Antecedents and Performance Consequences of Helping Behavior in Work Groups

Abstract

Our study examines two models of helping behavior in work groups. Our first model is a cross-level model and predicts that group-level cohesion, cooperative norms, and task conflict are related to individual helping behavior (peer-rated). Results support our hypotheses and further demonstrate that of the three group characteristics, cooperative norms have the strongest relationship with individual helping behavior. Our second model is a group-level model and examines the relationships among configural conceptualizations of group-level helping and group performance in conjunctive tasks. Results demonstrate that the least and the most helpful members in the group influence group performance in interesting ways. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for practice and future research.