Abstract
Although research has shown that employees’ help reception always promotes future help provision, the distinctions between the types of repaying behaviors have been overlooked in organizational research. Thus, for the first time, the present study distinguishes between two types of repaying behaviors—pay-it-back (returning a favor to the help provider) and pay-it-forward (reciprocating a favor to a third party)—in the workplace and investigates their emotional and motivational mechanisms using broaden-and-build and regulatory focus theory. Analyzing three-wave data collected from 562 employees in China, the results show that while receiving help results in both pay-it-back and pay-it-forward behaviors through the mediation of gratitude, through the mediation of indebtedness, receiving help leads only to pay-it-back behaviors. Moreover, employees’ regulatory focus moderates the associations between receiving help and emotions and repaying behaviors. Specifically, at a high promotion focus level, employees tend to experience a higher level of gratitude after receiving help, thus engaging in more pay-it-back and pay-it-forward behaviors; at a high prevention focus level, employees tend to experience a higher level of indebtedness, thus engaging only in pay-it-back behaviors. These findings therefore deepen the understanding of the “help leads to help” phenomenon and its underlying mechanism.
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References
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This research was supported by Program for Qianduansheng Young Researcher in China University of Political Science and Law and Program for Young Innovative Research Team in China University of Political Science and Law.
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Gao, Q., Zheng, D., Liu, J. et al. Pay it back or pay it forward? How emotions and regulatory focus shape employees’ repaying behaviors after receiving help. Curr Psychol 43, 13301–13316 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05401-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05401-7