Exploring factors influencing employees' impression management feedback-seeking behavior: The role of managerial coaching skills and affective trust

This study investigates how employees' perceptions of supervisors' managerial coaching skills (MCSs) and affective trust in supervisors are related to their impression management feedback-seeking behavior (IMFSB). Specifically, we propose a conditional indirect effect model that examines whether MCSs have an indirect effect on IMFSB via affective trust in supervisors, while also investigating how MCSs moderate this indirect effect. A convenience sample of 321 full-time frontline employees across five service firms in Taiwan participated in the study. Using structural equation modeling analyses to test our hypotheses, we found that MCSs have a positive indirect effect on IMFSB via affective trust in supervisors. We also found that MCSs moderate the direct effect of affective trust in supervisors on IMFSB as well as the indirect effect of MCSs on IMFSB via affective trust in supervisors, such that these effects become stronger at the higher level of MCSs. Implications for managerial practices and suggestions for future research are discussed.