Moderators of the relationship between group helping norms and individual helping

Researchers have recently devoted increasing attention to employee helping behavior at the work group level of analysis. Despite this surge in interest, possible moderators of the relationship between group helping norms and individual helping behavior have not been empirically examined. In a study of 147 employees and their supervisors working in 30 groups of a telecommunications company, we found that when individuals are more attracted to the group, group helping norms were more strongly related to individual helping. Contrary to expectations, when individuals\u27 role ambiguity is lower, employees are more likely to align their behavior with group norms, but when ambiguity is higher, they exhibit an intermediate level of helping regardless of the norms. Implications and areas for future research are discussed.© The Author(s) 2011