Prosocial motive and helping behavior: examining helping efficacy and instrumentality

Abstract

Purpose – Building on trait activation theory, theory of other orientation, and self-perception theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how employees’ perceptions of helping efficacy and instrumentality influence the relationship between their prosocial motive and helping behavior. Design/methodology/approach – Data from 304 supervisor-subordinate dyads in South Korea were analyzed. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical multiple regression. Findings – The results show that prosocial motive had a stronger positive influence on helping behavior among employees with high levels of helping efficacy. However, contrary to our expectation, prosocial motive was more positively related to helping behavior when employees had high levels of helping instrumentality. Practical implications – Organizations need to present employees with effective, standardized work procedures to make them feel efficacy in helping others. It is also necessary for organizations to consider helping behavior an important factor in performance evaluation and to signify to employees that helping behavior will be rewarded. Social implications – Helping behavior is critical for the effectiveness of both organizations and society at large; voluntarily helping people can enhance various kinds of performance at the societal level and can contribute to people’s welfare. Thus, it is necessary to teach people how to help others and to recognize helping behavior. Originality/value – This study contributes to the understanding of when the influence of prosocial motive on helping is more strongly activated by incorporating employees’ perceptions of the contexts in which helping behavior operates – efficacy and instrumentality.

The Interactive Effect of Religiosity and Perceived Organizational Adversity on Change-Oriented Citizenship Behavior

“…Previous research indicates how individual factors such as employees' openness (Miao & Qian, 2016), learning orientation (Bettencourt, 2004), or promotion focus (Simo, Sallan, Fernandez, & Enache, 2016) stimulate change-oriented citizenship behaviors, but no studies consider a role of the energy derived from religiosity. Our interest in religiosity as an enabler of change-oriented citizenship also extends previous business ethics research on the role of this personal factor in spurring citizenship that reinforces the organizational status quo (Kutcher et al, 2010), and it aligns with calls to devote more attention to how employees' personal values, including those informed by religion, may spill over to the workplace and stimulate them to undertake challenging work activities that can enhance organizational effectiveness (Choi & Moon, 2016;De Clercq et al, 2017b;Murtaza et al, 2016).…”

The Relationship between Workplace Incivility and Helping Behavior: Roles of Job Dissatisfaction and Political Skill

“…This study in turn seeks to investigate factors that inform the relationship between workplace incivility and a specific type of citizenship behavior, that is, helping behavior aimed at assisting colleagues in doing their jobs (Choi & Moon, 2016;Frenkel & Yu, 2011;Organ, 1988;. Our focus on this individual-oriented citizenship behavior reflects the recognition of the importance of positive interpersonal interactions for effective organizational functioning (Bachrach, Powell, Collins, & Richey, 2006;Chou & Stauffer, 2016;Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998), as well as the general acknowledgment that helping behavior is a critical manifestation of workplace ethics (Deckop, Cirka, & Andersson, 2003;De Clercq, Rahman, & Haq, 2017;Tang et al, 2008).…”

Why happy employees help

“…Employees can contribute significantly to their organizations' competitive advantages through their helping behaviours or propensity to voluntarily assist co-workers in completing their job tasks (Choi and Moon, 2016;Chou and Stauffer, 2016;Tang et al, 2008;Zhu and Akhtar, 2014). Such helping behaviours, not required by formal job descriptions, can enhance the success of individual co-workers, the collective performance of selected groups of employees, and the organization overall (Bachrach et al, 2006;Borman and Motowidlo, 1993;Cirella, 2016;Ng and Van Dyne, 2005;Podsakoff et al, 1997), as well as benefit the performers of these activities.…”