Afraid to help others? understanding the relationship between organisational political climate and older workers’ helping behaviour

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. Questionnaires were collected from a sample of 216 older workers in Chinese organisations, and multilevel regression analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses. 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. 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.