Prior explanations for the observed result that employee cooperation demonstrates both positive and negative relationships with organizational performance often require psychological reactions or cognitions. We use an agent-based model to assume away these effects and demonstrate a possible alternative relying on just three, simple features. These include (1) limits to an employee’s ability to help a colleague while also performing his or her own task, (2) the distribution of performance across the collective, and (3) the method of aggregating individual to organizational performance. Our model offers an alternative explanation to an empirical result, simple and sufficient conditions for producing a phenomenon, implications for theory on the nature of employee helping, and practical advice to evaluate the merits of helping interventions.

对于观察到的结果的先前解释是，员工合作关系显示与组织绩效的积极和消极关系通常需要心理反应或认知。我们使用基于代理的模型来假设这些影响，并演示仅依靠三个简单功能的可能替代方案。其中包括（1）限制员工在帮助同事执行自己的任务的同时提供帮助的能力，（2）绩效在整个集体中的分配以及（3）将个人与组织绩效汇总的方法。我们的模型为经验结果，产生现象的简单和充分条件，对员工帮助性质的理论含义以及评估帮助干预措施的实用建议提供了替代解释。