This study conducted the following specific research tasks to explain helping behavior occurring in one-on-one relationships among coworkers from a motivational perspective. First, this study examined the effect of image enhancement motivation as a motive for helping behavior on coworker helping behavior from a self-oriented perspective. Second, in one-on-one relationships with coworkers, the actor's perception of a coworker's characteristics triggers helping behavior toward that coworker. Based on a self-oriented motivational perspective, this study proposed recipient characteristics related to the possibility of future reciprocation—namely, the recipient's ability, leader-member exchange relationship, and popularity—and verified that these influence helping behavior. Third, according to prior research, individuals' motivational orientations lead to different information search and processing pathways, causing them to focus on different types of information. Based on this discussion, this study proposed and tested the interaction effects between image enhancement motivation as a self-oriented motivational orientation and recipient characteristics related to the possibility of future reciprocation on helping behavior. The results verified the main effect of image enhancement motivation and the main effects of recipient ability and popularity among recipient characteristics on helping behavior. Additionally, the relationship between recipient characteristics and helping behavior varied according to the strength of image enhancement motivation. In particular, there were differences in the interaction patterns through which image enhancement motivation and ability, and image enhancement motivation and popularity, influenced helping behavior. The results of this study have theoretical significance in that they proposed and verified the motivational mechanism of coworker helping behavior from a self-oriented perspective. Furthermore, this study has practical implications in that it can provide guidelines for activating helping behavior among department members by appropriately assigning coworkers with diverse characteristics according to organizational members' orientations.