The effects of help seeking, and what is the difference when you seek help for someone else?

ABSTRACT The dynamism and increased complexity of work activities require people to engage in frequent helping interaction. A considerable share of workplace helping interactions stems from employees’ help-seeking behaviors. But how are help seekers perceived by would-be-helpers when they seek help? Despite a few findings (For example, more competent), this question remains underexplored in the help seeking literature. In addition, I contend that past research has not sufficiently differentiated between a situation where employees seek help for themselves and a situation where employees seek help for someone else. Considering the mixed findings from research from help seeking literature and research from brokering literature, I suggest that when seeking help for others (vs. for self), helpers will be more willing to help and will perceive help seekers more strongly as leaders. In study 1, I used an LLM-based qualitative study to identify fourteen perceptions of help seekers by helpers (e.g. communal, competent and grateful). Based on study 1 findings, study 2 was conducted to test my hypotheses, in addition to a mediation model with the fourteen identified perceptions of help seekers as mediators. The results show that when employees seek help for others (vs. self), helpers are not more willing to help, but perceive help seekers more strongly as leaders, and that this relationship is mediated by seven help seekers perceptions. These findings highlight the different effects of help seeking types on how help seekers are perceived and may be helpful for a better understanding of organizational behaviors that affect leadership emergence.