Threatened but Involved: Key Conditions for Stimulating Employee Helping Behavior

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between employees’ job involvement and helping behavior directed toward coworkers, as well as how this relationship might be augmented when employees encounter adversity, whether due to malicious leadership (abusive supervision) or threats to their physical integrity (workplace hazards, fear of terrorism). Drawing on a two-wave survey research design that collected data from employees and their supervisors in Pakistan, the results reveal that job involvement increases the likelihood that employees go out of their way to help their coworkers, and this relationship is strongest when they have to deal with the hardships of malicious leadership or threats to their physical safety. For organizations, these findings indicate that employees perceive their own allocation of positive work energy, derived from their job involvement, to helping behaviors that assist other members as particularly useful when they also experience significant adversity, inside or outside the workplace.