Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： With the rapid development of the economy and society, the critical role of the sustainability of altruism is more salient for organizations and their employees to have a better adaptation and greater prosperity. Although altruistic behaviors are very critical to modern organizations, there are several severe deficiencies in the understanding of the nature of altruistic behaviors and the investigation of its formation mechanism in the current altruism literature. First, researchers have long believed that altruism behaviors are static trait-like behaviors, and behavioral differences mainly exist at the interpersonal level. Therefore, most of the previous research in this area focused on the exploration of interpersonal differences in the static value of altruistic behaviors. This deficiency not only keeps previous research from accurately reflecting the characteristics of long-term trajectories of altruistic behavior but may also cover up the possible outliers in the short-term volatility of altruistic behavior, which may lead to the misjudgment that treating the static value of altruistic behavior as the “ideal” altruistic behavior which is stable and sustainable. Second, the existing investigation of altruistic behavior via a dynamic theoretical lens or using dynamic methods generally lacks systematic integration. A key problem is that, although scholars generally believe that altruistic behaviors have features of both long-term trends and short-term volatility, most of the existing studies were based on narrower research frameworks and independently discussed either short-term volatility or long-term trend of altruistic behavior, respectively. If the above two issues remain unsolved, it will lead to our incomplete understanding of the antecedents and forming mechanism of altruistic behavior. Therefore, based on the model of proactive motivation, this paper attempts to construct a theoretical framework of the sustainability of altruistic behaviors, examining the short-term volatility and long-term trends of altruistic behavior simultaneously, and exploring individual and leadership antecedents and forming mechanisms of the sustainability of altruistic behavior. Specifically, using a mixed-method of longitudinal survey and experience sampling method, this study firstly aims to clarify the nature of the sustainability of altruistic behaviors, to uncover the relationship between the short-term volatility and long-term trend of altruistic behavior, and by which to enrich our understanding of the sustainability of altruistic behavior. Secondly, we aim to explore how employee antecedents (belief in a justice world and perceived overqualification) and leader antecedents (ethical leadership and abusive supervision) impact the goal-setting (short-term volatility) and goal-striving (long-term trend) of altruistic behavior via “energized to” path (state gratitude, psychological entitlement, and heroism), “reason to” path (organizational concern and impression management motives), and “can do” path (reciprocal cognition and career adaptability). To sum up, based on the model of proactive motivation, this paper facilitates the literature on altruistic behavior by filling an important research gap regarding the sustainability of altruistic behavior and advancing the knowledge on antecedents and forming mechanisms of the sustainability of altruistic behavior. Moreover, the findings of the current research would also provide practical suggestions for the construction of sustainable reciprocal teams and organizations.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： In the current age, employees are expected to work proactively in workplaces where the organizational structure is flatter and knowledge updating becomes faster than ever. There is a growing consensus on the importance of proactive behaviors from both scholars and practitioners. Proactive behavior, defined as “an anticipatory action that employees take to impact themselves and/or their environments” is thought to be self-initiated, future-oriented and change-oriented. Evidence showed that employees’ proactive behavior is beneficial for both individual performance and organizational competitiveness. Existing research regarding the impacts of proactive behavior mainly focuses on effectiveness of employees’ own proactive behaviors, such as promoting their job satisfaction or organizational commitment. However, no one is an isolated island. In a team or an organizational environment, employees’ attitudes and behaviors will inevitably be affected by their coworkers. Accordingly, this study focused on coworker proactive behavior and discussed its effectiveness in stimulating employees’ job performance. Drawing upon social learning theory, we hypothesized employee autonomous motivation will mediate the relationship between coworker proactive behavior and employee job performance. We further assumed that whether an employee possesses highly proactive personality determines the odds that employees might be motivated by their proactive coworkers. These hypotheses were tested with a field sample of supervisor-employee dyads and an experimental study. For the field study, we conducted a three-wave research design and achieved 209 valid samples from employees and their supervisors in two high-tech enterprises based in Beijing and Hebei provinces. At Time 1, employees assessed their proactive personality and their coworkers’ proactive behavior, and provided their demographic information. At Time 2 (one month after Time 1), employees were asked to report their autonomous motivation. At Time 3 (two months after Time 1), supervisors provided performance evaluation of employees who engaged in the survey. For the experimental study, we recruited 86 full-time workers from a high-tech company located in Hebei province via its internal communication channel. These respondents were separated into two groups randomly, namely coworkers with high proactive behaviors (N = 74) and coworkers with low proactive behaviors (N = 76). First, respondents were asked to finish a measure of their proactive personality and report their demographics. Then, they were given a scenario, one of which depicted a situation where coworkers were proactive (or not proactive). Finally, after reading the scenario, respondents finished a manipulation check of coworker proactive behavior and reported the degree of their autonomous motivation. We applied confirmatory factor analysis, regression analysis and mixed model via SPSS 23 and Mplus 7.4 to analyze the data. Empirical results supported our hypotheses and indicated the following: (1) Coworker proactive behavior had a significant positive effect on employee autonomous motivation; (2) Employee autonomous motivation played a mediating role in the relationship between coworker proactive behavior and employee job performance; (3) Employee proactive personality played a moderating role in the relationship between coworker proactive behavior and employee autonomous motivation, such that coworker proactive behavior was positively related employee autonomous motivation when employees’ proactive personality was high, while such relationship became negative when employees’ proactive personality was low. This study makes several theoretical and managerial implications. First, by investigating the effectiveness of coworker proactive behavior, this study offers a new insight in proactive behavior research by incorporating the influence of coworker into consideration. Second, by examining the mediating role of employee autonomous motivation, this study enhances our understanding of how coworker proactive behavior translates into employee job performance. Third, by exploring the contingent role of employee proactive personality, this study shows the boundary condition under which employees are more likely to be motivated by their proactive coworkers.
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2022-04-07
Abstract：
With the rapid development of the economy and society, the critical role of the sustainability of altruism is more salient for organizations and their employees to have a better adaptation and greater prosperity. Although recent studies have found that altruistic behavior is dynamic in nature, there are severe deficiencies in theoretical frameworks and methods of these studies. They were unable to obtain a comprehensive picture of the dynamic sustainability of altruistic behavior, not to mention its antecedents and consequences. Therefore, the current study aims to explore the antecedents of sustainability of altruistic behavior and its forming mechanism. By doing so, the current research could facilitate our understanding of the nature of altruism and guide the practice of constructing sustainable mutually beneficial teams and organizations.
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