Does being helped hurt or benefit employees?: comparing beneficial and harmful responses to received help

Despite the positive outcomes that often come from helping, the social support, prosocial behavior, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and helping literatures have begun to expose the potential harmful outcomes of receiving help. Despite these insights, the reasons underlying the harmful effects of receiving help remain unclear. This study explores this line of inquiry by examining the processes employees undergo when they react to receiving help from coworkers. Drawing from self-determination theory, I propose that received help can result in either positive or negative performance outcomes because it influences various psychological need states of employees. Specifically, I theorize that whether employees experience enhanced or decreased levels of task performance and OCB will be a result of whether employees view help as an enhancement to their sense of belonging, efficiency, or skills, or as a threat to their self-esteem. I will test the hypothesized model using multiple daily measurements completed by employees over a 10-day period.