The Relationships among Proactive Personality, Work Engagement, and Perceived Work Competence in Sports Coaches: The Moderating Role of Perceived Supervisor Support

Grounded in the job demands-resources model, this study examines the moderating role of supervisor support and the mediating role of sports coaches’ work engagement in the relationship between proactive personality and perceived work competence. A total of 261 school sports coaches in Taiwan participated in the study. The results indicated that work engagement positively mediates the relationship between sports coaches’ proactive personality and perceived work competence. Separately, supervisor support weakens the link between proactive personality and work engagement but strengthens the relationship between work engagement and perceived work competence; however, taken together, supervisor support weakens the indirect effects of proactive personality on perceived work competence through job engagement. Under the boundary condition of perceived supervisor support, the sports coaches’ proactive personality is a critical antecedent of perceived work competence through work engagement. We suggest that proactive sports coaches are assets for schools because they possess the drive and energy for self-improvement, promoting organizational progress automatically.