The effect of cooperative organizational culture and gender on helping behavior

Abstract

One vital job behavior that hospitality organizations should support is helping behavior, as it represents employees’ proactive and reactive responses to the needs of their colleagues (Hwang et al., 2021) and plays a critical role in various service aspects (e.g., Zou et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2018; Özduran and Tanova, 2017). However, there is a paucity of research on how to support employees to engage in helping behavior. Thus, the aim of this study is to increase the understanding of how an employee’s living a calling and cooperative organizational culture impact their workplace well-being, and ultimately their helping behavior toward coworkers. The sample was collected from US hospitality employees using an MTurk panel. Partial Least Squares structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis were used to explain the proposed model. Results revealed that living a calling and cooperative organizational culture positively influenced both workplace well-being and helping behavior, respectively, and workplace well-being positively influenced helping behavior. Additionally, cooperative organizational culture and workplace well-being were significant mediators between living a calling and helping behavior. Cooperative organizational culture was vital for female employees to engage in helping behavior, while the impact of workplace well-being on helping behavior was more important for male employees. This study advances the understanding of employee’s helping behavior by unveiling new motivators (i.e., living a calling, cooperative organization culture, workplace well-being) and extends the understanding of organizational support theory and social identity theory. The study also demonstrates that gender has a significant influence on helping behaviors. Hospitality managers will benefit from this research by understanding the importance of employee’s social identifications and the necessary supportive workplace environment to elevate employee’s well-being and their helping behavior toward coworkers, a critical aspect to increase competitive advantage for organizational success.