DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Managerial Coaching Effect on Organizational Effectiveness: Mediating Roles of Psychological Ownership and Learning Goal Orientation

  • Oh, Hyo-Sung (Dept. of Management, Seoul School of Integrated Sciences & Technologies) ;
  • Tak, Jin-Kook (Dept. of Industrial Organizational Psychology, Kwangwoon University)
  • Received : 2016.04.07
  • Accepted : 2016.05.15
  • Published : 2016.05.30

Abstract

Purpose - This study was to empirically validate the mediating roles of psychological ownership and learning goal orientation in the relationships of managerial coaching behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors/creative behaviors of employees. Research design, data, and methodology - A total of 270 employees in the Korean distribution industry were surveyed on-line, and the results were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equational modeling. Results - The study confirmed prior research results that managerial coaching behaviors were related positively to employees' psychological ownership and learning goal orientation, both of which were associated positively with their organizational citizenship behaviors and creative behaviors respectively. It revealed the complete mediating effect of psychological ownership between managerial coaching and organizational citizenship behaviors and that of learning goal orientation between managerial coaching and creative behaviors. Conclusions - Psychological ownership was found to play an important role in the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and organizational citizenship behaviors. It gives some practical implication regarding the higher turn-over intention rate of the distribution industry, in that promoting psychological ownership through managerial coaching behaviors could reduce the turn-over intention rate.

Keywords

1. Introduction

According to the report on organizational health and corporate culture of Korean companies surveyed for 40,000 employees of 100 Korean companies (Korcham, 2016), 77% of the samples were found to belong to the lower group compared to the global companies in terms of the organizational health. Its result also revealed that the traditional corporate culture of overtime work, less efficient meetings, top-down directions, etc. were the main causes for weakening their global competiveness. Unfortunately the distribution industry might not be exceptional from having such a traditional corporate culture.

In the meantime, as all industries are increasingly becoming more competitive due to the fast evolution of information technology, market globalization and the change of consumers’needs, market players could not but lead change creatively in advance or adapt to such changes flexibly in order to survive competitive environments (Bertels, 2003). And the paradigm of organizational managers was changed from command and control to empowerment and learning promotion through managerial coaching (Evered & Selman, 1989).As a result, many scholars have studied coaching as a means to corporate competitiveness (Ellinger et al., 2003), which could improve organizational learning capabilities necessary for the fast adaptation to external changes and/or enhance manager-subordinate relationships as one of organizational development strategies (McLean et al., 2005).Thus, coaching in western countries is currently very prevalent for human resources development and 93% among global companies are applying coaching to their work places(Grant et al., 2010). In case of Korean companies, the number of companies introducing coaching has been continuously increasing since 2000 (Hong & Yoon, 2009). However, the Korean distribution industry is externally struggling with the fast changes due to the global economic depression and the fall of domestic economic sentiments (Yang & Cho, 2015) and at the same time it is internally facing the inefficient corporate culture a forementioned. The purpose of this study is to verify that managerial coaching behaviors can improve its organizational performances of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and creative behaviors among the employees in the Korean distribution industry, assuming that managerial coaching behaviors could help companies to adapt to externally speedy changes and to improve internally inefficient organizational culture. Managerial coaching behaviors value employees as people and promote their learning in organization through coaching interventions based on the trust in their potentiality. In addition, this study examines the mediating role of psychological ownership in the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and OCB, and that of learning goal orientation in the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and creative behaviors. Understanding such a mechanism of the relationship between managerial coaching and organizational performance would help managerial coaching to be more effective in the distribution industry. This study has several implications; first, the new variables of psychological ownership and learning goal orientation are introduced as mediating roles into the relationship of managerial coaching behaviors and OCB/creative behaviors of employees. To date mediating variables like job engagement, work satisfaction, LMX, perceived organizational support, etc. were studied in the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and organizational outcomes. Especially in the relationship between managerial coaching and OCB, cognitive flexibility (Kim & Seo, 2008), self-efficacy (Choi et al., 2012), basic needs (Kang & Kim, 2013), etc. were shown to play a partial mediating role in prior research. But by demonstrating that psychological ownership and learning goal orientation had significant roles as complete mediators, this study seems to make some academic contribution to the better explanation of the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and OCB/creative behaviors. And psychological ownership is known as one of key factors for corporate competitiveness (Brown, 1989) and it was revealed to be negatively related to turn-over intention rate (Kim et al., 2014). Thus, the study on psychological ownership as a mediating role could be helpful to the distribution industry of relatively higher turn-over rate. Second, understanding the mechanism of managerial coaching behavior process through mediating variables of psychological ownership and learning goal orientation would contribute to setting coaching strategies, because managers could induce OCB and creative behaviors of employees by promoting their psychological ownership and learning goal orientation when they coach their employees at the work place. Third, OCB and creative behaviors of employees as the resulting variables of managerial coaching behaviors seem to be required for improving inefficient top-down organizational culture and coping with fast changes of distribution environment. Today the employees at the points of sales might not satisfy the various needs and the volatility of customers with service manuals only. To meet the requests and needs of customers beyond job/service manual, employees need to behave creatively and voluntarily as organizational citizens at the points of sales. Thus, it is meaningful to study the OCB and creative behaviors of employees as their consequences of managerial coaching behaviors.

2. Theoretical Background and Hypotheses

2.1. Managerial Coaching Behaviors

It has been 70 years since coaching was introduced as a way of performance management into corporates (Hagen, 2012), which is currently being applied to work places in two ways. One is executive coaching, which implies that an external coach employed outside conducts coaching to corporate executives for their leadership, capabilities improvement and/or other related issues. On the contrary, the other is managerial coaching behaviors in which manager as a coach helps his/her subordinates to maximize their potentiality for themselves and their organizational performance (Joo, 2005). In prior literatures, the terminology like coaching leadership, leader’s coaching, managerial coaching, coaching behaviors, etc. was introduced with similar meanings, but in this study managerial coaching behavior is used because this clarifies its definition more clearly and the wording can be contrasted to executive coaching. This study focuses on managerial coaching behaviors.

Managerial coaching behaviors mean manager’s behaviors promoting and supporting subordinates’ development linked to organizational goals through active listening, questioning, feedback intervention, etc. on the basis of trust in their potentiality (Hamlin et al., 2009). In the past, managers were generally seen as supervisors who controlled and oversaw the tasks of subordinates. However, in the new normal era of quick changes it is suggested managers should be coach in the organization (Gilley & Boudreau, 1996, Mujtaba, 2007). Thus, coaching is now a prevalent topic frequently discussed as one of important leadership skills in the management literature(Hunt & Weintraub, 2004). In fact, the task of developing team members’ capabilities belonged to the department of Human relations in the past. But it is shifted to line manager’s job as the flexibility of organization became more important (Hagen, 2012). Accordingly the coaching role of manager becomes more emphasized today. The definitions of coaching vary across academic scholars. Some define coaching as the functions or activities resulting in certain outcomes, on the contrary other scholars consider it as the process involving interpersonal relations and outcomes (Gilley et al., 2010). Mujtaba (2007) defined that coaching was the continuous process of conversational collaborations and interactions to help members in realizing their full potential at appropriate paces for the members. Though many definitions showed subtle differences one another, but each shared some commonalities in the trust insubordinates to be coached, the relationship between manager and subordinates, and the outcomes of organizational performance. The contents of prior research on managers’coaching behaviors can be divided into three are as its antecedents, coaching measurement/skills and its outcomes. In western countries, for the antecedents of managerial coaching behaviors, organizational investment in social capital (Ellinger et al., 2009), gender and organizational culture(Ran et al., 2015), short-term goal (Pousa & Mathieu, 2010), coach’s perception, type of employees, relationship between manager and employees, physical environment, coaching capabilities of manager (Turner & McCarthy, 2015), etc. were studied. And for coaching measurement/skills, to name a few, coaching behaviors inventory was developed by Ellinger et al. (2003), and McLean et al. (2005) published the coaching measurement consisting of 5 dimensions; open communication, team approach, value people, accept ambiguity, facilitate development. Finally for coaching outcomes, organizational commitment and turn-over intention (Har, 2008), task performance and contextual performance (Li-Yan, 2008), OCB, job performance (Ellinger et al., 2009), etc. were found to be positively associated with managers’ coaching behaviors. Recent research indicated that self-efficacy played a mediating role in the relationship of managerial coaching behaviors and behavioral & result performance (Pousa & Mathieu, 2015) and that team reflection moderated the relationship between manager’s coaching behaviors and team performance (Buljac-Samardzic & Woerkom, 2015). Compared with western countries, the antecedents as its contents were not found yet in domestic research. Considering the fact that the Korean companies are not utilizing this managerial coaching as much as global companies, the antecedents explaining why Korean companies are not adopting managerial coaching enough need to be studied. For coaching measurement/skills, Cho & Kim (2009) suggested 4 coaching processes of contract, information analysis, feedback and coaching execution/follow-up, and 35 coaching behaviors. Cho & Tak(2011) published 4 factors of respect, goal-setting/feedback, viewpoint change and belief of growth in subordinate, consisting of 24 items as coaching leadership measurement. And Park&Kim(2011) argued 5 coaching skills of setting goals, communication, relationship building, promoting self-direction and principle-following through qualitative research. For the coaching outcomes, the domestic research looked to be active in understanding its mechanism of managerial coaching leading to organizational performance especially using mediating variables and/or moderating variables. To name a few, Cho & Joo(2013)verified the positive relationship between manager’s coaching behaviors and role behavior using the mediating variable of thriving, and Ha & Tak (2012) suggested that organizational virtuousness moderated the relationship between manager’s coaching leadership and contextual performance/creative behavior. Especially for the relationship between manager’s coaching behaviors and OCB, cognitive flexibility (Kim & Seo, 2008), self-efficacy (Choi et al., 2012) and basic needs(Kang & Kim, 2013) were found to play a partially mediating role. But to date the psychological ownership mediating the relationship between managerial coaching behavior and OCB was not studied yet, which is understood as one of key factors for corporate competitiveness (Brown, 1989). As the distribution industry of Korea has relatively higher turn-over rate (CEO Score, 2013) and psychological ownership is known to be negatively associated with turn-over intention rate of employees (Lee et al., 2014), the research on the mediating role of psychological ownership in the relationship between manager’s coaching behavior and OCB might give some practical implication to our distribution industry.

2.2. Managerial Coaching Behaviors and Psychological Ownership

The management emphasizes employees to get ownership in work places, because psychological ownership can be a positive resource for impacting human performance in organization (Avey et al., 2009). Psychological ownership has been defined as ‘a cognitive-affective psychological state in which individuals feel as though the target of ownership or a piece of that target is theirs, whether or not it is visible’ (Pierce et al., 2003). To put it simply, as employees psychologically feel like the owners of organization, they have responsibilities to make decisions for the interest of their organization(O’Reilly, 2002). Taking such responsibilities, employees with psychological ownership could be more committed to organization and make extra roles beyond their own tasks than those with less psychological ownership (Vandewalle et al., 1995). McLean et al. (2005) suggested the characteristics of managerial coaching behaviors with open communication, value people, team approach and accept ambiguity for people development. In other words, a manager as coach values employees as people over task, trusts their potential capabilities, respects their decision making and encourages them to get confidence waiting for their growth even during the situation of ambiguity. Then, it is expected that the employees coached by such a manager could build trust for their manager and get psychological ownership on their tasks taking required responsibilities. Jeong & Kim (2015) verified that the positive psychological capital of self-efficacy, hope, optimism, etc. influenced psycho logical ownership positively. Based on this theory, it can be suggested that managerial coaching behaviors would help employees in building positive psychological capital and finally influence psychological ownership, because valuing people, giving feedbacks, encouraging to challenge, etc. of managerial coaching behaviors would evoke the positive psychological capital of employees. From the above inference, the following hypothesis can be established.

 Manager’s coaching behaviors will be positively related to psychological ownership of employees.

2.3. Psychological Ownership and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB)

About 30 years have passed since OCB was investigated in the management literature, but it is still studied in the areas of organizational behavior and leadership. OCB was studied by Organ(1988) as the terminology that implies ‘discretionary behaviors which promote the efficiency and effectiveness of organization, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward’. But its concept has been changed and evolved by several scholars and Organ by himself. In general, most of OCB concepts share commonalities in that OCB is the informal discretionary behaviors of employees beyond their job description finally linking to organizational performance, based on the belief that employees are reasonable beings as organizational citizens (Appelhaum et al., 2004).The employees with psychological ownership would protect their organization and try to take positive behaviors for the goal of their organization (Van-Dyne & Pierce, 2004). And as they are willing to take responsibilities for their organization, they would voluntarily conduct OCB beyond their own roles irrespective of reward or punishment. This inference is consistent with the results of prior research on the relationship between psychological ownership and OCB (Van Dyne& Pierce, 2004 Bae et al., 2010; Hong&Lee, 2012; Jang, 2015). Thus, the hypothesis can be advanced, as follow;

 Psychological ownership will be positively related to OCB.

2.4. Managerial Coaching Behaviors and Learning Goal Orientation

Learning goal orientation is one of two goal orientation types, with which people seek to develop competence by acquiring new skills and mastering new situations (Dweck, 1986). They try to develop their knowledge and competence in the face of tough tasks and to take mistake and/or failure as a natural part of learning process (Yi & Hwang, 2003). Thus they understand competence as incremental skill to be further developed through knowledge and experience (Wood & Bandura, 1989). On the other hand, people with performance goal orientation seek to demonstrate the adequacy of their competence by seeking favorable judgments and avoiding negative judgments about their competence (Vandewalle, 1997). And they understand competence as a fixed one to indicate their intelligent capabilities (Dweck, 1986).As managerial coaching respects employees as people not a tool and promotes maximizing their potentiality through goal setting, feedback, questioning, perspective shift, etc. (Cho & Tak, 2011), it can be inferred that employees supported by such a managerial coaching are likely to learn new things, not to give up on tough tasks or mistakes/failures and rather to take them as the opportunities for their growth. That is, their learning goal orientation is likely to be enhanced. This inference is consistent with prior research result that mentoring similar to coaching influences positively learning goal orientation (Godshalk & Sosik, 2003). Thus, the following hypothesis can be advanced.

 Managerial coaching behaviors will be positively related to the learning goal orientation of employees.

2.5. Learning Goal Orientation and Creative Behaviors

Upon the fast social and technological changes, companies consider innovation as key of their competitiveness and thus emphasize creative behaviors of employees in new product development (Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Korean companies have competed as a fast follower in the global market until now, but such a fast follower strategy is not likely to be effective any longer in future as other developing countries like China already began to fill the gap of technology with Korea. Thus, Korean companies desperately seek for creative ideas to survive global market competitions. The terminology of creative behavior is often confused with those of creativity, innovation, innovative behavior, etc. But creative behavior is generally defined as a behavior like generation of noble and useful ideas concerning procedure and process used at work, and innovation is defined as the output of such creative behaviors (Amabile et al., 1996). As aforementioned, the employees with learning goal orientation are willing to challenge tough and new jobs and make every effort to find out new solutions with patience despite of failures (Dweck, 1986). And such efforts are, in fact, required for doing creative behaviors. Therefore it can be proposed that the employees with learning goal orientation would not give up in front of tough tasks and rather try to make creative behaviors generating noble and useful ideas. This is consistent with the prior study result (Lee, 2013) that learning goal orientation positively influenced competence development of R&D employees. Based on the prior research and inference, the following hypothesis can be proposed.

 Learning goal orientation will be positively related to creative behaviors.

2.6. Mediating Effect of Psychological Ownership in Relationship between Managerial Coaching Behaviors and OCB

If the mechanism how managerial coaching behaviors bring about organizational outcome is understood more, then managerial coaching may be able to be more effective in organizations by applying relevant contents and directions to employee’s specific situations during coaching sessions. Thus the study on mediating role in the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and organizational outcomes seem to be meaningful. As managerial coaching trusts potentiality of employees and tries to evoke their capabilities fully, employees in turn are able to have positive attitude (Kwon, 2015) and constructive thoughts (Yang et al., 2015) toward their tasks. Then, they are likely to gain a sense of belonging ness and identities for their organization, which naturally make them feel psychological ownership. And employees with such psychological ownership are likely to make OCB, which they would conduct beyond their job scope irrespective of reward or punishment only for the sake of their organization. Thus, it can be suggested that psychological ownership of employees will play a mediating role between managerial coaching behaviors and OCB.

 Psychological ownership will mediate the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and OCB.

2.7. Mediating Effect of Learning Goal Orientation in Relationship between Managerial Coaching Behaviors and Creative Behaviors

The mediating effect of learning goal orientation can be expected by combining the relationship of managerial coaching behaviors and learning goal orientation with that of learning goal orientation and creative behaviors. Learning goal orientation has some similarity to managerial coaching behaviors in that both are based on the incremental theory that individuals can develop their capabilities incrementally through continuous learning (Dweck et al., 1995). Moreover, employees do creative activity when their manager supports, consults and shows them interests (Chae et al., 2015). Therefore, it is argued that employees with learning goal orientation are likely to make creative behaviors which generate noble and useful ideas in the face of tough challenges without avoiding them. Thus, the following hypothesis can be suggested.

 Learning goal orientation will mediate the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and creative behaviors.

3. Methodology

3.1. Research Model

Based on the hypotheses aforementioned, the research model is presented below to verify mediating roles of psychological ownership and learning goal orientation in the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and OCB/creative behaviors.

OTGHB7_2016_v14n5_5_f0001.png 이미지

[Figure 1] Research Model and Hypotheses

3.2. Operational Definitions of Variables

3.2.1. Managerial Coaching Behaviors

In this study, managerial coaching behaviors were defined as manager’s behaviors that support and promote employees’ capability development leading to employees’ growth and organizational performance through active listening, questioning, feedback, perspective shift, etc. 8 items among 24 items developed by Cho & Tak (2011) were used and measured with Likert 5-point scale. Though several measurements were available, this measurement was selected as it was more relevant to Korean work places and it seemed to better represent characteristics of managerial coaching behaviors.

3.2.2. Organizational Citizenship Behavior

OCB was defined as employees’ discretionary extra-role behaviors beyond their job description for their organization without expecting any reward or fearing any punishment.6 items relevant to Korean companies among 10 items developed by William & Anderson(1991) were selected and measured with Likert 5-point scale.

3.2.3. Creative Behavior

Creative behaviors were defined as employees’behaviors to generate noble and useful ideas in the procedures and process related to tasks. 5 items developed by Oldham & Cumming (1996) were used and measured with Likert 5-point scale.

3.2.4. Psychological Ownership

Psychological ownership was defined as cognitive and affective psychological state of mind that employees feel senses of responsibility, identity and belonging ness by feeling organization as theirs. 6 items relevant to Korean companies among 9 items developed by Avey et al. (2009) were selected and measured with Likert 5-point scale.

3.2.5. Learning Goal Orientation

Learning goal orientation was defined as individual capability that tries to improve his/her competence by him/her self through continuous learning. 6 items relevant to Korean companies among 13 items developed by Vandewalle (1997) were used and measured with Likert 5-point scale.

3.2.6. Control Variables

There is some possibility that certain exogenous variables might distort the result of the verification test in the effect of managerial coaching behaviors on OCB and creative behaviors. Thus, this study considered company size and job level of respondents as control variables since company culture depending upon company size might influence managerial coaching behavior process and the job level of respondent could influence his/her evaluation on his/her manger.

3.3. Research Method and Data Collection

The study was conducted through online survey for the employees working more than 6 months in the Korean distribution industry. Commissioned to the professional online panel research agency, 315 qualified samples were collected and 270 samples were finally analyzed by excluding incomplete and/or untrustworthy questionnaires. The demographic characteristics of the samples are, as follows;

[Table 1] Demographic Characteristics

OTGHB7_2016_v14n5_5_t0001.png 이미지

4. Results

As all the questions in this study were asked to the same respondents for managerial coaching behaviors and other employees’attitude and behaviors, the common method bias could happen and thus two tests were made to check its possibility. First, the single factor test of Harman (1976) was conducted for the total of 22 observed items for 5 latent variables, and its result indicated that there were 5 factors of which Eigen values were bigger than 1 and that the variance value of the first factor accounted for 31.3% only. Thus it can be translated that there is no serious common method bias (Harman, 1976).And, the model fitness of single-factor model and 5-factor model were compared to check the common method bias as well. The model fitness of single-factor model was: NPAR=44, x2=1443.813, df=209, \(\frac{\mathrm{x}^{2}}{\mathrm{df}}\)=6.908, RMR .100 TLI .485 CFI .534 RMSEA .148, which was shown as not so good(Kim, 2010). On the other hand, the model fitness of 5-factor model was: NPAR=54, x2=350.798, df=199, x2/df=1.763, RMR .037 TLI .934 CFI .943 RMSEA .053, which showed quite good fitness. Compared to the model fitness of single-factor model and the 5-factor model, a significant difference of Δx2=1093.015, Δdf=10 at p=.001 level was found. Based on the above results of two tests, there seems to be low possibility of common method bias (Podsak off et al., 2003).

4.1. Reliability and Validity of Variables

Using AMOS 22, confirmatory factor analysis was performed and some items which were not fitted to its model were removed. As a result, 7 items of managerial coaching behaviors, 4 items of OCB, 4 items of psychological ownership, 4 items of learning goal orientation and 3 items of creative behaviors were finally used in the analysis. For the reliability verification for 5 latent variables, Cronbach α values were examined and all of them exceeded over .7. Thus, there seems to be no significant issue with regard to reliability (Nunnally, 1978).

[Table 2] Reliability Result

OTGHB7_2016_v14n5_5_t0002.png 이미지

For the construct reliability, all the 5 latent variables exceeded over .7 and for the AVE(Average Variance Extracted), all the variables were greater than .5. Thus, the internal consistency and the convergent validity in this study seem to be achieved (Hair et al., 1995).

[Table 3] Construct Reliability and Average Variance Extracted

OTGHB7_2016_v14n5_5_t0003.png 이미지

[Table 4] Average Variance Extracted and Squared Multiple Correlation

표4.PNG 이미지

( ) Average variance extracted

To check the discriminant validity, SMC (Squared Multiple Correlation) and AVE were compared. All the SMC values were less than AVE values without exception and thus the discriminant validity is judged to be acceptable(Kim, 2010). Considering the construct reliability, the construct validity and the discriminant validity of all the variables, the reliability and validity seem to be acceptable.

4.2. Hypothesis Verification

This study was to verify the mediating effect of psychological ownership and learning goal orientation on the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and OCB and on the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and creative behaviors respectively. First to prove the superiority of theory model, several alternative models were reviewed together. But the possible paths of other alternative models were hardly explained logically, and thus the comparison of theory model and other alternative models was not made. As a result, only the fitness of theory model was reported and the below table presents several fitness statistics of the theory model.

x2/df= was 1.982, shown to be quite good as it was below 3. TLI and CFI were .900 and .914 each, shown to be quite good as they were greater than .9. And RMR and RMSEA were .067 and .06 respectively, appeared to be acceptable as they were between .05 to .08. Considering all the fitness parameters, the theory model can be judged to be a good fit to the data (Kim, 2010). Then, the statistical hypothesis test was conducted on the theory model.

[Table 5] Fitness Parameters of Theory Model (n=270)

OTGHB7_2016_v14n5_5_t0005.png 이미지

All the hypotheses of 1, 2, 3 and 4 showed statistically significant difference at p=.001 level in the above table and thus all the above hypotheses were adopted. The company size as a control variable had no statistically significant effect on OCB and creative behaviors, on the other hand the job level showed statistically significant effect on OCB and creative behaviors at P=.05 and P=.001 respectively.

[Table 6] Path Estimates for Hypotheses

OTGHB7_2016_v14n5_5_t0006.png 이미지

*** p<.001, * p<.05

was that psychological ownership of employees would mediate the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and OCB. The test result indicated that its total effect estimate was .287, the direct effect estimate .119 and the indirect effect estimate .168.Though the indirect effect were statistically significant with P=.019 according to the bootstrapping test, the direct effect of .119 was not statistically significant with t value=1.479 and P=.139. Hence,  of the complete mediating effect of psychological ownership was adopted. Compared with the prior research results on the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and OCB, cognitive flexibility (Kim & Seo, 2008), self-efficacy (Choi et al., 2012) or basic needs (Kang & Kim, 2013) of the prior research were found to play only a partial mediating role in their relationship. Thus, this study revealed an influential role of psychological ownership in the relationship of managerial coaching behaviors and OCB. was to verify the mediating effect of learning goal orientation of employees on the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and creative behaviors. The test result indicated that its total effect estimate was .252, the direct effect estimate .064 and the indirect effect estimate .188. Though the indirect effect were statistically significant with P=.010 according to the bootstrapping test, the direct effect of .064 was not statistically significant with t value=.960 and P=.337. Hence,  of the complete mediating effect of learning goal orientation was adopted as well. To summarize the results of hypotheses verification test can be presented below.

[Table 7] Estimates for Mediated Effect

OTGHB7_2016_v14n5_5_t0007.png 이미지

p<.05, MCB: Managerial Coaching Behaviors, LGO: Learning Goal Orientation

OTGHB7_2016_v14n5_5_f0002.png 이미지

[Figure 2] Summary of Path Estimates for Structural Equation Model Analysis

5. Conclusion and Discussion

5.1.Conclusion and Implication

This study was to verify the mediating role of psychological ownership and learning goal orientation on the relationship between managerial coaching behaviors and OCB/creative behaviors respectively, assuming that managerial coaching behaviors in the Korean distribution companies might be effective in improving inefficient organizational culture and surviving fast challenges in their environment. The survey was conducted among the employees in distribution industry and its hypotheses verification test was performed using structural equation model. The research findings and implications are, as follows; First, this study result clearly indicated the positive effect of managerial coaching behaviors on psychological ownership of employees. Coaching is generally based on the philosophy that individuals have unlimited potentiality and that solutions to certain problems lie inside themselves (Ha & Tak, 2012). Therefore, managerial coaching respects employees as people not tools and promotes them to maximize their potentialities through giving relevant feedback, supporting their growth, trusting their capabilities, etc. Then, employees working with such a coaching manager would gain a sense of belonging ness and responsibility for their organization, which could in turn evoke psychological ownership. Moreover, psychological ownership is negatively correlated with turn-over intention rate (Lee et al., 2014), which is known as a very negative influential factor on organizational development (Kim et al., 2015). Thus, its result gives some practical implication to the distribution industry of relatively higher turn-over rate (CEO Score, 2013) in that enhancing psychological ownership of employees in distribution industry might reduce their turn-over rate. Second, this research result confirmed the positive effect of psychological ownership on OCB, which was already verified by other research results. As psychological ownership makes employees consider the organization to be their extended selves (Belk, 1988), they are likely to protect the organization trying to conduct positive behaviors and take responsibility (Van-Dyne & Pierce, 2004). Then, they may demonstrate OCB discretionarily beyond their roles as psychological owners. It is hardly possible nowadays that sales people at the point of sales can meet the various and volatile needs of their customers quickly depending upon their service manual only. But the sales people with OCB may be able to satisfy such customers by demonstrating proper behaviors beyond the scope of their job as organizational citizens on the spot better than those with less OCB. In this context, the enhancement of OCB gives some practical hint to distribution industry. Third, the positive effect of managerial coaching behaviors on learning goal orientation of employees was verified. Managerial coaching behaviors encourage employees to learn new tasks, to challenge tough jobs and to shift their perspective for their growth based on the trust for employees’ capabilities. Employees working with such a manager are less likely to give up tough tasks for fear of mistakes/failures and more likely to challenge them. Thus, their learning goal orientation would improve naturally with their manager’s support. Fourth, the study result confirmed the effect of learning goal orientation on creative behaviors of employees verified in the prior research. The employees with learning goal orientation tend to challenge new and tough tasks without avoiding them nor being afraid of revealing of their incompetence to others. Rather they are likely to take their mistake/failure as a natural part of learning process (Dweck, 1986). Thus such employees would exert creative behaviors in the face of tough tasks or new issues by generating noble and useful ideas. The enhancement of creative behaviors through learning goal orientation caused by managerial coaching behaviors may be useful to the Korean distribution industry that faces challenging issues like fast change of customer needs, increase of online/mobile purchase, conflict between big distribution corporates and traditional markets, collision between manufacturers and sales stores, etc. Fifth, this study introduced a new variable, psychological ownership into the relationship of managerial coaching behaviors and OCB, which was found to be a complete mediator between two variables. On the contrary, the prior research revealed that the variables like cognitive flexibility (Kim & Seo, 2008), self-efficacy (Choi et al., 2012) or basic needs (Kang & Kim, 2013)only played a partially mediating role in their relationship. Thus, this study demonstrated a significant role of psychological ownership as a complete mediator in the relationship of managerial coaching behaviors and OCB. Sixth, this study also introduced a new variable of learning goal orientation as a mediator in the relationship of managerial coaching behaviors and creative behaviors, which was also shown to exert a complete mediating role. This finding extended prior research on the effect of managerial coaching behaviors on the creative behaviors by linking learning goal orientation in their relationship. As managerial coaching behaviors are based on the belief that solutions to problems lie within employees themselves, it could induce learning goal orientation of employees to demonstrate their creative behaviors in the face of tough tasks. This finding seems to contribute to making managerial coaching behaviors more effective, as managers could facilitate their employees’creative behaviors in tough situations by promoting their learning goal orientation during coaching sessions.

5.2. Limitation and Suggestion

Despite of some meaningful insights and practical implications to distribution industry from this study, it has several limitations as well. First, the questions on managerial coaching behaviors, employees’ attitude and behaviors like OCB, psychological ownership, creative behaviors, etc. were addressed to the same respondents for the sake of convenience. Of course, two tests demonstrated that there was statistically low probability of the common method bias, but limitation still exists that its bias was not removed completely. Second, there is an issue in the representative ness of sampling. As this study was sampled from the online research panel for employees working in the Korean distribution industry, there is the limitation that the samples might not represent the whole population. For future research on managerial coaching behaviors, several ideas can be suggested. First to get rid of the common method bias, the new study needs to gather the responses separately from each of the dyad sources of manager-employees. Though this dyad approach seems to spend more time and efforts, it will make the methodology more robust. Second, the number of academic articles in Korea on managerial coaching behaviors has continued to increase. But the study on the antecedents of managerial coaching behaviors is rarely found yet, though there are many studies on its antecedents in western countries. Moreover, managerial coaching unfortunately is not yet activated in Korean work places despite it was introduced more than 10 years ago. In addition, Korean company cultures look still inefficient due to top-down direction, overtime work, etc. Thus, managerial coaching might help Korean companies to improve their internal inefficiency by valuing employees and maximizing their potentiality. This is especially the case, if we understand what hinders Korean companies from activating managerial coaching in work places by studying on the antecedents of managerial coaching behaviors.

Cited by

  1. A Study on Distributive and Procedural Justice of Flight Attendant vol.18, pp.3, 2016, https://doi.org/10.15722/jds.18.3.202003.43