ABSTRACT

Past research has documented mixed findings about whether employees help abused co-workers: some studies found that employees are less likely to help abused co-workers, whereas others found the opposite. To explain these inconsistent findings, we consider the role of employee’s own experiences with abusive supervision as a boundary condition. We propose competing hypotheses based on two frameworks. According to the altruistically motivated view of helping, employees help others because they empathize with others’ negative situation. Thus, employees who have experienced abuse themselves would be better able to empathize with their abused co-workers, and thus help these co-workers more. By contrast, according to the egoistically motivated view of helping, employees help others because they want to reduce experienced negative emotions. Thus, employees who have experienced abuse themselves would feel less guilt and shame upon seeing their co-workers being abused, which in turn reduces their help towards abused co-workers as they do not need to relieve negative emotions (i.e., guilt and shame). Two experiments and a multi-wave, multi-source field study support the altruistically motivated view of helping. Our research advances the field’s understanding of how organizations can prevent the spiral of destructive behaviour in the workplace.

摘要

过去的研究记录了关于员工是否帮助受虐待同事的不同结果：一些研究发现员工不太可能帮助受虐待的同事，而其他研究则发现相反的情况。为了解释这些不一致的发现，我们将员工自己的虐待监督经历作为边界条件。我们提出基于两个框架的竞争假设。根据利他动机的帮助观，员工帮助他人是因为他们同情他人的负面处境。因此，自己经历过虐待的员工能够更好地同情受虐待的同事，从而更多地帮助这些同事。相比之下，根据利己动机的帮助观，员工帮助他人是因为他们想减少所经历的负面情绪。因此，自己经历过虐待的员工在看到同事被虐待时会感到更少的内疚和羞耻，这反过来又减少了他们对受虐待同事的帮助，因为他们不需要缓解负面情绪（即内疚和羞耻）。两项实验和一项多波、多源实地研究支持了利他动机的帮助观点。我们的研究增进了该领域对组织如何防止工作场所破坏性行为螺旋式上升的理解。多源实地研究支持利他动机的帮助观点。我们的研究增进了该领域对组织如何防止工作场所破坏性行为螺旋式上升的理解。多源实地研究支持利他动机的帮助观点。我们的研究增进了该领域对组织如何防止工作场所破坏性行为螺旋式上升的理解。