Is managerial coaching a source of competitive advantage? Promoting employee self-regulation through coaching

Abstract

The present business environment of extreme competition and rapid changes has motivated scholars to identify variables that can help companies stand up to and overcome these challenges. Research on self-regulation found that self-perceptions of efficacy not only can mediate the effects of external influences on results, but can also regulate employees' initiation, persistence and choice of purposeful actions. Within the selfregulatory framework, this paper specifically explores the role of managerial coaching as an antecedent of employee self-efficacy and performance. Using a sample of 122 Financial Advisors, we found that managerial coaching can increase employee self-efficacy, which in turn fully mediates the effects of coaching on results and behavioural performance. We suggest that, if generalized use of coaching by managers can increase employees' selfefficacy (which is instrumental in increasing employees' initiation and persistence of coping behavior when faced with challenges and problematic situations), then the use of managerial coaching by an organization might promote employee self-regulation, increase the organization's general resilience and, thus, can be considered a sustainable competitive advantage. Practice points• This study is particularly relevant to the practice of managerial coaching and its application in organizations. The main contribution is that managerial coaching can increase employee's self-efficacy, behavioural performance and results performance.• Previous research in self-regulatory behaviour found that people with high self-efficacy set higher and more difficult goals, are more committed to them, initiate actions to cope with problematic situations, spend more effort, persist longer in goal pursuit and make better choices of activities and settings.• Accordingly, the systematic use of managerial coaching by an organization can increase the self-regulatory behavior of all its employees through its direct effect on self-efficacy, thus increasing their collective effort, their resilience when faced with challenging circumstances and their flexibility to deal with those circumstances and implement new solutions. As such, managerial coaching can be considered a dynamic competitive advantage of the organization.

Exploratory Study Examining the Joint Impacts of Mentoring and Managerial Coaching on Organizational Commitment

“…Empirical studies on the efficacy of managerial coaching have investigated outcome variables such as employee learning [30], self-efficacy [31], motivation [32], commitment to quality [33], performance improvement [12,34], and job satisfaction [35]. These same studies also noted that managerial coaching is connected to many aspects of leadership.…”

Managerial coaching of frontline employees: The moderating role of gender

“…After exploring the problems openly, they agree on the best solutions and the resources that the manager can provide to help the employee implement them (Richardson, ). Managerial coaching increases employee self‐efficacy and commitment, which leads the employee to set higher goals, to be more attentive with implementation of the solutions, and to be more motivated to work harder toward goal achievement (Pousa & Mathieu, , ). Thus:Hypothesis Managerial coaching is positively related to employee's result performance.…”

“…Although some scholars claim there is a lack of empirical evidence linking managerial coaching to organization and employee performance (Beattie et al, ; M. S. Hagen, ), some have found evidence that managerial coaching has a positive influence on employee performance (Agarwal, Angst, & Magni, ; A. D. Ellinger, Ellinger, & Keller, ; Pousa & Mathieu, ; Trépanier, ). Other researchers have identified mediators to explain how coaching is linked to performance (Kim, ; Onyemah, ; Pousa & Mathieu, , ). Despite these contributions, there are still some significant gaps in the literature, notably longitudinal studies inferring causal relationships, cross‐cultural research with non‐Western populations, and moderation analysis examining interactions of contextual or demographic variables and coaching (Beattie et al, ; Ye, Wang, Hein Wendt, Wu, & Euwema, ).…”

Exploring the Benefits of a Coach Development Process ... on the Coach

“…At the same time the view that research examining the impact of coaching is also required in order to validate the contribution of coaching to individual and organizational well-being and performance is also shared (Pousa and Mathieu, 2015). Whilst there are studies that evaluate coaching interventions (Pousa and Mathieu, 2015), most consider the outcomes for the coachee and the organization and there is very little focus on the coach (Van Nieuwerburgh and Tong, 2012).…”

“…At the same time the view that research examining the impact of coaching is also required in order to validate the contribution of coaching to individual and organizational well-being and performance is also shared (Pousa and Mathieu, 2015). Whilst there are studies that evaluate coaching interventions (Pousa and Mathieu, 2015), most consider the outcomes for the coachee and the organization and there is very little focus on the coach (Van Nieuwerburgh and Tong, 2012). Many previous studies of coaching in organizations make a call for a more holistic approach to evaluating the impact of coaching to improve our understanding of whether coaching actually makes a difference to leadership behaviour as well as other individual and organizational outcomes (Grant, 2012).…”