Continuous learning and employee performance: a moderated examination of managers' coaching behavior in India

Abstract

PurposeBy integrating organizational support theory (OST) and social cognitive theory, this study investigates types of managers' coaching behavior as experienced by the employees. Furthermore, the study examines whether employees would exhibit greater task and contextual performance when organizational learning is blended with a specific coaching behavior of their manager.Design/methodology/approachUsing primary data from 298 software engineers working in select information technology companies across India, the current study attempts to assess moderating effect of managers' coaching behavior in two relationships, including continuous learning and employees' task performance (CL-TP) and continuous learning and employees' contextual performance (CL-CP).FindingsResult of exploratory factor analysis suggests that managers of select organizations exhibit two major types of coaching behavior: inspiration-based coaching behavior and facilitation-based coaching behavior. On the moderating role of coaching behavior, it is documented that facilitation-based coaching behavior significantly positively moderates both stated (CL-TP and CL-CP) relationships, whereas inspiration-based coaching behavior of supervisors has positive significant effect on CL-TP relationship but negatively moderates the CL-CP relationship.Research limitations/implicationsThe extent to which the findings of this study can be generalized is constrained by the limited sample and organizational context.Practical implicationsThe most important managerial implication for all learning organizations is that both kinds of coaching behaviors help improving the task performance of the employees, but managers should prefer facilitation-based coaching style in order to generate higher contextual performance of employees.Originality/valueThis study contributes to practitioners and existing literature by explaining how individual performance of employees is affected by the investment made by organizations in facilitating continuous learning.