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Introduction
Since its emergence in the literature, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), defined as individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by formal rewards, and in the aggregate promotes organizational effectiveness (Organ, 1988; Organ et al. , 2006), has received an increasing amount of scholarly and managerial attention. While various conceptualizations of OCB have been developed, there is a general consensus that OCB consists of five distinct dimensions, including helping behavior, courtesy, sportsmanship, conscientiousness, and voice behavior (Organ et al. , 2006). Among these five dimensions, helping behavior has been examined most frequently because it has the strongest implications on overall organizational performance (Podsakoff et al. , 2000; Whiting et al. , 2008).
According to Mossholder et al. (2011), helping behavior refers to taking voluntary actions to help coworkers with work-related problems and issues. Given that helping behavior is a strong predictor of organizational effectiveness and performance, an important research stream in the literature focusses on understanding how helping behavior is motivated using various theoretical perspectives, such as social exchange theory (e.g. Deckop et al. , 2003; Liu et al. , 2011), leader-member exchange (LMX) theory (e.g. Deluga, 1994; Wang et al. , 2005), equity theory (e.g. Spitzmuller et al. , 2006; Williams et al. , 2002), social network theory (e.g. Bowler and Brass, 2006; Venkataramani and Dalal, 2007), social learning theory (e.g. Bommer et al. , 2003; Zagenczyk et al. , 2008), social information processing theory (e.g. Bommer et al. , 2003; Newton et al. , 2008), transformational leadership theory (e.g. Felfe and Schyns, 2004; Podsakoff et al. , 1996), and transactional leadership theory (e.g. Boerner et al. , 2007; Walumbwa et al. , 2008).
Even though prior research in helping behavior has addressed what motivates helping behavior from various important theoretical underpinnings, one fundamental yet critical question in the literature remains ambiguous. That is, very little is known about different forms of helping behavior that may be exhibited (Spitzmuller and Van Dyne, 2013). This particular research gap has resulted in Spitzmuller and Van Dyne's (2013) recent effort on contrasting different forms of helping behavior. In particular, Spitzmuller and Van Dyne classify helping behavior into proactive and reactive forms using seven dimensions, including primary theoretical orientation, primary focus of helper, primary driver...