When Organizational Helping Misses the Mark: Rejected, Avoided and Unsolicited Support

In the workplace, seeking, offering, and receiving help is a cornerstone of collaboration and productivity. Helping may manifest in many forms, including advice, emotional support, and task assistance. Yet, help does not always materialize as intended. Requests for and offers of help may be rejected; unsolicited help may be imposed upon people, and those who need help may avoid asking for it. This symposium examines the interpersonal and emotional implications of such experiences. Four empirical works offer insights into help that misses the mark, from both giver and receiver perspectives. Papers 1 and 2 examine employees’ emotional reactions when their helping offers and requests are rejected, and the counterproductive work behaviors following these rejections. They also explore individual differences, such as gender and impression management motives, to understand who is more likely to undergo such emotional and relational processes following rejection. Next, Papers 3 and 4 highlight the gendered costs of receiving unsolicited advice, and the widening gap between women and men’s tendency to ask for help over their organizational tenure. Overall, this symposium sheds light on the underexplored phenomena of unfulfilled and unwanted help and advances our understanding of the nuanced challenges that can arise in help-related interactions. Rejected Help Requests and Workplace Dynamics Author: Young Eun Lee; Author: Ji Koung Kim; Michigan State University Author: I-Heng (Ray) Wu; The University of New Mexico Frustrated Good Soldiers and Unphased Good Actors Author: Andrea L. Hetrick; The University of New Mexico Author: Trevor Spoelma; The University of New Mexico The Hidden Cost of Unsolicited Advice? Examining Gender Differences in the Obligation to Reciprocate Author: Blaine Landis; Author: Colin Muneo Fisher; University College London Author: Jingze Wang; Gender and the Avoidance of Leader-directed Help Seeking over Time Author: Judy Qiu; ESSEC Business School Author: Selin Kesebir; London Business School Author: Sun Young Lee; UCL - University of London