Research On The Influence Path Of Helping Behavior On Career Development And Empirical Studies

Confronted with complex and ever-changing internal and external environments,enterprises need to cooperate more closely with employees to cope with challenges.Effective helping behavior is of great value to employees' career development and organizational performance improvement.How to play the positive role of helping behavior is an advancing issue in the field of organizational behavior and human resource management.Although prior studies pay attention to the influences of helping behavior on the helpers,the dyadic influences of helping behavior are ignored,especially the ignoration of trickle-down effect of helping behavior.As well,the long-term influences of helping behavior on career development are ignored,especially limited research is conducted to identify the beneficial or depleted influences of helping behavior on career development.The leader-subordinate dyadic influences of helping behavior on career development are ignored.To address these gaps,this research aims to explore the trickle-down effect of helping behavior and the influences of helping behavior on career development.This would provide theoretical and practical implications to strengthen the positive influences of helping behavior,enhance career development,promote organization growth.Based on social exchange theory and fairness heuristic theory,this study develops a model of the trickle-down effect of helping behavior.Within the framework of conservation of resources theory,this study develops a model concerning the influences of helping behavior on career development.Based on actor-partner interdependence model,this study explores the dyadic influences helping behavior on career development between leaders and employees.First,this study clarifies the definitions of the variables in this study,and elaborates the measurements used in this study.Second,based on social exchange theory,fairness heuristic theory,and conservation of resources theory,this study develops hypotheses for the conceptual model.This study develops three groups of hypotheses: first,the trickle-down effect of helping behavior,especially the mediating roles of work engagement and felt obligation,and the moderating role of psychological entitlement;second,the influences of helping behavior on career development,especially the mediating roles of “work meaningfulness-work attentiveness” and “perceived task demands-job strain”,and the moderating role of strengths use;third,the dyadic influence of helping behavior on career development between leaders and employees,especially the dyadic beneficial and depleted influences.The survey design and experiment design are adopted in this study to test the conceptual model.In the survey research,three surveys were conducted and this study collected 509 questionnaires through two-wave survey,and 257 matched questionnaires through leader-subordinate matched survey.Correlation analysis,regression analysis and path analysis were used to analyze the data.As well,two experiments were conducted and this study collected 525 student questionnaires through scenario experiments.This study used correlation analysis and two-factor ANOVA to analyze the experiment data.The results of empirical research indicate the influences of helping behavior on career growth.In the study concerning the trickle-down effect of helping behavior,the results show that:(1)work engagement mediates the trickle-down effect of helping behavior;(2)felt obligation mediates the trickle-down effect of helping behavior;(3)“work engagement-felt obligation” multiplely mediated the trickle-down effect of helping behavior;(4)psychological entitlement moderates the mediating roles of work engagement and felt obligation;(5)psychological entitlement moderates the multiple mediation roles of “work engagement-felt obligation”.Only when employees have lower psychological entitlement,leader helping behavior would enhance employee helping behavior through facilitating work engagement and felt obligation.In the study of the influences of helping behavior on career growth,the results show that:(1)helping behavior is positively correlated with career growth;(2)“work meaningfulness-work attentiveness” mediates the relationship between helping behavior and career development,that is helping behavior increases career development through enhancing work meaningfulness and work attentiveness,indicating the beneficial path of the impacts of helping behavior on career development;(3)“perceived task demands-job strain” mediates the relationship between helping behavior and career development,that is helping behavior undermines career development through enhancing perceived task demands and job strain,indicating the depleted path of the impacts of helping behavior on career development;(4)strengths use moderates both the beneficial and depleted influences of helping behavior on career development.The beneficial influence is stronger,while the depleted influence is weaker,of helping behavior on career development in the condition of high rather than low strengthens use.In the study of the dyadic influences of helping behavior on career development between leaders and employees,the results show that:(1)the dyadic influences of helping behavior on career development are significant;(2)the dyadic beneficial influences of helping behavior on career development are significant;(3)the dyadic depleted influences of helping behavior on career development are not significant.The results of experiment research also verify the dyadic influences of helping behavior on career development.The experiments also find that strengths use moderates such dyadic influences.For employees with lower strengths use,leader helping behavior has positively stronger influence on their career development.For leaders with higher strengths use,employee helping behavior has positively stronger influences on their career development.Based on the empirical results,this study develops practical implications to regulate the relationship between helping behavior and career development.Organizations can promote employee helping behavior through encouraging and regulating leader helping behavior,and addressing the depleted influences of helping behavior.Organizations can also enhance members' strengths use through providing effective support and offering relevant trainings.To decrease psychological entitlement,organizations can promote ethical leadership and conduct effective organization design.