Getting Help by Giving Help? Helping Motive and Asymmetric Expectations of Help Giving and Receiving

Abstract

A fundamental assumption underlying social exchanges in organizations is that help given is likely to be reciprocated over the long term by recipients. Yet, exchanges in organizations may often be asymmetric as recipients may not always reciprocate in equal measure and help givers may not always seek assistance from those they have helped in the past. Our paper examines these asymmetries in employee expectations of giving and receiving help. We propose that help givers’ motives for helping (i.e., instrumentality motive and prosocial motive) moderate the relationship between help giving and reciprocating. We further investigate whether helping motives influence givers’ (in)accurate recognition of who is more likely to provide help upon request. Analyzing 1640 observations of dyadic helping from 41 managerial employees in a business unit, we found that help recipients’ willingness to reciprocate is weaker when help givers are higher on instrumentality motives. Further, as help givers’ prosocial motive increases, the positive relationship between providing help to a focal person and future willingness to seek help from that person is weaker. That is, prosocial helpers care less about the return that help giving can bring. Finally, we found that instrumental givers overestimate their coworkers’ willingness to help while prosocial givers were more accurate in gauging coworkers’ willingness to accede to a request for help.