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The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical model that describes when helping is considered helping from the recipient’s point of view.

The theoretical model was conceptually developed by drawing upon attribution theory, self-consistency theory and social cognitive theory, as well as relevant literature.

The authors propose that receiving help encompasses three sequential stages: the pre-help-receiving stage, the help-receiving stage and the post-help-receiving stage. Additionally, the authors theorize that the more other-oriented helping motives are attributed by the recipient, the more likely the recipient views the helper’s help as helping, that the more self-esteem preserving behaviors along with helping actions the recipient receives from the helper, the more likely the recipient views the helper’s help as helping and that the more gaps between actual and desired level of task performance are closed by the helper’s help, the more likely the recipient views the helper’s help as helping.

From a theoretical standpoint, this paper offers a process approach that may guide future research on help receiving in organizations.

It is recognized that employees’ helping and voice behaviors are dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior used by supervisors to evaluate their job performance. However, existing empirical studies of these relationships have shown inconsistent findings. From the perspective of attributional theory, the purpose of this paper is to explain when subordinates’ helping and voice behaviors are more positively related to job performance by considering supervisor-attributed prosocial and impression management motives.

Using a sample of 200 supervisors in South Korea, the authors tested the hypotheses with hierarchical multiple regression analyses.

Results indicate that the positive effects of helping and voice behaviors on job performance were stronger when supervisors attributed such behaviors as driven less by impression management motives related to self-interest. However, contrary to the expectations, the positive influences of helping and voice behaviors on job performance were stronger when supervisors perceived low prosocial motives.

Findings suggest that supervisors need to avoid making the wrong attributions with regard to their subordinates’ helping and voice behaviors during the evaluation process. In addition, subordinates need to have clear motives and demonstrate consistent behavioral stances when engaging in such behaviors.

Using social information theory and attribution theory, this study contributes to explain when helping and voice behaviors improve evaluations of employees’ job performances by considering supervisor-attributed motives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the agreement between supervisors and subordinates concerning the motives of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and how the supervisors’ attributions affect their OCB ratings.

With the permission of seven large organizations in Macau, the authors conducted a survey of 500 employee-supervisor-co-worker triads. The final sample stood at 176 such triads with three hypotheses tested.

First, supervisors are more accurate when judging altruistic motives of subordinates’ OCB than with egoistic motives. Second, supervisor attribution of subordinates’ altruistic motives positively affects the supervisors’ OCB ratings. Third, employees who are motivated by altruistic motives perform more OCB actions those egoistically motivated.

The study adds to knowledge of how supervisor attribution of subordinates’ OCB motives affects their evaluation of the subordinates. It also provides evidence about the effect of OCB motives on the actual engagement in OCB. Findings of this study support the work of Organ et al. regarding the motives behind OCB and strengthen the role of attribution theory in studying OCB.

Taking attribution theory as an overarching framework, the study aims to examine how employees attribute and respond to a colleague's approach crafting.

Two complementary studies, including a scenario experiment (Study 1; N = 114) and an online survey (Study 2; N = 220), were conducted to test the hypothesized model.

Study 1 found support for the attribution of a prosocial motive to approach crafting, which in turn led to more social support and less social undermining among observers. This mediation was stronger when the job crafter was perceived as less other-oriented. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 and further showed that when observers attributed both high impression management and prosocial motives to approach crafting, the positive relationship between their prosocial motive attribution and social support for the job crafter got weakened, while the negative relationship between their prosocial motive attribution and social undermining of the job crafter was strengthened.

The findings demonstrate that approach crafting gives rise to specific attributions and reactions toward the job crafter, which enrich the understanding of the social consequences of job crafting in the workplace.

Negative word-of-mouth has a variety of negative effects on companies. Thus, how consumers process and evaluate negative word-of-mouth is an important issue for companies. This research aims to investigate the effect of emotional intensity of negative word-of-mouth on consumers' perceived helpfulness.

The research model was developed based on attribution theory. A four-study approach involving two field experiments and two online experiments was employed to examine the proposed hypotheses.

The results show that the emotional intensity of negative word-of-mouth negatively affects altruistic motive attributions, while altruistic motive attributions positively affect perceived helpfulness and plays a mediating role in the relationship between the emotional intensity of negative word-of-mouth and perceived helpfulness. Consumers' self-construal moderates the effects of emotional intensity of negative word-of-mouth on altruistic motive attributions and perceived helpfulness, with the negative effects of emotional intensity of negative word-of-mouth on altruistic motive attributions and perceived helpfulness being weaker for consumers with high interdependent self-construal than for those with high independent self-construal.

The findings not only have a significant theoretical contribution, deepening the understanding of the effects of negative word-of-mouth but also have useful implications for practitioners to improve the management of negative word-of-mouth.

Justice research has established that voice enhances procedural justice—a phenomenon known as the ‘voice effect’—through both instrumental and non‐instrumental mechanisms. However, limited research attention has been devoted to the underlying motivational bases for the operation of one or the other explanatory mechanism in a given situation. We report the findings of two laboratory studies examining situational, motivational, and attributional underpinnings for the voice effect. We found that motivation to voice varied with characteristics of the authority to whom a grievance is directed. In both studies, an interaction revealed that non‐instrumental motivation for voice is more important when instrumental motivation is lacking or unavailable. In Study 2, we introduce the role of social attributions into research on the voice effect, finding that grievants' judgments about their objectives in using voice vary with the attributions they make about the motives behind the authority's actions. We discuss implications of our findings for both theory and practice.

Drawing upon conservation of resources (COR) and attribution theories, prior research in helping behavior has mainly focused on an independent view of the helper’s personal resources. This perspective, however, falls short of capturing the comparative nature of personal resources and attributions in a helping context. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to develop a theoretical model that helps predict employees’ decisions to help or not to help.

A theoretical model was developed by integrating social comparison, COR and attribution theories.

The theoretical model proposes the following. First, when employees perceive that they have fewer personal resources than a coworker who needs help, they are less likely to help. Second, when employees perceive that they have more personal resources than a coworker who needs help, they make causal attributions as to why the coworker failed to deploy personal resources. Finally, when employees have more personal resources than a coworker who needs help, they are more likely to help if they make situational, unstable and uncontrollable attributions to the coworker’s failure to deploy personal resources.

This paper extends the literature by offering a theoretical model that emphasizes comparisons and attributions of personal resources in a helping context. Additionally, this paper offers several managerial implications that help managers manage helping behavior effectively.

Cause-related marketing (CRM) is an increasing popular marketing strategy in which a firm donates a specific amount to a designed cause when customers engage in revenue-providing exchanges. Based on balance and attribution theory, this paper aims to explore the interaction effect of donation amount and ad orientation, two important factors of formulation and communication of CRM, respectively, on consumer response and the mediating effect of consumers’ perceived company motives.

Two 2 (donation amount: small vs large) × 2 (ad orientation: product- vs cause-oriented) between-subjects experimental studies were conducted in marketing course with 284 and 157 Chinese undergraduate students participating in Studies 1 and 2, respectively. ANOVA and regression were used to test the hypotheses.

Study 1 shows the significant interaction effects of donation amount and ad orientation on consumers’ response. When CRM has a large donation amount, cause-oriented (vs product-oriented) ad leads to consumers’ more positive company attitude and higher purchase intention. The opposite is true for the small donation amount condition. Study 2 shows that the above interaction effect is mediated by consumer-attributed company motives. The attributed motive of sincerely caring about social cause has significant positive effect on consumer response, whereas the attributed motive of increasing sales or improving corporate image does not.

This paper contributes to the literature by empirically examining the interaction effect of donation amount and ad orientation on consumer-inferred motives and behavioral response. The findings are valuable because they indicate the importance of matching between factors at formulation and communication stage. In addition, this paper found that consumers are “tolerant” of companies using CRM to promote product sales and improve brand image.

This study develops a conceptual framework to examine (1) whether global retailers' CSR actions in the form of in-kind charitable contribution affect consumers' attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives, (2) whether consumers' attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives affects brand-self connection and (3) whether the cultural factors of self-transcendence and conservation moderate the relationship between consumers' attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives and brand-self connection.

Data are collected from two culturally diverse countries, the US and China, each of which managed the pandemic in different ways. Before hypothesis testing, the invariance of measures is established. To measure differences between the groups, a multi-group analysis is conducted.

Global retailers' in-kind charitable contribution is a significant drivers of consumers' attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives, and attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives has a positive effect on consumer brand-self connection. Both of the cultural values, self-transcendence and conservation, moderate the relationship between attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives and brand-self connection. Self-transcendence is a strong moderator in China, whereas conservation moderates strongly in the US. All of the relationships differ significantly between the groups (US versus China).

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate empirically the role of in-kind charitable contribution in creating an attribution of CSR to intrinsic motives that eventually leads to strong brand-self connection in the COVID-19 context. The study provides novel insights into how consumer behavior differs across two significantly different cultures with regard to COVID-19-related CSR. The findings help international marketers manage uncertainties and crisis and to design their CSR-based marketing programs and develop positioning strategies across cultures.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the public views two corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives practiced by a Major League Baseball (MLB) team. This study examined the role of perceived fit between an MLB team and its two CSR initiatives in shaping consumers’ intentions to support the team’s CSR efforts.

A between-subjects experiment (n=207) was conducted using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to examine the impact of CSR fit on consumers’ patronage intentions.

The results of this study showed that consumers’ perceived fit between sports teams and their CSR has a positive impact on consumers’ patronage intentions. The values-driven and strategic-driven attributions of the team’s CSR initiatives were positively associated with their patronage intentions.

Both the values-driven and strategic-driven attributions were positively associated with consumers’ patronage intentions, while previous studies suggested negative association between strategic-driven attributions and consumer behaviors. The findings indicate that consumers do not view professional sports teams’ strategic-driven CSR initiatives to be negative business practices. This could result from the fact that CSR initiatives have become a prevalent and expected organizational practice.

This study contributes to the literature of CSR within the context of professional sports teams as corporations. The findings of this study suggest that professional sports teams could benefit from CSR initiatives when the teams select social causes with which consumers could infer values-driven and strategic-driven attributions.