Despite the rapid penetration of digital technologies into the workplace, many enterprises are undergoing digital transformation, making safeguarding employees’ occupational health increasingly important. Drawing on social cognition and the conservation of resources theories, this study developed a moderated mediation model to explore the relationship between digital leadership and employee resilience, as well as the mediating roles of work gamification and workplace mindfulness and the moderating role of AI anxiety. Survey data from 293 employees revealed that digital leadership significantly and positively predicted employee resilience. Both work gamification and workplace mindfulness mediate the relationship between digital leadership and employee resilience. AI anxiety positively regulated the positive relationship between workplace mindfulness and employee resilience but did not significantly moderate the indirect pathway through work gamification. In addition, AI anxiety negatively regulates the direct positive effect of digital leadership on employee resilience. These findings clarify the mechanisms and boundary conditions through which digital leadership promotes employee resilience in digitally transformed workplaces. This study also offers practical implications for organizations seeking to protect employee well-being and reduce burnout during digital transformation.

Employees’ helping behavior is critical for team efficiency and innovation. However, the literature highlights competing perspectives on whether receiving help elicits a pattern consistent with reciprocity or defensive ingratitude. Grounded in the help-as-status model and self-regulation theory, we developed a dual-pathway model to examine how received task-related help may influence recipients’ subsequent differentiated helping behaviors through the lens of status threats. We further investigate the moderating role of a competitive climate in this process. On the basis of a two-wave survey of 252 full-time employees, our findings reveal that receiving task-related help is positively associated with perceived status threat. This threat, in turn, serves as a plausible mediator of the link between receiving help and subsequent dependency-oriented help while exerting a suppressive effect on autonomy-oriented help. Furthermore, a competitive climate appeared to intensify the indirect pathway to dependency-oriented help, though the evidence for moderation of the autonomy-oriented help pathway was mixed. By exploring these defensive psychological mechanisms within a single national organizational context, this study offers a cautious, status-based explanation for managing the complexities of prosocial interactions. While the findings provide nuanced insights into post-help dynamics, we acknowledge the inherent boundaries of our two-wave, self-reported survey design. However, the positive direct association with autonomy-oriented help may be consistent with multiple processes beyond status threat, including unmeasured gratitude, reciprocity norms, learning orientation, or enhanced relational quality.