How helping behaviours at work stimulate innovation in the organization: evidence from a moderated-mediation model

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study explores the question of whether and how seeking and giving help in a favourable work environment relate to innovation performance at the organisational level. Empirical findings based on 360 employees from four construction sites under a large Chinese multinational organisation showed that help seeking predicted innovation and mediated the relationship between relationship quality and organisation’s innovation performance. Moreover, a higher level of help giving not only improves innovation directly, but also strengthens the positive relationship between help seeking and innovation performance. We also estimated an integrated model to reveal that help giving moderates the mediated relationship between relationship quality and innovation through help seeking channel. This research links relational perspective with creative cognition and componential theory of creativity to clarify how the interaction of help seeking and help giving leads to innovation, and thus contributes to the existing literature by clarifying whether and under what conditions help seeking can be helpful to promote innovation in an organisation. Further theoretical and practical implications along with future research directions are also discussed.