Untying the Text: Organizational Prosociality and Kindness.

Area of Science:

• Organizational behavior
• Social psychology

Background:

• Scholarly interest in organizational prosociality is growing.
• Conceptual ambiguity exists regarding key terms like prosocial behavior and kindness.
• Existing definitions are often similar, leading to interchangeable use and hindering field development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critically review and differentiate the concepts of prosocial behavior and kindness.
• To address conceptual ambiguity within the field of organizational prosociality.
• To clarify the semantic nuances and contextual subtext of these terms.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of definitions for prosocial behavior and kindness.
• Semantic analysis to unpack context and subtext.
• Comparative analysis of the actors, recipients, and scale of each concept.

Main Results:

• Prosocial behavior and kindness share a focus on actions promoting others' welfare.
• Key distinctions lie in the actors involved and the scale of impact.
• Kindness is typically individual-to-individual or small group.
• Prosocial behaviors can be performed by individuals or organizations, targeting entities from individuals to society at large.

Conclusions:

• Clarifying the definitions of kindness and prosocial behavior reduces conceptual ambiguity.
• Understanding the distinct actors and scales is crucial for advancing organizational prosociality research.
• This distinction enables more precise theoretical development and empirical investigation.