Managerial coaching behavior and subordinates’ learning effects in cross-cultural context: a moderated mediation study
ISSN: 1750-614X
Article publication date: 25 May 2022
Issue publication date: 1 August 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the effect of expatriate supervisors’ managerial coaching behavior on local subordinates’ learning effects through the mediating role of subordinates’ thriving at work under the boundary condition of expatriate supervisors’ cultural intelligence.
Design/methodology/approach
This study collected the data form 230 Zambian subordinates and their immediate expatriate supervisors working in the Chinese company in Zambia. Regression analyses and bootstrapping analyses were used to test the authors’ hypothesis.
Findings
The results indicated that expatriate supervisors’ managerial coaching behavior was positively related to local subordinates’ learning effects. In addition, the study also found that local subordinates’ thriving at work mediated the linkage between managerial coaching behavior and learning effects. And expatriate supervisors’ cultural intelligence moderated the indirect relationship between managerial coaching behavior and learning effects via thriving at work, such that the indirect effect was stronger for expatriate supervisors with high rather than low cultural intelligence.
Originality/value
This study contributes to a better understanding of how expatriate supervisors’ managerial coaching behavior influences local subordinates’ learning effects by investigating the mediating effect of thriving at work on the managerial coaching behavior–learning effects link. In addition, the study deepens the understanding of the boundary condition of the associations between managerial coaching behavior and subordinates’ learning effects in a cross-cultural context by investigating the moderating effect of expatriate supervisors’ cultural intelligence.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: The authors are grateful for the financial support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant/Award Number: 71772041).
Citation
Niu, X., Zhang, B., Simasiku, M. and Zhang, R. (2022), "Managerial coaching behavior and subordinates’ learning effects in cross-cultural context: a moderated mediation study", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 885-903. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-09-2021-0420
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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