Editorial

Abstract

We welcome our readers to this second issue of Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice of 2015. Coaching is now awell-accepted activity. Statistics by theUKChartered Institute of Personnel andDevelopment (CIPD, 2014) show that 32% (40% rate this as effective) of UK organisations sampled use coaching by line managers or peers and 12% (rated as effective by 16%) use external coaching. Whilst precise data are hard to come by, this nevertheless indicates that over a third of organisations use coaching in some way. A rough and ready search usingGoogle Scholar with the search term ‘executive coaching’ produces 26,800 results from 1995 to 2005, for the 10-year period from 2005 to now this has grown to 46,800 hits, which is about a 75% increase in only 10 years. So the evidence base is growing. The majority of submissions to our journal start off with some sort of statistics on user statistics (how many organisations use coaching) or industry size statistics (how big the estimated revenue from coaching is). This then usually leads to a call for ‘more evidence’.More often than not, we question such general opening statements. The evidence base is clearly growing, so submissions need to show maturity by articulating more clearly where and how a gap in coaching knowledge and understanding is being addressed. There is now evidence that overall, coaching is effective for learning and enhancing performance (Jones, Woods, & Guillaume, 2015). But there is less parallel evidence which shows how and for whom coaching works – what exactly are the ‘effective ingredients’? This is not an easy question to answer for an activity which ultimately relies on people working together in an effective coaching relationship (e.g. Palmer & McDowall, 2010). Notwithstanding this challenge, the coaching relationship has in turn garnered increasing research interest as a proposed ‘effective ingredient’ of coaching itself. Specific helpful aspects of the coaching relationship (e.g. Grant, 2013; O’Broin & Palmer, 2010) and its potential mediating and moderating effects on coaching and coaching outcomes (e.g. Ianiro, Lehmann-Willenbrock, & Kauffeld, 2014) are beginning to be examined in studies exploring the processes of the coaching relationship in more depth. Lai andMcDowall (2014) took stockof the evidence base to find, perhaps unsurprisingly, that coaching effects have a lot to do with how the coach manages the relationship and demonstrates socio-emotional competence. Since then, the evidence base has grown further still, but there aremany areaswhich require further investigation. In summary, we propose that the field needs growing research on the following topics and issues: