Perseverance's connection with helping behavior in remote supply chain workers: the moderating influence of task complexity and goal establishment structures

Purpose The persistence of remote and hybrid work has resulted in socially isolated supply chain workers working in functional groups to perform sometimes repetitive and unengaging tasks, under the auspices of performance dashboards. This study examines perseverance, a personality trait that may be a potential factor in stimulating helping behavior and improving workgroup performance. In addition, we also explore common logistics and supply chain management task structures, including goal-setting and task complexity as moderating influences. Design/methodology/approach This paper utilizes an online scenario-based vignette experiment designed in collaboration with a senior supply chain management executive to explore personality and situational factors that influence helping behavior among remote workers performing an unengaging supply chain task. Findings We find that, while a worker's perseverance is positively related to their likelihood of helping coworkers, this direct relationship is under competitive mediation through normative ability, in which we also find that perseverant workers tend to focus more on their own performance, even though assessing their normative ability is positively tied to helping behavior. Further, both of these dynamics are respectively amplified by participative goal-setting and, unexpectedly, task complexity. Practical implications As firms continue to struggle with return-to-office mandates, our results offer insights into how supply chain managers can improve workgroup performance among remote workers, particularly those tasked with unengaging and unrewarding tasks that remain commonplace in the logistics and supply chain management domain. Originality/value To our best knowledge, this is the first study to examine remote supply chain worker performance. Even as technology continues to advance, there are certain repetitive and unengaging tasks that cannot be simply automated. Our study offers a potential path for supply chain managers to improve remote worker engagement and workgroup performance on these tasks.