Purpose: – The study aims at investigating the impact of organizational learning (OL) on the firm’s performance and knowledge management (KM) practices in a heavy engineering organization in India. Design/methodology/approach: – The data were collected from 205 middle and senior executives working in the project engineering management division of a heavy engineering public sector organization. The organization manufactures power generation equipment. Questionnaires were administered to collect the data from the respondents. Findings: – Results were analyzed using the exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis techniques. The findings showed that all the factors of OL, i.e. collaboration and team working, performance management, autonomy and freedom, reward and recognition and achievement orientation were found to be the positive predictors of different dimensions of firm’s performance and KM practices. Research limitations/implications: – The implications are discussed to improve the OL culture to enhance the KM practices so that firm’s performance could be sustained financially or otherwise. The study is conducted in one division of a large public organization, hence generalizability is limited. Originality/value: – This is an original study carried out in a large a heavy engineering organization in India that validates the theory of OL and KM in the Indian context.

Management and health care literature is increasingly preoccupied with leadership as a collective social process, and related leadership concepts such as distributed leadership have therefore recently gained momentum. This paper investigates how formal, i.e. transformational, transactional and empowering, leadership styles affect employees’ perceived agency in distributed leadership, and whether these associations are mediated by employees’ perceived organizational efficacy. Based on large-scale survey data from a study at one of Scandinavia’s largest public hospitals (N = 1,147), our results show that all leadership styles had a significant positive impact on employees’ perceived agency in distributed leadership. Further, organizational efficacy related negatively to employees’ perceived agency in distributed leadership; however, a mediatory impact of this on the formal leadership styles-distributed leadership relationship was not detected. These results emphasize the importance of formal leaders to enhance employee involvement in various leadership functions; still, employees might prefer to participate in leadership functions when they perceive that the organization is struggling to achieve its goals.

Purpose: Although considerable research has been completed on employee voice, relatively few studies have investigated employee silence. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between employee silence and job burnout as well as the possible mediating role of emotional intelligence (EI) on the silence-burnout relationship. Design/methodology/approach: This paper reports the findings of an empirical study based upon the survey of 286 managers working in four different states in India. Correlational and mediated regression analyses were performed to test four hypotheses. Findings: Contrary to findings from studies conducted in Western countries in which employee silence was positively related to undesirable work outcomes, in this study, employee silence was negatively related to job burnout. Additionally, results indicated that the relationship between employee silence and job burnout was mediated by EI. These findings suggest the importance of considering country context and potential mediating variables when investigating employee silence. Practical implications: This study demonstrates how Indian employees may strategically choose employee silence in order to enhance job outcomes. Originality/value: This study is one of the few efforts to investigate employee silence in a non-western country. This is first study that has examined the role of EI as a mediating variable of the relationship between employee silence and job burnout in India.