A mediating and moderating role on employee performance appraisal

Purpose This study aims to determine the relationship between transformational leadership, self-efficacy, gender, intrinsic motivation and employee performance in mediating and moderating roles. Design/methodology/approach Respondents in this study were 531 hotel employees (human resources development staff, financial, relationship) in Yogyakarta who were led by women. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses using AMOS 22.0. Findings The results show that transformational leadership has a positive and significant effect on employee performance, self-efficacy acts as a mediating variable on the relationship between transformational leadership and employee performance. The results also indicate that gender acts as a moderating variable by strengthening the relationship between transformational leadership and employee performance and intrinsic motivation acts as a moderating variable by strengthening the relationship between self-efficacy and employee performance. Research limitations/implications This study has two limitations. First, the research results cannot conclude the company in general because the sampling of this study is limited to the hotel business which is led by women only. Future research is needed to explore more deeply to compare the performance of employees in companies led by women and those led by men. Second, this study uses only one independent variable. Future research needs to be done to explore the effect of other variables on company performance, such as work culture, work environment and job satisfaction. Practical implications The main managerial contribution of this study is directed to companies that are interested in developing employee performance. First, self-efficacy is able to mediate transformational leadership in achieving employee performance. Besides this research offers a clear strategy for companies to stimulate their employees to strengthen leadership individually so as to improve the quality of their work. Thus, companies can carry out leadership training that is focused on being able to recognize employees who have low self-efficacy. If this is done, the company can reduce expenses that are not small but can make a significant contribution. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the mediating and moderating role of transformational leadership, employee performance, self-efficacy, gender and intrinsic motivation, especially in a hotel business led by women in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.