Asking How to Fish vs. Asking for Fish: An Investigation of Different Help-Seeking Behaviors

Abstract

In the modern workplace, it is virtually impossible to succeed without seeking any help from others. Despite its widely recognized importance, help-seeking has rarely been explored in the organization literature. Specifically, it is unclear from the existing literature whether and how various work-related demands drive employees’ help-seeking and whether seeking help always benefits employees in need. Our research model integrates the challenge-hindrance stressor framework and the dual-type view of help-seeking (i.e., autonomous and dependent help-seeking) to test the situational and structural workplace antecedents that determine different types of help-seeking, and examine their differential intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences that eventually impact job performance. Evidence from a time-lagged, multi-sourced, and team-based field study showed that challenge stressors at work increased employees’ autonomous help-seeking while hindrance stressors increased dependent help-seeking. Moreover, when employees occupied more central positions in their team workflow network, the effect of hindrance stressors on dependent help-seeking became stronger. Finally, autonomous help-seekers benefited from more positive job performance ratings from team supervisors through increased team-based self-esteem, whereas dependent help-seeking hurt help-seekers’ job performance via decreasing their perceived competence by teammates. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.