Research On The Positive And Negative Effects Of Employee’s Received Help

As an essential interpersonal and cooperative behavior,helping behavior is conducive to improving the overall organizational performance.However,previous research focused on the unilateral perspective of the helper,and there was a lack of exploration on the recipient’s experiences in an organizational context.Since the experiences of the helper are often not completely equal with the recipient,the recipient’s feelings and behavioral reactions should be paid attention to to produce positive results continuously.Therefore,this study explores the positive and negative psychological mechanisms of receiving help and the boundary condition of the characteristics of the recipients,which aims to make the helping behavior more effective and sustainable,thus further improving the organizational efficiency and benefiting the long-term development of the organization.First,this study systematically reviewed the concept,measurement,and relevant empirical researches of helping behavior.Second,the classification and existing empirical researches of receiving help were summarized and commented.Finally,this study put forward an overall research framework based on the deficiencies of existing research.The first study examined whether receiving help was positive or negative,and what was the boundary condition;the second study was more detailed to explore the different effects of different types of helping received,that is,the positive influence mechanisms of different types of helping;the third study explored the double-edged sword effects of the relative amount of helping received and the boundary condition under the group situation.Based on the theory of symbolic interaction,the first study explains why and how receiving help brings variant effects on competence self-esteem and relational self-esteem,and its consequences of promotion-oriented task crafting and relationship crafting,as well as its boundary condition of the importance of the recipient’s competence to self-esteem.Based on 1012 data points collected from 111 employees for 10 days in a daily diary study,the first study found that receiving help was positively correlated with the recipient’s relational self-esteem but not significantly correlated with competence self-esteem.Employee’s competence self-esteem was positively correlated with promotion-oriented task crafting,and recipients with increased relational self-esteem through receiving help would attempt to engage in more promotion-oriented relationship crafting.The importance of the recipient’s competence to self-esteem negatively moderated the relationship between receiving help and competence self-esteem and relational self-esteem.The results show that when employees attach more importance to the quality of their interpersonal relationships with others than to their self-esteem based solely on their competence,receiving help does not damage employees’ competence self-esteem and also contributes to their sense of belonging.In the second study,social exchange theory and affective event theory were combined to explore the differentiated cognitive and affective responses of employee’s received reactive help and proactive help,thus having positive indirect effects on employee’s organization-focused citizenship behavior.The results of a scenario experiment of 231 participants and an experience sampling method of 111 employees for 10 days with 854 data points supported the hypotheses that receiving reactive help from coworkers elicited a cognitive process in which employees felt obligated to perform OCBO.Meanwhile,receiving proactive help from coworkers elicited an affective process in which employees felt happy(i.e.,more positive affect)to engage in OCBO.The findings suggested that receiving different types of helping might invoke different psychological processes,although they both promoted employee OCBO.Organizations can induce different psychological states of employees by encouraging different types of helping behaviors.In the third study,a social comparison perspective was introduced to explore the effect of employee’s perceived relative received helping in group situations.Through a three-stage survey conducted by 345 team-working employees,this study found a positive relationship between perceived relative received helping and employee’s gratitude,which indirectly affected employee’s interpersonal citizenship behavior.This positive relationship was more significant when the employee’s core self-evaluation was high compared with low.There was a U-shaped relationship between perceived relative received helping and self-esteem threat,which further affected employee’s task performance.It suggests that recipients’ emotions and self-evaluation are influenced by the relative results of comparisons with others,especially in teams.In addition,the interpretation of the results varies depending on the characteristics of the recipients.This study adopts a more detailed perspective to explore the employee’s received helping in the organizational context.First,it explores the possible positive and negative results of comparative received helping and different types of helping,which deepens and supplements the existing research conclusions.It also expands the theoretical understanding of the influence and mechanism of helping behavior on recipients and clarifies that received helping affects employees’ proactive behavior and work performance through different psychological mechanisms.Secondly,this study supplements the boundary conditions between the positive and negative effects of received helping by discussing the individual characteristics of recipients to better answer the question of which employees have better positive effects when receiving help.Finally,this study provides enlightenments for organizations and managers to build a cultural climate of proactive cooperation,mutual help,and a harmonious working environment.In addition,it also provides some practical guidance for the organization to establish grateful human resource practice and reciprocity system among employees,as well as staff recruitment,internal training,and selection.