Antecedents and Outcomes of Helping Norm Level and Strength

摘要

Are workgroups with variability on demographic characteristics more or less prone to develop strong helping norms? I am interested in the relationships among workgroup diversity (in gender, tenure, and age), helping norm levels, helping norm strength, and various work-related attitudes. Helping norm level is defined as the mean rating for helping in a workgroup. Helping norm strength is the amount of variation in individual responses about a workgroup's helping. The purpose of this study is three-fold: examining the relationships between workgroup demographic diversity and helping norm level/strength, the effects of helping norm level on individual outcomes (work-related attitudes), and the moderating effect of helping norm strength on the relationships between helping norm levels and individual outcomes.;The present study utilized an archival dataset of grocery store employees, where workgroups are defined by a department (deli, floral, etc.) within a specific store location. Participants were randomly chosen to receive the survey invitation. They were over 18 years of age, and they responded to the online survey on company time.;I examined the relationships among demographic group diversity, helping norm level, helping norm strength, and individual outcomes using multilevel modeling. I correlated group demographic diversity with helping norm strength; none of these three relationships were significant. Next, I tested the cross-level direct effects of group helping norm level on individual-level work-related attitude outcomes; all individual outcomes (job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, organizational trust, and turnover intention) were nonsignificant. Finally, I examined whether group helping norm strength moderated the crosslevel direct effects of group helping norm level on the aforementioned individual-level outcomes. Each of these moderations was found to be non-significant.;Follow-up studies, based on these results, may include other conceptualizations of demographic diversity, measuring the interdependence of job functions within the team, a consideration of the length of time a team has been intact on conflict and cohesion, and a distinction between surface- and deep-level diversity on helping.