The Depleting Impact of Helping Behavior on Career Satisfaction: The Buffering Role of Strengths Use

Zhigang Li, Zhenduo Zhang, Qian Li, Junwei Zheng and Huan Xiao ()
Additional contact information
Zhigang Li: School of Economics and Management, Beijing Polytechnic, Beijing 100176, China
Zhenduo Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Qian Li: School of Economics and Management, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Junwei Zheng: Faculty of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650500, China
Huan Xiao: School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 20, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Recent studies have explored the dark side of helping behavior from an actor-centric perspective. Consistent with this stream of research, this study linked helping behavior to career satisfaction. In this study, we adopted perceived task demands and job strain as two sequential mediators to elaborate the underlying depletion path through which helping behavior undermines career satisfaction. We collected data using a two-wave questionnaire completed by 203 full-time workers in China. By applying path analysis using R software, the results revealed the following: (1) helping behavior undermines career satisfaction by enhancing perceived task demands and job strain; (2) the use of strengths buffers the relationship between perceived task demands and job strain; and (3) the indirect depleting impact of helping behavior on career satisfaction only emerges when the use of strengths is low. This highlights important implications for practitioners to leverage helping behavior in their management practices.

Keywords: helping behavior; perceived task demands; job strain; strengths use; career satisfaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/161/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/161/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2022:i:1:p:161-:d:1011847

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().