Exploring profiles of work regulatory focus: A person-centered approach

•Latent profile analysis was applied to explore profiles of work regulatory focus.•We identified three distinct profiles underlying work regulatory focus.•Conscientiousness predicted the high regulatory focus profile.•Anxiety was a significant predictor of the prevention dominated profile.•High regulatory focus profile resulted in higher task performance, and more OCBI

Research on regulatory focus so far has been dominated by the perspective of 'variable-centered' that seeks to understand how each foci of regulatory focus (e.g., promotion focus and prevention focus) in isolation relates to other variables. We extend this work by adopting a 'person-centered' approach to reveal the distinct profiles of regulatory focus existing in the Chinese context, and further examine how these profiles relate to certain antecedents and outcomes. Our results showed three different profiles, namely high regulatory focus profile, moderate regulatory focus profile and prevention dominated profile, that varied in the level and shape of the profile indicators. With respect to antecedents, high conscientiousness can increase the odds that a subordinate belongs to the high regulatory focus profile, and high anxiety can result in a higher probability that a subordinate belongs to the prevention dominated profile. Furthermore, the high regulatory focus profile had the most favorable levels of outcomes (e.g., higher task performance and more organizational citizenship behaviors). Finally, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.