Research shows that when employees receive help from their coworkers, they often “pay it forward” by doing something beneficial to their organization in turn. In this study, we propose a dual-process model linking interpersonal helping to employee organizational citizenship behavior directed at the organization (OCBO). In particular, we hypothesize that receiving reactive help from coworkers (i.e., help in response to a beneficiary’s request) elicits a cognitive process in which employees feel obligated to perform OCBO. Meanwhile, receiving proactive help from coworkers (i.e., help without a beneficiary’s request) elicits an affective process in which employees feel happy (i.e., more positive affect) to engage in OCBO. Using a scenario experiment (N = 231) and a daily diary study (N = 111, total observations = 854), we found results that supported for our hypotheses. Our findings suggest that receiving different types of help (reactive vs. proactive) may invoke different psychological processes, although they both promote employee OCBO. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings were discussed.

研究表明，当员工从同事那里得到帮助时，他们通常会依次做一些对组织有益的事情来“向前支付”。在这项研究中，我们提出了一个双过程模型，将人际帮助与针对组织的员工组织公民行为（OCBO）联系起来。特别是，我们假设从同事那里得到反应性帮助（即响应受益人请求的帮助）会引发一个认知过程，在这个过程中，员工感到有义务执行 OCBO。同时，从同事那里获得积极的帮助（即，在没有受益人要求的情况下提供帮助）会引发一个情感过程，在这个过程中，员工对参与 OCBO 感到高兴（即，更积极的情感）。使用情景实验 ( N  = 231) 和每日日记研究 ( N = 111，总观察值 = 854），我们发现结果支持我们的假设。我们的研究结果表明，接受不同类型的帮助（被动与主动）可能会引发不同的心理过程，尽管它们都会促进员工 OCBO。讨论了这些发现的理论和实践意义。