Examining how reverse mentoring influences innovative performance: evidence from the Indian IT sector during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose This study aims to examine the underlying psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions in explaining the association between reverse mentoring and innovative performance. Using the job demands and resources theory, this study argues that reverse mentoring acts as a job resource in fostering employees’ personal resources (i.e. resilience and agility), consequently enhancing innovative performance. Moreover, it examines the moderating role of organizational structure in the above-mentioned association. Design/methodology/approach Data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic from a sample of 382 employees working in the Indian information technology (IT) sector were analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings Results reveal that agility partially mediated the association of reverse mentoring with innovative performance. Organizational structure (formalization and centralization) significantly negatively moderated the positive influence of reverse mentoring on innovative performance. Practical implications To enhance innovative performance at work, organizations should focus on building resilience and agile capabilities of employees through bottom-up knowledge-sharing practices such as reverse mentoring. To facilitate the effectiveness of such a contemporary approach to knowledge sharing in enhancing employees’ innovative performance, managers should align the organizational structure to be less formal and decentralize decision-making. Originality/value This study innovates by examining the unexplored role of reverse mentoring on resilience, agility and innovative performance in the underexplored domain of the Indian IT context. Moreover, it advances the literature on conditions under which bottom-up knowledge-sharing practices will flourish.