Afraid to help others? understanding the relationship between organisational political climate and older workers' helping behaviour.
- 1Business School, Hohai University, Nanjing, China.
- 2School of Finance and Economics, Wanjiang University of Technology, Maanshan, China. [email protected].
Abstract
Background
Examining the factors of older workers' helping behaviour in the aging workplace is urgent. Based on social information processing theory, this study examined the negative relationship between organisational political climate and helping behaviour among older workers, with psychological safety as a mediator. Furthermore, this study conceptualised early retirement intention as a perception of limited time remaining at work, which moderates the above relationship.Methods
Questionnaires were collected from a sample of 216 older workers in Chinese organisations, and multilevel regression analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.Results
Cross-level analysis indicated that organisational political climate has a negative indirect relationship with older workers' helping behaviour through decreased psychological safety. Moreover, the association between psychological safety and helping behaviour was stronger among older employees with lower early retirement intention than those with higher early retirement intention.Conclusions
This study examines the contextual determinants of older workers' helping behaviour and introduces social information processing theory as a new perspective. Furthermore, the findings contribute to previous studies on early retirement intention by incorporating it as an important boundary condition in the above relationship.
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BibTeX
@article{cui2026afraid,
title = {{Afraid to help others? understanding the relationship between organisational political climate and older workers' helping behaviour.}},
author = {Guodong Cui and Zhu Li},
journal = {BMC psychology},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.1186/s40359-026-05252-4},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42958370},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Afraid to help others? understanding the relationship between organisational political climate and older workers' helping behaviour.
AU - Guodong Cui
AU - Zhu Li
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/03
JO - BMC psychology
DO - 10.1186/s40359-026-05252-4
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42958370
AB - Background Examining the factors of older workers' helping behaviour in the aging workplace is urgent. Based on social information processing theory, this study examined the negative relationship between organisational political climate and helping behaviour among older workers, with psychological safety as a mediator. Furthermore, this study conceptualised early retirement intention as a perception of limited time remaining at work, which moderates the above relationship.Methods Questionnaires were collected from a sample of 216 older workers in Chinese organisations, and multilevel regression analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.Results Cross-level analysis indicated that organisational political climate has a negative indirect relationship with older workers' helping behaviour through decreased psychological safety. Moreover, the association between psychological safety and helping behaviour was stronger among older employees with lower early retirement intention than those with higher early retirement intention.Conclusions This study examines the contextual determinants of older workers' helping behaviour and introduces social information processing theory as a new perspective. Furthermore, the findings contribute to previous studies on early retirement intention by incorporating it as an important boundary condition in the above relationship.
SN - 2050-7283
ER -