Not Always Helpful: Exploring the Antecedents and Outcomes of Team Autonomous and Dependent Helping

Does helping in teams always benefit team outcomes? To better understand the roles of helping in teamwork, we propose and test a model on the antecedents and consequences of team helping behaviors based on the team integrative motivational model. Specifically, our model distinguishes two types of team helping behaviors–team autonomous helping and team dependent helping to elaborate the “mixed” nature of team helping. To examine our model, we used data from 536 participants working in 109 teams of an undergraduate management course over five time periods. Results showed that team learning goal orientation enhanced both team affective outcomes (e.g., reduced team role overload and increased team viability) and team productivity outcomes (e.g., increased team goal progress) via team’s higher engagement in autonomous helping, while team performance goal orientation had detrimental effects on both team affective outcomes (e.g., increased team role overload and reduced team viability) and team productivity outcomes (e.g., decreased team goal progress) via team’s greater involvement in dependent helping. By distinguishing team autonomous helping from dependent helping, along with their respective antecedents and differentiating consequences on team outcomes, the current study provides a more nuanced understanding on the functions of helping in teams.