Fight Alone or Together? The Influence of Risk Perception on Helping Behavior

Abstract

Will there be a greater sense of solidarity and friendship during public crises? This study aims to determine whether risk perception influences employees’ willingness to assist in times of public crisis, taking COVID-19 as a specific research scenario and based on the theory of “tend and befriend”. This study hypothesized that risk perception will influence employees’ helping behavior via the in-group identity, with the degree of impact dependent on the COVID-19 pandemic’s severity. A questionnaire survey of 925 practitioners from various industries in the pandemic area revealed that: risk perception has a positive influence on employees’ helping behavior; in-group identity plays a certain mediating role in the process of risk perception that influences employees’ helping behavior; and the severity of a local pandemic negatively moderates the relationship between risk perception and helping behavior, but positively moderates the relationship between risk perception and in-group identity. Specifically, employees in high-risk areas are more likely to “align” (higher degree of recognition by the in-group) but demonstrate less helping behavior, compared with those in areas with moderate and low risk from the COVID-19. By contrast, employees in low-risk areas display more helping behavior but have less in-group identity, compared with those in areas with moderate and high risk from the COVID-19. This study expands the research on the relationship between risk perception and helping behavior, enriches the research results on risk management theory, and provides a practical reference for risk governance.

Opportunities or Threats? The Role of Entrepreneurial Risk Perception in Shaping the Entrepreneurial Motivation

“…This is because they can be supported by an active entrepreneurship policy, which allows them to assess risks more wisely and see them as opportunities rather than pessimistically believing in "doom". This study also confirms Yin and Wu's (2022) view that an individual's assessment of risk is influenced by a combination of internal and external factors, and manifests as a positive coping behavior under certain conditions.…”