clearly help the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization.Likewise, employee innovation will help employees to be more alert and agile in turning raw materials into finished goods or turning organizational resources into excellent services.This empirical fact is consistent with and supports previous studies, which revealed that proactive work behavior influences task performance (Saihood & Al-Jader, 2021)

CONCLUSION
This study aims to uncover employees' task performance based on boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment through proactive work behavior.The results show that boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment impact task performance, both directly and indirectly, through proactive work behavior.These findings encourage a new empirical model of proactive work behavior in transmitting boundary-spanning leadership and psychological empowerment to task performance.Therefore, researchers, academics, and practitioners can utilize this model to explore employee task performance more in-depth and comprehensively based on boundary-spanning leadership, psychological empowerment, and proactive work behavior perspectives.
For company management practitioners, it can be used as "ammunition" to improve employee task performance through boundary-spanning leadership, psychological empowerment, and proactive work behavior perspectives, which, among other things, can be followed up through independent training, workshops, or literacy activities.For the record, proactive work behavior has a more dominant role in improving employee task performance compared to others, so its existence needs to receive more attention.Meanwhile, for researchers and academics, this model can be used as a reference in task performance studies.
However, researchers should use the model carefully without ignoring research limitations.For example, the analysis only covers a few dimensions/indicators of all the variables contained in the literature.
The study only uses a quantitative approach, so it cannot reveal the qualitative facts behind the link between constructs.Moreover, the research participants were limited to employees of services, commerce, investment, and finance industrial firms on Java Island.Therefore, future research that adopts or modifies this model needs to use indicators not involved in this paper, utilize a more comprehensive research approach (mixed methods), and expand the number of research samples outside Java Island.

Variables Indicators Items
Boundary-spanning leadership

Collaboration across functions
Leaders actively coordinate across management functions (sections, divisions, departments).Leadership facilitates the building of cross-unit work teams.Leaders encourage cross-functional strategic decision-making processes.

Empowering employees at all levels
Leaders utilize employee potential to the maximum.Leadership facilitates the development of employee competencies (skills) through training programs and workshops.Leaders support employees in continuing their studies at a higher level.
Developing crossorganizational learning capabilities Leaders encourage employees to conduct comparative studies with other companies.
Leaders help employees carry out strategic analyses by considering the company's internal and external conditions.Leadership encourages the company to become a modern learning organization that allows employees to learn from each other continuously.

Meaning
My work is meaningful to my life.My job is suitable for my educational background.My work is in harmony with the life values that I adhere to.I support the companies' budget savings.I support companies to work more time-saving.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. T-value structural model Self-determination I determine how to work according to my own wishes.I set the time to complete tasks independently.I complete assignments independently.Imp My influence in the office is huge.I have strong control over the working atmosphere in the office.I have a high level of dominance over my colleagues at work.Competency I am confident that I can complete the work according to the target.My competence is sufficient to solve various work problems.My capacity is sufficient to complete complex work.Proactive work behavior Taking charge I introduce new work methods that are more effective for completing work.I offer more efficient work procedures.I use alternative solutions to solve problems at work.Voice I actively express views that differ from those of others.I easily express disagreement with other people's opinions.I encourage colleagues to dare to put forward ideas that are useful for improving work.Problem prevention I actively explore the causes of various problems in the office.I develop effective work systems to mitigate the emergence of new problems.I create unique strategies to prevent problems in the office from recurring.Individual innovation I actively provide new ideas to improve working conditions.I actively find new ways that can help the company progress.I actively advocate for original ideas to others.Task performance Transforming raw materials into goods and services I use company resources to produce the best services I use various tools to support the optimal implementation of work.I make optimal use of company resources to produce quality output.Helping organizational effectiveness I actively help the realization of company goals more quickly.I am actively completing hampered company work programs.I am proactive in building the company's competitiveness.Encouraging organizational efficiency I only use company facilities for work purposes.
al., 2023a; Xue & Woo, 2022), psychological empowerment (Pacheco et al., 2023; Sahadev et al., 2024; Yao et al., 2024), and proactive work behavior Wang (2024)found that empowering leadership impacts proactive work behavior.This confirms that boundary-spanning leadership is an effective predictor of proactive work behavior.Therefore, improving boundary-spanning leadership practices in companies can be a crucial stimulus for increasing proactive work behavior.Collaboration across functions, for example, can prevent problems from arising.Apart from that, employee empowerment can encourage them to be more courageous in taking over neglected work or carrying out innovations that benefit the company's progress.
(Saihood & Al-Jader, 2021)l., 2023;Gerçek, 2023;Öztırak & Güney, 2022)rit, 2023).Proactive work behavior comprises workplace efforts and behaviors starting with an individual adopted by other staff members to overcome obstacles and achieve objectives(Hou & Huang, 2021).According to Li (2020), proactive work behavior includes two traits: consciously adjusting employees' surroundings and engaging in deliberate action planning, consisting of deciding on, modifying, and achieving the intended outcome.Additionally, proactive work behavior comprises several indicators, such as problem prevention, individual innovation, taking charge, and voice(Parker & Collins, 2010).If in the highest conditions, it can drive employee task performance, which can help increase organizations' efficiency and effectiveness.Hence, proactive work behavior is essential for employees and organizations and needs more attention.Empirically, proactive work behavior not only influences task performance but is also impacted by boundary-spanning leadership.Lee et al. (2023) and Kim et al. (2022) convincingly show that boundary-spanning leadership significantly con-tributes to proactive work behavior.Proactive work behavior is also influenced by psychological empowerment.Scholars found that psychological empowerment links to innovative behavior as a proxy of proactive work behavior(Gerçek, 2023;Öztırak & Güney, 2022;Stanescu et al., 2021).Psychological empowerment is related to job crafting and knowledge sharing as a proxy of proactive behavior(Wang et al., 2024).This indicates that psychological empowerment is a determinant of proactive work behavior, so if the escalation of psychological empowerment is increased, it has the opportunity to encourage an increase in employee proactive work behavior.As an illustration, highly competent employees tend to anticipate the emergence of new problems and can even carry out innovative behavior that is beneficial for the company's development.Several previous findings show that boundaryspanning leadership and psychological empowerment influence proactive work behavior(Kim et al., 2022;Lee et al., 2023;Gerçek, 2023;Öztırak & Güney, 2022), while proactive work behavior impacts task performance(Saihood & Al-Jader, 2021).This present empirical

Table 1 .
Profile of the research participants

Table 2 .
Results of the measurement model The results of the goodness-of-fit (GOF) test indicated that nine of the eleven indices were considered good (GFI, RMSEA, PNFI, Normed chisquare, RFI, CFI, AGFI, NNFI, and NFI).The other two, namely chi-square and sig.probability indices did not meet the desired criteria.According to Hair et al. (2022), the chi-square test is very vulnerable (sensitive) to large sample sizes (