The Influence Of Challenge-Hindrance Stressor On Employees’ Help-Seeking Behaivor: A Moderated Mediation Model

In today’s era of rapid development,high workload and fast-paced work requirements have become the norm of work and even life,which has led to the widespread concern of all walks of life,and the problem of work stress has also become the after-dinner talk of the "workers" group.In the face of increasingly complex work demands,members of organizations often need to seek help from each other to achieve higher work goals,and help-seeking behavior based on work scenarios has been the focus of research in organizational behavior and psychology.In order to explore how work stress affects employees’ help-seeking behavior,this study incorporates the two-dimensional structure of widely used stressors-challenge-hindering stressors into a bi-typical perspective of help-seeking behavior based on Nadler’s classification of autonomous-dependent help-seeking based on different purposes of help-seeking,and seeks to explore whether different nature of of work stress affects whether employees seek different types of help in work scenarios.At the same time,based on cognitive interaction theory,stressful events stimulate different internal assessment processes and motivational tendencies in individuals,w hich in turn have different effects on employees’ work behavio r.That is,when individuals face stress,there is an intermediate process of stressor-individual cognitive assessment-individual behavioral response;therefore,this study further proposes the concept of work regulation focus,which reflects individual behavioral motivation,to explore the intrinsic process mechanism of changes in individual motivational tendencies when employees face different stressors and thus adopt different types of help-seeking behaviors.In addition,according to resource conservation theory,superior-subordinate relationship,as an important resource in the workplace,also has an impact on the process of action between dual stressors and individual help-seeking behaviors to a certain extent,Therefore,this paper further incorporates leadership member exchange as a boundary condition for the effect of dual stressors on help-seeking behavior throughout the study.In summary,this paper explores how challenge-hindrance stressors affect individuals’ work regulation focus,which in turn affects different types of help-seeking behaviors at work,and the moderating role of leader-member exchange between dual stressors and individuals’ work regulation focus,based on work scenario s in organizations.In this study,a questionnaire was used to survey 415 employees of different age levels,education levels,unit nature and department types.Empirical analysis was used to verify the theoretical model and the corresponding hypotheses pr oposed,and the main findings were as follows :(1)Challenging stressors positively predict employees’ autonomous help-seeking,and hindering stressors positively predict employees’ dependent help-seeking.(2)Challenging stressors can influence employees to adopt autonomous help-seeking by stimulating employees’ facilitation focus,i.e.,employees’ facilitation focus partially mediates the relationship between challenging stressors and their autonomous help-seeking.(3)In the face of challenging stressors,employees who have high quality leadership member exchange relationships are more likely to stimulate their own facilitation focus;in the face of hindering stressors,employees who have high quality leadership member exchange relationships are more likely to weaken their own defense focus;that is,leadership member exchange positively moderates the relationship between challenging stressors and employees’ facilitation focus,and negatively moderates the relationship bet ween hindering stressors and employees’ defense focus.and employees’ defensive focus.(4)A moderated mediation model exists for challenging stressors,facilitation focus,autonomy-based help-seeking,and leader member exchange.It indicates that the high er the quality of leader member exchange,the stronger the positive effect of challenging stressors on employees’ subsequent choice of autonomy-based help-seeking behavior by motivating them to promote focus as a positive behavior.This study explains the internal mechanisms of stressors’ influence on employees’ help-seeking behavior based on cognitive interaction theory and resource conservation theory,and enrich and expand the research on the relationship between challenging-hindering stressors,job regu lation focus,employees’ help-seeking behaviors,and leadership member exchange.The results of the study also bring certain managerial insights from a practical perspective: managers can activate motivation and encourage employees to take initiative by giving them appropriately challenging work demands,while being alert to the negative effects of hindering stressors on employees’ motivation.In addition,good leadership member exchange relationships facilitate employees to activate more facilitative focus and reduce defensive focus in the face of work stress.