Abstract
Welcome to the first issue of IJEBCM in 2024. The eighteen papers included in this extra-large issue reflect a wide range of perspectives and contexts and, as ever, our authors are researchers from countries across the world, including Kazakhstan and Turkey, Belgium, UK, USA, India, Nigeria, Germany and New Zealand.
We begin with two mentoring papers and then introduce thirteen papers relating to coaching: six dealing with interventions in the coaching process, four focusing on different coaching contexts and three looking at conceptual aspects within the discipline. Finally, we present a further three coaching papers in our ‘Views from the Field’ section.
Peer Reviewed Papers
The first mentoring paper is by Deseré Kokt and Tommy Dreyer from the Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The study uses a mixed-methods approach to explore mentoring as part of talent management in the context of multinational corporations. Findings suggest that mentor development enhances the competencies and psychological mindsets of mentors.
Our second paper from Gulsaule Kairat from Kazakhstan and Sadegül Akbaba Altun from Turkey is a comparative study of informal mentoring in two higher education institutions in those two countries. The authors explore how informal mentoring works in a Kazakhstani and a Turkish higher education institution and the study highlights the similarities and differences in the practice of mentoring within these two distinct contexts.
The first of our six papers on the coaching process is by Marc Innegraeve from Vlerick Business School in Ghent, Belgium, and Jonathan Passmore from Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK. The paper, entitled ‘Flipping to digital: The coach’s perspective on the limited adoption of technology in coaching,’ examines how coaches use technology and reports their experiences in the digital coaching environment. Semi-structured interviews were used with nine executive coaches. Themes suggest coaches use technology mainly to perform remote coaching and that this was crucial to the survival of many coaching businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were also concerns about the risks associated with digital coaching and the authors suggest actions that coaches and professional bodies can take to mitigate.
Our second coaching paper looks at coachees’ experiences of integrating a self-selected soundtrack into a one-off coaching session. Donna Wilcox, from NY state, USA and Kathryn Nethercott from University of Bedfordshire, UK, review how the use of artistic media in coaching has grown and how music particularly benefits wellbeing, aids new perspectives, and enhances embodiment. The study analyses twelve participants’ reflections of their experience of a one-off coaching session integrating a self-selected piece of music as a soundtrack related to the session topic. New findings suggest that the soundtrack primed thinking during the session and was a motivational reminder of the session.
The third coaching process contribution is from Linda Steyn and Antoni Barnard from the University of South Africa. The study employed a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to explore personal transformation and how it manifests in the coaching process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven senior leaders who had previously engaged in a coaching programme of at least six sessions. The findings describe personal transformation as a self-processing competence that evolves before, during and after the coaching process.
Our next paper is a systematic review of socio-cognitive mindfulness interventions and their implications for wellbeing coaching. Katie Crabtree from Newcastle University, UK, Julia Papworth from Oxford Brookes University, UK, William Pennington from Anglia Ruskin University, UK and Katherine Swainston, also from Newcastle University, UK, review the relevance of socio-cognitive mindfulness to wellbeing coaching by systematically synthesising the evidence to understand how socio-cognitive mindfulness interventions work. The findings indicate that such interventions could provide valuable insights for practitioners and synergistic benefits for wellbeing coaching.
Our fifth process paper explores the experience of an embodied metaphor-based positive psychology coaching intervention as a method to transform perceptions and generate change. For their interpretative phenomenological analysis, Corri Beadle from California State University, USA and Julia Papworth from Oxford Brookes University, UK, recruited six participants to work with the metaphor intervention. Qualitative data were collected via participant journals and semi-structured interviews, and results indicate that the process led to significant breakthroughs for participants suggesting metaphor as an effective coaching or positive psychology intervention.
The sixth coaching process contribution is from Andrew Hughes from Gettysburg College, USA and Christian Vaccaro of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA. In a longitudinal study of how coaching interactions transform leader identity of young professionals over time, the authors explore how social interactions between young professionals and their leadership coaches help develop leader identity. Eleven pairs of coaches and clients participated in a leadership development program and findings suggest five ‘coaching interaction types’ that combine to create a powerful adult learning process for navigating leadership transitions. The findings expand our understanding of coaching processes and leader identity transformation, providing insights to help young professionals navigate the demands of leadership.
Our next set of papers showcases research undertaken in different coaching contexts. The first is by Shruti Sonthalia from Vadodara, India. In the paper, looking at the impact of coaching intervention programmes on Indian educators in tier-2 cities, Sonthalia presents an evaluative case study (supported by the ICF Foundation) examining the impact of the Parevartan Ignite Project on a private school in Ghaziabad. Fifteen schoolteachers and leaders underwent more than eight online coaching sessions, between October 2020 and April 2021. Despite the challenges brought about by COVID-19, the coachees reported experiencing both personal and professional development, creating institution-wide effects in the school ecosystem.
The second context paper focuses on the effects of clinical coaching on clinical performances of nursing students at nursing schools in North-West Nigeria. Yakubu Lawali and colleagues, explain how in North-West Nigerian nursing schools, coaching services are not available. In their study therefore, they used a quantitative, quasi-experimental design with a pre-post-test approach. Data was collected using clinical checklists before coaching and two months later in order to compare nursing students' clinical performance before and after coaching. Results established a relationship between academic stress and clinical performance.
The third context paper is from Elizabeth Ahmann and Micah Saviet researching in the USA. In this paper the development of a manualized coaching intervention for adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is examined. Ahmann and Saviet engaged eight expert coaches in an iterative process over five focus group meetings to develop components of a manualized intervention for a coaching engagement for adults with ADHD. The resulting guidelines, “ADHD Coaching Engagement: Manualized Intervention” (ACE-MI), offer both best practice guidance for coaching adults with ADHD and a consistent approach to a coaching engagement useful in supporting quality research in the field.
Our fourth context paper explores the challenges of coaching non-traditional students in higher education and applies a coaching intervention in this context at a UK University.
Dionne Spencer from London, UK, explains the lack of research focusing on coaches’ experiences of coaching non-traditional students in Higher Education. Her heuristic inquiry research then captures the experiences of coaches to gain a better understanding of the nuances of coaching non-traditional students from their perspective. Coaches reported challenges in applying the coaching intervention, including lack of goals, emotions and awareness of cultural differences. The study identifies the need to develop alternative coaching approaches, supervision and training to diversify coaching approaches and develop coaching competencies for coaches supporting non-traditional students in HE.
The first of our papers exploring coaching concepts is from Tatiana Bachkirova of Oxford Brookes University in the UK. In the paper she explores the purpose of organisational coaching, something which is often presupposed and undertakes a critical examination of the main conundrums that arise from the lack of appropriately considered purposes of organisational coaching. A new framework is presented that helps identify vital considerations connected with the purpose of coaching and, together with a set of underlying principles, provides a way of defining the purpose of organisational coaching.
Our second concepts paper studies how internal executive coaches make sense of organisational role boundaries. In their interpretive phenomenological analysis,
Mary Jordan and Alanna Henderson, from Birkbeck University of London, UK explore internal executive coaches’ sense-making of organisational role boundaries within a rail industry organisation. Findings suggest coaches make sense of role boundaries by reflecting on their organisational roles, relationships within coach-coachee and non-coaching organisational contexts, and the coaching contracting process.
Third in this category of concepts research is a paper from Denise Hinn, Silja Kotte and Heidi Möller, from Germany, looking at the coachee’s mentalizing capacity. Mentalization, they explain, is the basis of the human ability to understand interpersonal behaviour and is considered a key competence in psychotherapy research. The authors illustrate its empirical potential with an exploratory analysis of coaching session transcripts rated using the Reflective Functioning Scale (Fonagy et al. 1998). Findings indicate that coachees’ mentalization changes over the course of the coaching engagement and that it also fluctuates considerably within individual coaching sessions.
Views from the Field
The first of our ‘Views from the Field’ is from Michelle Lucas, researching in the UK.
Lucas presents themes arising from an action research project exploring the shift in mindset from being a coach to being a coach supervisor.
The second paper reports on a case study designed to encourage Association of Coaching Supervisors to engage in ethical practice opportunities. It shares the reflections of volunteer co-facilitators delivering a co-supervision space for these practicing coach supervisors. Michelle Lucas and Yvette Elcock, working in the UK, outline the context and structure of the initiative and discuss hypotheses for a seeming resistance to ethical practice.
The final paper in this set and this issue, is from Iain McCormick and Stewart Forsyth, both working in New Zealand. Their study used a client-generated outcome measure and a coaching relationship measure to assess the effectiveness of group-based reflective practice for coaches. Preliminary evidence suggested that sessions reduced the level of concern for issues where participants received coaching, while levels of concern for issues that were not coached remained static. There was some evidence for the value of group-based reflective practice sessions, however, further research is needed.