도움제공이란 과업 수행을 위하여 공식적으로 요구되는 역할 이외의 행동으로, 이타적인 행동이라는 전제 하에 연구가 진행되었다. 최근 도움제공행동은 도구적인 동기에서 발현될 수 있다는 기능주의적 관점이 제기되고 있다. 본 연구는 이러한 기능주의 관점을 기반으로 도움제공행동의 선행요인을 고찰하였다. 구체적으로 첫째, 도움제공자의 이미지 향상동기(self-enhancement motives)가 도움제공에 미치는 영향을 살펴보았다. 둘째, 수혜자인 동료가 상사와 가지는 상사부하 교환관계(leader member exchange)가 조직구성원이 이 동료에게 제공하는 도움제공의 정도에 미치는 영향을 검증하였다. 셋째, 특성활성화이론(trait activation theory)을 적용하여 도움제공자 특성인 이미지 향상동기와 수혜자 특성인 상사부하 교환관계가 도움제공에 미치는 상호작용효과를 검증하였다.
실증연구결과 모든 가설이 지지되었다. 특히, 동료의 상사부하 교환관계가 낮을 때에는 이미지 향상동기가 강할수록 동료에게 도움을 더 많이 제공하였으나 상사부하 교환관계가 높을 때에는 이미지 향상동기에 관계없이 동료에게 도움을 많이 제공하는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구는 세 가지 측면에서 도움제공의 이해에 공헌을 하고 있다. 첫째, 지금까지 연구들과는 달리 기능주의적 관점에서 ‘누구에게 도움을 제공하느냐’를 고찰함으로써 조직구성원들이 사회적 교환파트너를 결정하는 원리를 이해하는데 중요한 단서를 제공하였다. 둘째, 행위자의 특성과 상황요인을 동시에 고려함으로써 더욱 현실적인 설명을 제공하였다. 또한, 지금까지 연구가 부족했던 동료 관계 속에서 사회적 교환의 메커니즘을 이해하는 데 중요한 단서를 제공한다는 점에서 추가적 의의가 있다.
Help-giving behaviors mean “voluntarily helping others with or preventing the occurrence of work related problems’ (Podsakoff et al., 2000). Interest concerning help-giving behavior in the research of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) has grown dramatically in recent years. Previous research on the determinants of help-giving behavior has focused on mainly individual difference and job attitudes. Such an approach, however, has limitations in explaining help-giving behavior as an interaction phenomenon between employees in a social network. In particular, the prior approach tends to assume a generalized exchange orientation (i.e. an exchange relationship with all organizational members) rather than a relational exchange orientation (i.e. an exchange relationship with Person X). Therefore, in order to understand help-giving behavior as a relational exchange orientation, not only the traits of the help giver, but also the traits of recipient and the interaction between these two subjects need to be investigated. This study focuses on ‘who with which motive, provides help to whom’ as determinants of help-giving behavior based on a functional approach. In keeping with this functional approach, we can exactly understand the reasons for specific behavior through investigating the intentions of a given behavior. An individual employee’s help-giving behavior is also understood only in terms of the surface phenomenon without considering the underlying motives or intentions. Based on this approach, the present study has three purposes. First, we propose that the influence of Self-Enhancement Motives (SEM) as a help giver’s trait on help-giving behavior. Second, we examine the influence of Leader Member Exchange (LMX) of the help recipient in help-giving behavior. Finally, we investigate the interaction effect of SEM and LMX on the extent of help giving based on trait activation theory.
Self-enhancement motives (SEM) and help-giving behavior
Individuals have a primary motive to be viewed favorably by others: This interest in impression management is a common phenomenon in the workplace. To impress others, employees engage in help-giving behavior because helping others is perceived as valuable, desirable, and beneficial; that is, help-giving behavior has instrumental value for individual employees as it enhances their image. Recognizing this, employees who are highly motivated to enhance their self-image may engage in more help giving behavior, and hence, may be viewed as more desirable employees. However, employees who are not motivated to enhance their self-image may not recognize the need to impress others and may not try to engage in extra-roles besides the in-roles they are assigned. Therefore, we expect the following.
Hypothesis 1：Help givers’ (employees) self-enhancement motive is positively related to help giving behavior for coworkers.
LMX and help-giving behavior
On the basis of social exchange theory and social network theory, we can provide explanation concerning the kinds of coworkers that employees choose as social exchange partners. In social exchange theory, helping others is explained on the basis of the reciprocity norm. When individuals voluntarily help others, these individuals expect others to reciprocate. If others do not offer help in return, individuals may not choose this person as a social exchange partner in the future. That is, we can expect that if the possibility of reciprocation is low, individuals may hesitate to voluntarily help someone. Social network theory provides an explanation concerning how individuals choose social exchange partners. In line with social network theory, the third party who observes a social exchange relationship between two people increases his or her appraisal of these people when the quality of their social exchange relationship is high, which is to say that these two people will gain enhanced reputations as exchange partners in the eyes of the third party. This enhanced reputation should make the third party more likely to engage in future exchange activities with these people. This argument can be applied to the coworker relationship: we can expect that employees positively consider as social exchange partners those coworkers who have favorable relationships with the supervisor. Furthermore, LMX is a realistic proxy to indicate the extent of power possessed by the subordinate. Subordinates with a high quality of LMX are greater supported by their supervisors. In the workplace, supervisors tend to hold a “linking pin” position connecting their subordinates to the overall organization. Therefore, high LMX subordinates enjoy easier access to more important information and resources through supervisor support than low LMX subordinates. Therefore, high LMX coworkers are perceived as eligible social exchange partners, and employees are more likely to help these high LMX coworkers than low LMX coworkers. In addition, if help givers are in-group employees, helping high quality LMX coworkers is interpreted as behavior that identifies and strengthens the relationships among members within the same group. However, if help givers are out-group employees, helping high quality LMX coworkers is interpreted as meaning they want to become in-group members.
Hypothesis 2：Help recipients (coworkers) with high quality LMX(leader-member exchange) are positively related to help giving behavior for coworkers.
Interaction of SEM and LMX
Having considered the above main effects, we now focus on the interaction between SEM and LMX in predicting help-giving behavior. According to trait activation theory (Tett & Burnett, 2003), powerful reward contingencies in a specific situation can weaken the effects of personality. Applying trait activation theory to the current context, we expect that SEM will predict help-giving behavior only when the quality of coworker’s LMX is low. Employees with high SEM will help coworkers regardless of the coworkers’ quality of LMX. Helping low quality LMX coworkers can be a strategy for enhancing reputation, because helping the weak is generally perceived as a desirable behavior by others. However, employees with low SEM do not have this inherent motivation. This lack of inherent motivation means that those with low SEM need other strong situational incentives to motivate them to engage in help-giving. The possibility to have social relationships with high quality of LMX coworkers can be a strong situational incentive for help giving. This line of reasoning suggests that high SEM employees are less sensitive to coworkers’ LMX in help-giving than low SEM employees. In contrast, low SEM employees have a stronger effect to reduce help-giving when the quality of LMX is low. The interaction hypothesis is as follows.
Hypothesis 3：Coworker’s LMX will moderate the relationship between SEM and help giving. That is, the positive relationship between SEM and help giving will be stronger when LMX is low.
Method
Data were collected using questionnaires from 139 dyads of an employee and his/her coworker. Of the employee respondents, 38.7% were male. The average age was 31.27 years (SD = 11.20), and their job tenure was 5.19 years (SD = 5.66). Of the coworker respondents, 40% were male, and the average age was 27.54 years (SD = 8.43). Their job tenure was 4.22 years (SD = 5.04). The survey packet included a coworker survey, together with a preaddressed reply envelope, which the individual participants delivered to a coworker. The respondents included in this study were limited to those with complete matched data (N = 139).
Result
As the result of the hierarchical regression analyses for help giving, the main effects of SEM and LMX were significant (SEM: β = .19, p < .05, LMX: β = .16, p < .05) and positively related to help giving. The moderating effect of LMX on the relationship between SEM and help giving was also supported (β = -.85, p < .05). Therefore, these results support Hypothesis 1, 2, and 3.
Discussion
Our study proves that employees who are highly motivated to enhance self-image provide more help to coworkers. This result means employees use help-giving behavior as an instrument to achieve self-interest such as enhancing self-image and improving reputation. Through this result, we found that high SEM is related to cooperation between coworkers by helping each other. Our study demonstrated that employees with high quality of LMX received more help from coworkers than one with low quality of LMX. This result indicates that employees use help-giving to make and to maintain social exchange relationship with powerful employees. Finally, we found significant interaction effect between SEM and LMX on help-giving. This result provides understanding of how the traits of both actor and recipient interact together based on trait activation theory. We found that when the quality of a coworker’s LMX is considered as being high, this situation acts as a strong factor in washing out the effects of individual traits. With these understandings concerning the determinants of help-giving, this study also contributes in providing explanation concerning the coworker relationship. Prior research on help-giving has mainly focused on the supervisor-subordinate relationship. However, the evidence gathered from this relationship is not applicable to the coworker relationship. Therefore, the present study contributes much needed evidence to explain coworker relationship.
