By introducing gender similarity as a contextual antecedent of coworker support, we examined the mediating role of coworker support for the relationship between workgroup gender similarity and job attitudes. In addition, we explored how a creative requirement, which is an occupational characteristic, can influence the relationship between coworker support and job attitudes above and beyond the role of supervisor support and organizational support. Results based on 975 full-time employees across a wide variety of occupations and industries indicated that as expected coworker support can serve as an underlying mechanism in the relationship between the relational demography of a workplace and employees’ job satisfaction and intention to quit. Furthermore, coworker support was significantly related to job satisfaction only for those occupations that required high levels of creativity. Finally, the creative requirement of an occupation moderated the indirect effect of gender similarity on job satisfaction through coworker support.

The knowledge exchanges literature considered all types of knowledge exchanges as reactive. The present study develops the conceptual framework and the measure of knowledge-based proactive helping that was missing in earlier literature. The measure was validated across multiple population. Proactive helping was manifested in the scale items effectively, to the extent that at first, initially chosen five dimensions merged to form two factors: professional development and problem mitigation and; subsequent analysis revealed that the factors represented the same underlying construct of proactive helping. The nomological network, a process model highlighting the psychosocial causes and benefits of proactive helping based upon social exchange theory and social motivation theory was also proposed. The significance of the study was in bringing the prosocial, proactive exchanges at the forefront of knowledge exchanges, which predominantly focussed on reactive exchanges.

This study examines the relationship between behavioral courage and job performance, and explores the possible effects of organizational level and gender on this relationship. With a sample of managers from mid- to large-sized for-profit organizations in the United States, we found that behavioral courage was positively associated with job performance. Our results also revealed significant differences in supervisors’ ratings of behavioral courage between employees at low and high organizational levels. The effects of behavioral courage on job performance did not vary by organizational level. In turn, the moderating effect of gender on the association between behavioral courage and job performance was supported. The study results provide important theoretical and practical implications in the fields of organizational behavior, leadership studies, and human resource development. Recommendations for future research are discussed.