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The argument in this study is that employees differ in their motives in helping their organizations when they know that they may not be paid back for their efforts. This paper aims to examine whether these motives will lead to greater extra-role contribution in an organization.

The data of 124 pairs of employee in China have been used to develop and test the measurement of an “altruistic helping of organization” (AHO) in a pilot sample. In addition, AHO had been then tested as a motive for organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) using data collected from 245 pairs of employees in China.

Data from 124 pairs of employees in China have been used to develop and test the measurement of “altruistic helping of organization” in a pilot sample. The authors have proposed and validated whether procedural justice and conscientiousness predict for a new OCB motive – AHO, which explains for an incremental predictive power over the existing motives of OCB, namely, instrumentality, social exchange with the organization, organizational concern, prosocial values and impression management, on a data collected from 245 pairs of employees in China.

This is a cross-sectional study. In addition, the authors have only taken in samples in China, which may not be generalizable to other context.

Practitioners can devote resources to encourage employees to help without any consideration of returns. In addition, the fairness perception of organizational practices – procedural justice and individual characteristics – are necessary to induce AHO and other OCB motives.

This research provides that the social implication of arousing the basic underpinning of driving OCB is altruistic motive and not egoistic. This finding helps to stimulate individuals to have more helping behaviors towards the organization.

This study provides solid evidence for the suggestion by the original proponents of OCB that the distinction between rewarded and unrewarded criterion is blurred in OCB literature. Our findings suggest that altruistic helping does exist and that this explains for a significant proportion of extra-role behavior.

This paper aims to build a moderate mediation model to delineate when and how employee with perceived overqualification will exert extra effort and therefore engage in more altruistic helping behavior.

The research hypotheses were empirically tested using multitime and multisource survey data. Given the nested nature of data (i.e. 52 immediate supervisors rated 143 subordinates), multilevel structural equation modeling analyses within Mplus were conducted to test the proposed model.

The results support the proposed moderated mediation effect and indicate that perceived overqualification is positively related to extra effort on a condition that there is either strong desire for higher workplace status or more developmental job opportunities. The extra effort will subsequently lead to more altruistic helping behavior.

Based on the findings of this paper, human resource managers should consider the job applicant’s desire for workplace status and the organizational context the employer can provide when hiring overqualified employees. Second, organizations should carefully conduct job design to improve overqualified employees’ on-the-job developmental experiences. Third, training programs should be conducted to help satisfy needs and improve workplace status of overqualified employees, so that they can exert extra job effort and engage in pro-organizational behaviors.

Drawing on motivation–opportunity–ability theory, this paper extends the limited understanding of important boundary conditions under which perceived overqualification can be beneficial. The findings add to the knowledge on extant literature by identifying altruistic helping behavior as a new outcome of perceived overqualification.

Good soldiers are people who engage in citizenship behaviors “to do good” instead of “to look good”. The purpose of this article is to explore the motivations behind and the specific characteristics of behaviours of the good soldiers in the context of work using social exchange theory (SET) as a theoretical framework.

A total of 47 dyadic interviews with 94 individuals from three organisations where good soldiers are most likely to be observed were conducted.

Data analysis revealed that good soldiers are driven by concern for others and generalised reciprocity, but not by expectations of self-benefits. Their actions were further found to be discretionary, reactive and proactive and associated with different levels of self-sacrifice.

The findings of this study point human resources (HR) practitioners' attention towards qualitatively unique acts of good soldiers. An assumption is made that awareness of such behaviours can help organisations to stimulate individual self-motivation, so that the quality of helping behaviours could be improved.

Arguing for a fundamental rethink of the psychological foundations underpinning helpful behaviours, this paper departs from predominantly individualistic view on work motivation and reinforces the other-oriented, altruistic dimension of SET. In doing so, it addresses the lack of conceptual and theoretical clarity on differently motivated helping and extends the existing limited research evidence in this area. It further addresses a need for a comprehensive understanding of other-oriented behaviours and accounts for vital – yet neglected – features of such acts.

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence of the relationship between altruistic leader behavior and radical innovation, using organizational learning as an explanatory variable.

To confirm the hypotheses, structural equations were used on a data set from a survey carried out on Spanish firms with recognized excellence in human resources management.

The study empirically validates the conceptual model. Results suggest that organizational learning capability fully mediates the relationship between altruistic leader behavior and radical innovation.

The database used in the study is very heterogeneous. Future research might delimit the database by organization size or sector.

Results suggest ideas for organizations that want to implement a working environment that fosters innovation performance in order to achieve radical innovations.

This is one of the few studies to concentrate on altruistic leader behaviors as such. This paper contributes to understanding how altruistic leader behavior affects radical innovation and the key role played by organizational learning capability.

The purpose of this work is to investigate the relationship between human resources management practices (HRMP) and altruistic helping behaviors (HB) with knowledge sharing behavior (KSB) following a theoretical rationale supported by the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Social Exchange Theory.

The study explores linear and non-linear relationships between the variables to further understand knowledge sharing in the context of prosocial behaviors. The study sample gathers data from 130 employees coming from service sector companies operating in Portugal. The authors analyze the linear relationship following a structural equation model (SEM) approach using a partial least squares (PLS) analysis. Then, the authors conduct a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze non-linear relationships and provide insight over circumstances where the presence and absence of knowledge sharing behavior is achieved.

Quantitative findings show that HRMP positively impacts KSB outcomes. Similarly, HB also positively impacts KSB. Qualitative findings show a single configuration leading to the presence of KSB, corroborating the quantitative results. On the other hand, findings offer multiple alternative configurations leading to the absence of KSB.

Few studies explore the complex combination between HRMP and individual HB impacting knowledge sharing, with lesser studies discussing circumstances leading to the absence of KSB. We explore a) the linear influence of HB and HRMP and, b) their asymmetric combined influence along with employee demographics to better understand KSB complexity – ensuring a conceptual and managerial contribution driving future work and practices.

Drawing on the social exchange perspective, the authors explore the roles of satisfaction over material rewards, perceived organizational politics and career ambition in the relationship between harmonious workplace climate and employee altruistic behavior in the context of British public sector.

The authors employed SPSS software to estimate ordinary least squares models to test their hypotheses by analyzing data from 161 supervisor–employee dyads from a UK local government.

Satisfaction over material rewards mediates the relationship between harmonious workplace climate and employee altruistic behavior. Both perceived organizational politics and career ambition moderate the mediated effect of harmonious workplace climate on employee altruistic behavior via satisfaction over material rewards.

This study advances the social exchange theory by showing that the norm of reciprocity (e.g. harmonious workplace climate in this study) may not be the only key driver of exchange for altruistic behavior among public sector workers. Still, it can be mediated by satisfaction with pay and promotion opportunities and may be conditional upon individuals' career ambition or their perceptions of organizational politics.

There is general agreement on the importance of innovation to improve business performance and competitiveness. In recent years, many studies have sought to unravel what conditions are conducive to innovation. Following this trend, the present study seeks to broaden the understanding of the antecedents of radical innovation. To this end, and drawing on positive organizational psychology, the study focuses on the role of leaders and the importance of improving working conditions within companies, favoring innovation in more respectful and prosocial organizations.

The study provides, through structural equations, empirical evidence of the relationship between leader's forgiveness and radical innovation, using altruism as an explanatory variable. The study was conducted in a population of 11,594 Spanish companies. A sample frame of 554 questionnaires from 277 different firms was obtained.

Results confirm the hypotheses proposed in the model. Forgiveness, analyzed as a leader behavior, promotes altruism within companies and, in turn, radical innovation.

This is one of the few empirical studies that analyzes the consequences of leader's forgiveness in the organizational context.

Frontline employees (FLEs) play a pivotal role in service delivery. Beyond their expected in-role behaviors, FLEs often have to perform extra-role behaviors such as providing additional help to customers. The purpose of this study is to investigate how customers’ power distance belief (PDB) influences their perceptions of FLEs’ warmth and competence when FLEs perform extra-role helping behaviors.

Four experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. The first three experiments used a one factor two-level (PDB: low vs high) between-participants design. The fourth one used a 2 (PDB: low vs high) × 2 (firm reputation: low vs high) between-participants design.

The results indicate that, compared to high-PDB customers, low-PDB customers perceive greater warmth in FLEs’ extra-role helping behaviors but no significant difference in FLEs’ perceived competence. Importantly, these effects are mediated by customer gratitude. Moreover, these effects are moderated by firm reputation such that customers’ perceptions of FLEs’ warmth and competence are both enhanced when the firm has a favorable reputation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first to identify the differential effects of PDB on customer perceptions of FLEs’ warmth and competence in the context of FLEs’ extra-role helping behaviors and to reveal the mediating role of gratitude. These findings contribute to the literatures on FLEs’ extra-role behaviors and social perceptions of both warmth and competence.

This paper aims to, prompted by a recent paradigm shift in the organizational sciences, to explore some antecedents of organizational learning capability, focusing on altruism and relationship conflict.

To test the hypotheses, the structural equation technique was applied to data from a survey of Spanish firms with recognized excellence in human resource management.

The results of this research show that, in these firms, altruism facilitates learning capacity both directly and indirectly (through relationship conflict). Relationship conflict is posited as a mediating variable that explains how altruism improves organizational learning.

The limitations of this study include excessive heterogeneity of the sample size and industrial sector and the type of firm included in the sample. Due to the potential benefits that altruism seems to have for organizations, future research could continue to investigate the consequences of altruism in organizations.

Altruism provides organizations with a value that can facilitate organizational learning capability not only directly, but also by reducing relationship conflict. Altruism may offer organizations a tool they can use to improve their success in dealing with the challenges of today’s uncertain and constantly changing economic environment.

This study proposes a common altruistic approach that is far removed from traditional self-interested models in organizational literature. This study identifies altruism and relationship conflict as antecedents of organizational learning capability.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of social visibility (private vs public), purchase motivation (intrinsic vs extrinsic vs altruistic) and external reference price (ERP) (absent vs present) on consumers’ pricing decisions in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) context.

Two empirical studies with a fitness gym as the research setting were used to test all the hypotheses; first, a lab experiment with undergraduate student participants and, the second, an online experiment with a consumer panel.

Both studies show that consumers allocate a higher share (RATIO) of their internal reference prices (IRPs) to the prices to be paid (PTP) in PWYW context, in private under intrinsic purchase motivation and in public under extrinsic or altruistic motivation and this effect is more pronounced in the absence of ERP.

Future research may validate and extend the findings of this paper with other product or service categories, different manipulations for the key variables, other research methods such as field experiments and expand our model by including other relevant variables.

The findings of this paper will help managers understand how individual customers’ purchase motivation and the social visibility in the PWYW setting affect their pricing decisions and how providing external pricing cues may moderate these effects.

Prior research on PWYW shows mixed findings about the direct effects of many variables on consumers’ pricing decisions, but it ignores the differences in consumers’ purchase motivations and offers mixed evidence about the influence of social visibility and ERPs on payment decisions. The authors address all these gaps in this paper.