Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Despite the significance and scope attributed to boundary spanners and role behaviors in Coaching in particular, and Organization Studies more broadly, there has been limited attention attributed to conceptualizing its characteristics beyond Ellinger et al.’s (2003) Coaching Behaviors Measure and Aldrich and Herker’s (1977) boundary filtering and dissemination. Further, the empirical exploration of how coaching expertise and frequency impact on in-role behaviors in the supervisor-employee coaching relationship remains under-developed in HRD research. Additionally, a methodological framework that measures the extent of the effectiveness of coaching expertise and frequency in employee development and turnover intentionality also remains problematic in Human Resource Development (HRD) practice. This problem is particularly salient in organizational change and knowledge management situations where continuous development in mitigating against the adverse impacts of poor coaching could be beneficial. Further, there is paucity of HRD scholarship on the actual behavioral traits that facilitate effective information filtering, facilitation and dissemination in the increasingly boundary spanning roles of HRD practitioner coaches and mentors.
Such under-investigations have led to an HRD under-theorization in in-role behavioral conflicts, organizational change dysfunctionality and environmental turbulence. These lags have exposed organizations’ incapacities to manage uncertainty and complexity and HRD practitioners’ lack of sufficient knowledge of coaching frequency and expertise. This is particularly salient in role ambiguous situations that continue to challenge HRD boundary spanning practitioners and their effectiveness.
The notion of boundary spanners or ‘professionals…who move across multiple work fields’ (Carton & Ungureanu, 2018) and perform organizational and environmental scanning agential roles such as internal and external information gatherers (Huang & Hsieh, 2015; McNulty & Stewart, 2015), and ambidextrous learners (Usman et al., 2024), has gained some research significance in Organization Studies (Aldrich & Herker, 1977; Kislov et al., 2017) and Business and Management research (Collien, 2021; Johnson & Duxbury, 2010). However, the conceptualization and measurement of expertise and frequency in the coach – employee relationships remain under-studied in HRD (Wang, 2019; Yeo & Li, 2022). Existing and emerging HRD scholarship highlight knowledge-bridging (Garavan et al. 2024), systems engineering (Blackman et al. 2022) and group/team connectivity as potential solutions (Yoo et al. 2019).
The papers featured in this Issue namely ‘HRD Practitioner as a Boundary Spanner: An Integrative Literature Review Presenting Ten Boundary Spanner Characteristics’ by Turner et al. (2025) and ‘Refining the Measurement of Employee Coaching and Expertise: A Mediation Study of Supervisor-Employee Coaching Relationships, and Turnover Intentions’ by Mowat et al. (2026) push the boundaries of HRD theorization, research and practice on HRD and provide the basis for a future research agenda on the topic. Summaries of each of the articles are provided in the following sections.
Overview of Articles
This Advances in Developing Human Resources Issue (28 (3)) responds to the conceptual and methodological gap in boundary spanning scholarship. Mowat et al.’s (2026) article proposed a methodological and empirical refinement of Ellinger et al.’s (2003) behavioral measurement framework. Turner et al.’s (2025) study conceptually reviewed 69 studies and proposed ten boundary spanning, inter-organizational, and inter-role competences needed by HRD practitioners performing boundary spanning roles. Using Ellinger et al.’s (2003) Coaching Behaviors Measure, Mowat et al. developed a Frequency – Coaching Behaviors Measure that evaluates the frequency with which coaching behaviors are used in employee – supervisor coaching sessions. Mowat et al. further developed the Expertise - Coaching Behaviors Measure to highlight how eight behaviors in a supervisor – employee/coached relationship are perceived and enacted. The points at which these happen in practice add to the article’s contributions.
By drawing inspiration from Role Theory, which explicates how role adoption and its re-definition can be influenced by organizational members’ behavioral expectations (Luvison & Cummings, 2017; Sluss et al., 2011) and social contexts (Reay et al., 2006), Turner et al. (2025) included ten traits. These highlight how the HRD-practitioner-as-a-Boundary-Spanner notion can be practicalized.
Turner et al.‘s conceptualization produced four key HRD boundary categories, namely role, institutional/organizational, intellectual and epistemic. For example, while inter-role categories evoke a depiction of two or more occupational roles, they also demonstrate how positions are bridged (e.g. from scholar – practitioners to researcher-tutor-administrators – Carton & Ungureanu, 2018). On the other hand, inter-organizational/inter-institutional boundaries focus on bridging two or more entity-level roles that are characterized by different visions/objectives, governance and administrative mechanisms (Qureshi et al., 2018). The intellectual boundaries serve as knowledge or expertise bridges (Rosli et al., 2018). Epistemic boundary spanning includes HRD practitioners’ knowledge that help in negotiating and making meaning of the different boundaries they operate (Qureshi et al., 2018).
Drawing on these conceptualizations, the authors used PRISMA guidelines for a structured and integrative literature review spanning databases from Web of Science to EBSCO. Covidence allowed theoretical organization and record duplication avoidance. 343 research studies that were narrowed to 69 were utilized to develop ten core competences of boundary spanning roles.
Their findings include boundary spanning information and communication bridging between people, disciplines and institutions, the acquisition and transfer of knowledge across organizations, the coordination and integration of individual and departmental activities and objectives. Additionally significant competences involve trust building across relations, networks and teams, inter-role and inter-organizational conflict management, liminality and complexity mastery and management, cross-functional and stakeholder challenge anticipation, entrepreneurship and adaptability, a deeper understanding of the strategic value of technical, contextual, relational and cultural knowledge and navigating role complexities, expectations and identities. These role competences are considered critical in role-positioning within team and group activities, and in the acquiring, developing and transferring of knowledge within and across organizational and institutional entities. This study therefore makes a pertinent contribution by advancing our knowledge, understanding and practical appreciation of the importance of boundary spanning roles, and what types of key competences are needed to resolve individual, inter-group/team, inter-role, inter-organizational, and inter-institutional conflicts, ambiguities, and innovation challenges.
Theoretically too, this article advances the boundary spanning role of HRD practitioners beyond its original dual information filterer and facilitator/disseminator conceptualization. Greater recognition of the diversity of organizational, institutional and contextual complexities and the navigation capabilities needed by HRD boundary spanning practitioners is anticipated to enhance their effectiveness. Additionally, Turner et al. highlight the importance of HRD practitioners’ navigation of role ambiguity, and the salience of negotiating issues around whether to role separate, aggregate, interact, discontinue, reconstruct or disrupt their boundary spanning role identities. These categories are used by Turner et al. (2025) to extend Role Theory (Luvison & Cummings, 2017) by showcasing the importance of ‘how’ HRD boundary practitioners can develop competence that acts as ‘bridges’ to their respective roles.
These competences are key in understanding Mowat et al.’s (2026) study, which focuses on coaching expertise and its frequency. By measuring these two key aspects within the coach – employee relations, these scholars demonstrated their impacts on in-role behaviors and turnover intentions beyond the Ellinger et al. (2003) Coaching Behavioral Measurement. First, by refining Ellinger et al.‘s framework, Mowat et al. (2026) highlighted how coaching frequency and expertise impacted on 63 paired employee – supervisors/coaches, and the quality of the developmental outcomes at the micro-foundational (employee) level. Second, HRD practitioner coaches who boundary span need to appreciate what their expertise is, how frequently they coach staff, and how to redress potential in-role behavioral conflicts that could impact on coaching effectiveness. By developing these competences, HRD practitioners can more knowingly navigate between internal and external work boundaries. These aspects are critical in enhancing more targeted employee development, enhanced organizational performance outcomes, the mitigation of turnover intentions and improved HRD practitioners’ in-role behaviors.
Conclusions
In conclusion, the two articles provide useful insights into an area of research and practice significance, namely, how to conceptualize and methodically measure the effectiveness of HRD practitioners as boundary spanners and more specifically as coaches and mentors. Despite both articles’ contributions to HRD, future studies could highlight which aspects of coaching frequency, expertise and ontological orientations could be more beneficial in driving employee level developmental outcomes, organizational level turnover mitigation and coaches’ performance improvement strategies. Also, further research is needed in developing additional guidelines that could improve the enhancement of HRD scholar - practitioner boundary spanning role capacities using different measurements and conceptual underpinnings beyond Turner et al. (2025), and Mowat et al. (2026). Such considerations could include investigations beyond formalized mentoring, training programs, structured coaching and mentoring sessions and mixed methodologies. Finally, investigating how Turner et al.’s (2025) 10 boundary spanning role competency framework is practicalized in different, under-researched and under-resourced contexts could provide additional organizational, institutional and epistemic understandings and development for HRD practice and theory.