Helping and proactive extra-role behaviors: The influence of motives, goal orientation, and social context

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Abstract

We explore how two motivational orientations (communion and status striving) influence three extra-role organizational behaviors: proactive engagement, providing help, and seeking help. We propose and confirm intervening mechanisms, in the form of (a) goal orientations and (b) attitudes toward coworkers. Proactive behaviors are predicted by status striving, through the intervening mechanisms of both learning and performance proving goal orientations. Providing help is, in turn, motivated by communion striving, and the relationship is mediated by goal orientations (learning and performance avoiding) and by satisfaction with and commitment to coworkers. Finally, seeking help is a function of communion striving, which influences the outcome through learning goal orientation and satisfaction with and confidence in coworkers.

Introduction

Individual behavior in organizations is motivated and goal-directed. Motivational constructs are organized hierarchically, based on their level of abstraction (DeShon & Gillespie, 2005). Motives are more abstract and broad, goals are less abstract and specific, and satisfy higher-order motives. This conceptualization of hierarchically nested motives and goals is common in psychology and organizational behavior. Communion and agency are “two fundamental modalities in the existence of living forms” (Bakan, 1966, p. 14), with a communal motive oriented toward connecting with others, and agentic motive focused on striving for power and control over others. Personality researchers have, in turn, recognized the prevalence of a cooperative and agentic orientation in human behavior evident in employees approaching performance from either a communion striving or a status striving perspective. Researchers have, thus, started to examine relationships between these motivational orientations and various distal work outcomes, such as performance (e.g., Barrick, Stewart, & Piotrowski, 2002).

Although there has been renewed interest in how motives connect to goals and behaviors in conceptual (DeShon & Gillespie, 2005) and empirical studies (Barrick et al., 2002), there is surprisingly little work on (a) connecting goals with outcomes other than performance, (b) explicating possible intervening mechanisms between motives and behaviors, and (c) accounting for the importance of the work social context, represented by one’s coworkers. Given the importance of motivational orientations for individuals in organizational contexts, we extend existing research by exploring the influence of motivation orientations on several types of extra-role behaviors (proactive, providing help, and seeking help). We also explore mediating mechanisms (goal orientations and perceptions of the social context) relating distal motivation orientations to behavioral outcomes.

Section snippets

Theoretical framework

Interpersonal motives and goals present many patterns, organized along two primary: dimensions: communal (or affiliative) and agentic (Hogan, 1996, Wiggins, 1979). Communal motives compel people to connect with others, whereas agentic ones drive them to exert interpersonal influence. Baumeister and Leary (1995) outline the evidence for affiliation as a fundamental motive, while Bandura (2001) identifies the agentic need for personal control over the environment as a basic aspect of living. In a

Sample and procedure

We conducted the study in a work organization situated in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, using self-report questionnaires, obtained from 118 employees working in line and administrative positions. Of the participants, 78% were men, 74% had at least some college education, and their tenure with the company was less than four years (M = 3.77, SD = 2.01).

Measures

We used previously published scales, anchored in 7-point Likert-type dimensions (from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree).

Results

Descriptive statistics, correlations and reliabilities are provided in Table 1. We tested our hypotheses using multiple regression analyses. As predicted by our first hypothesis, both providing help and seeking help were positively predicted by communion striving (H1a, βˆ=.22, p < .10 and H1b, βˆ=.27, p < .05) rather than by status striving (βˆ=.09, ns, and βˆ=.11, ns). Similarly, proactive behaviors were positively predicted by status striving (H1c, βˆ=.26, p < .05) rather than by communion striving

Discussion

Our purpose was to explore the relationship between motivation orientations (status striving and communion striving) and types of work behaviors that are challenging-promotive (proactive behaviors), and affiliative-promotive (providing help and seeking help). Importantly, we proposed and tested mediators of these relationships, in the form of goal orientations and attitudes toward other coworkers. In testing this model, we provide preliminary support for theoretical frameworks seeking to link

Acknowledgements

A prior version of the paper was presented at the 22nd Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology (SIOP) in the symposium Chiaburu, D.S., & Marinova, S.V. (Chairs). Goal orientation research across levels: the role of motives and context, April 27–29, 2007, New York, NY.

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