This multilevel study examines the role of supervisors in improving employee performance through the use of coaching and group management practices. It examines the individual and synergistic effects of these management practices. The research subjects are call center agents in highly standardized jobs, and the organizational context is one in which calls, or task assignments, are randomly distributed via automated technology, providing a quasi-experimental approach in a real-world context. Results show that the amount of coaching that an employee received each month predicted objective performance improvements over time. Moreover, workers exhibited higher performance where their supervisor emphasized group assignments and group incentives and where technology was more automated. Finally, the positive relationship between coaching and performance was stronger where supervisors made greater use of group incentives, where technology was less automated, and where technological changes were less frequent. Implications and potential limitations of the present study are discussed. In response to evolving customer demands, many companies are adopting competitive strategies that emphasize innovation in products, processes, and technologies. These strategies, in turn, have enhanced the demand for workplace learning because employees need to absorb new skills and routines to perform their jobs (Salas & Cannon-Bowers, 2001). U.S. organizations invested $134.9 billion in learning and development in 2007, with two-thirds of the total spent on internal developmental activities (American Society for Training & Development, 2007).Along with the increased emphasis on workplace learning, evidence also is accumulating that organizations are devolving human resource management (HR) responsibilities to supervisors and line managers in order to enhance employee performance (Hall & Torrington, 1998; McGovern, Gratton, HopeHailey, Stiles, & Truss, 1997). This decentralization of tasks broadens the core responsibilities of first-line supervision-from traditional duties of monitoring and administration to a set of performance-oriented tasks that identify, assess, and develop the competencies of subordinates and align their performance with the strategic goals of the organization (Hales, 2005;Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007). Thus, our subject of study is the HR role of supervisors in skill development and performance improvement.One approach to performance improvement is for supervisors to provide individualized instruction and guidance to employees in the context of daily work. This activity is generally referred to as informal training, but it is more accurately described as coaching, which the literature defines as an unstructured, developmental process in which managers provide one-on-one feedback and guidance to employees in order to enhance their performance (Heslin, VandeWalle, & Latham, 2006). Coaching has advantages over formal training because it is considerably less expensive and more closely fits the current need for ongoi...

Strategic human capital research has emphasized the importance of human capital as a resource for sustained competitive advantage, but firm investments in this intangible asset vary considerably. This article examines whether and how external pressures on firms from capital markets influence their human capital strategy. These pressures have increased over the past three decades due to banking deregulation, technological innovation, and the rise of institutional investors and new financial intermediaries. Against this backdrop, this study examines whether a firm's capital structure as measured by share turnover, shareholder concentration, and financial leverage is associated with firm investment in strategic human capital. Based on survey and objective financial data from 221 establishments in the United States and Canada, our analysis indicates that firms with greater share turnover, higher shareholder concentration, and higher levels of financial leverage are less likely to invest in human resource systems that create strategic human capital. Differences in national financial systems also lead to differential effects for U.S. and Canadian firms.

This study examines the relationship between informal training and job performance among 2,803 telephone operators in a large unionized U.S. telecommunications company. The authors analyze individual-level data on monthly training hours and job performance over a five-month period in 2001 as provided by the company's electronic monitoring system. The results indicate that the receipt of informal training was associated with higher productivity over time, when unobserved individual heterogeneity is taken into account. Workers with lower pre-training proficiency showed greater improvements over time than did those with higher pre-training proficiency. Finally, whether the trainer was a supervisor or a peer also mattered: workers with below-average pre-training proficiency achieved greater productivity gains through supervisor training, while workers with average pre-training proficiency achieved greater productivity gains through peer training.

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