Relationships between occupational self efficacy, human resource development climate, and work engagement

Purpose – Improving work engagement can have significant implications for performance at individual, team and organisational level. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of occupational self efficacy and human resource development (HRD) climate on work engagement among business executives of select business organisations in India. In addition, it aims to attempt to examine the mediating effect of HRD climate on self efficacy and work engagement relationship. Design/methodology/approach – The sample consisted of 150 business executives from both public and private sector manufacturing and service organisations in India. Data were collected through both personal visits and online questionnaires. Correlation and regression analyses were used to test the research hypotheses. Specifically, Baron and Kenny's method was used for testing the hypotheses of mediation. Findings – A significant relationship was found between all variables in the study. All the study hypotheses were supported. HRD climate was found to partially mediate the relationship between occupational self‐efficacy and work engagement. Interestingly, both HRD climate and self‐efficacy affect work engagement both directly and indirectly through influencing the other. Practical implications – Work engagement requires the workforce that is endorsed with self‐efficacy as dispositional trait. In addition, improving the HRD climate can have significant implications for enhancing the work engagement among Indian business executives. Originality/value – By investigating the relationship between self‐efficacy, HRD climate and work engagement the present study made an effort to fulfil the gap in academic literature where there is a significant dearth of academic literature on work engagement from developing economies.