How Does Coaching Leadership Influence Technical Workers' Taking Charge Behavior? A Job Demands -Resources...

Area of Science:

• Organizational Behavior
• Human Resource Management
• Technological Innovation

Background:

• Employee proactive behavior is crucial for organizational competitiveness in rapidly changing technological landscapes.
• The job demands-resources (JD-R) model provides a framework for understanding employee motivation and behavior.
• Technical workers' initiative-taking is vital for innovation and sustainability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of coaching leadership on technical workers' taking charge behavior.
• To examine the mediating role of task crafting in the coaching leadership-taking charge relationship.
• To explore the moderating effect of task difficulty on this relationship.

Main Methods:

• A multi-wave, multi-source survey was conducted among 351 leader-employee dyads in a Chinese manufacturing company.
• Data analysis employed statistical methods to test the proposed mediation and moderation hypotheses.
• The study focused on technical workers within an innovative manufacturing context.

Main Results:

• Coaching leadership positively influences employees' taking charge behavior.
• Task crafting mediates the relationship between coaching leadership and taking charge behavior.
• Task difficulty positively moderates the effect of coaching leadership on task crafting and subsequent taking charge behavior.

Conclusions:

• Coaching leadership is an effective strategy for fostering proactive employee behavior in technical roles.
• Enhancing task crafting and leveraging task difficulty are key to maximizing the benefits of coaching leadership.
• Findings offer theoretical insights into the JD-R model and practical guidance for management in innovative manufacturing firms.