grantor:
University of TorontoThis thesis develops a theory about the social network structure of helping and other Organizational Citizenship Behaviours (OCB) and provides the results of an empirical study which tested several predictions derived from the theory by focussing on the exchange of inter-personal helping behaviours; among the members of work groups in a telecommunications company. Two models describe how social network structure creates a social context in which the performance of OCB is embedded. One model suggests that different kinds of relationships create two role systems in an organization: (1) A system of instrumental roles in which individuals experience work interdependencies and view each other as organizational members, and (2) a system of expressive roles in which individuals take part in an organizational community and view each other as friends. Consistent with the argument that these role systems create a social identity context for different kinds of exchange behaviour, the empirical study found that network structures which defined instrumental roles predicted OCBs which benefit the organization, while network structures which defined expressive roles predicted OCBs which benefit other individuals. A second model proposes that position and involvement in social networks create a context in which the social exchange of helping behaviour is simultaneously enabled and constrained. The theory identifies and describes several social exchange and social influence processes that underlie opportunity for and constraint on helping behaviour. An empirical investigation of helping behaviour provides evidence that individuals perform helping behaviours more frequently if they occupied a prominent position in the social network of the group and if they were involved extensively in intimate or cohesive relations. Furthermore, the study showed that patterns of reciprocating help mediated the relationship between network position and involvement on the one hand, and helping behaviour on the other. Individuals who performed more helping behaviours maintained balance in their exchanges of help towards other individuals in the group and overall towards the group as a whole. These results show that helping behaviours involve both, role making and social exchange processes, and that the social exchange processes combine status dynamics with communal and equality principles of exchange.Ph.D
