Rollenkonflikte und Stress in hoch kompetitiven Systemen als Coachingthema

For psychological coaching the insurance distribution as an extremely competitive setting still is widely unexploited in Germany. However, the increasing staff shortage in sales in the course of the demographic change creates a growing readiness on the side of the insurer to invest in coaching as a highly personal and practical form of human resources development. The article discusses role conflicts and stress of sales agents as consequences of the systems parameters and the development of social and emotional competencies as tasks for coaching in insurance distribution. The article furthermore points out strategies of intervention that are adjusted to the setting of sale.     

„Coaching“ durch die Führungskraft — eine kritische Betrachtung

?Leadership Coaching“ — A critical discussion?Leadership Coaching“ comes into vogue again. It is possible that cutting down the expenses for HRM (and specially for counsultants) reinforces this trend. Therefore it is again time to discuss the question about the main differences between “leadership coaching” and coaching by professionals. Consultations by the superior can be helpful, however there are distinct differences to the professional coaching.     

Freiburger Erfolgsfaktoren-Coaching

Grawe??s consistency model provides a theoretical basis for a deeper understanding of coaching in general and the change process that successful coaching must create. The Freiburger Success Factor Coaching presents an approach that is committed to its scientific foundation. The four critical success factors are derived from the consistency model and neuropsychological research: resource activation including the coaching relationship, clarification, accomplishment and problem actualization.     

Kann denn Coaching Führung sein?

May coaching be leadership? An analysis of literature on the term coaching. An analysis of the German-speaking literature about coaching shows for what the term Coaching or rather the title coach is used in actual publications dealing with the leading manager as a coach. It becomes apparent, that coaching is not seen as a specialized advisory profession. Instead the term is used as an alternative expression for leadership vocabulary as management style or managerial functions. The elaboration of terms and concepts concludes, that semantically it is meant leadership when it comes to the concept of the coaching manager. To be an exception, the management by systemic approach forms a brand-new perspective about organizations. However, to give respects to the German-speaking coaching community there should be a difference between leadership and coaching as well as notions and titles should be used more accurate among professional management coaches.     

Qualitätsmanagement und Qualitätssicherung im Coaching

Quality management and quality assurance in coaching Presently, there is an apparent discrepancy between the demand for and the lack of quality discussion in coaching. In both the professional continuing education or staff development respectively and in psychotherapy these quality discussions have been led for a long time. These quality discussions are investigated according to a benchmarking. This article aims at transferring applicable knowledge from these working fields to coaching. Additionally it is focused on minimal standards in coaching which are already recognizable. Finally, conclusions are drawn with regard to urgent objectives around quality management in coaching which have to be achieved in future.     

Einführung von Internem Coaching in die Organisation eines Handelsbetriebes

This paper deals with the requirements analysis of an internal coaching concept in the organisation of a merchandising company and its following implementation. The aim is to offer the advantages of coaching to the middle and lower management as the top management already receives benefit from individual coaching. The requirements analysis was based on interviews with nine department managers using a pre-structured questionnaire. Based on these interviews a customised coaching concept for this company was defined: coaching is an optional, temporary, individual, method conducted, trust-based, internal consulting service for new leaders.     

Implizite Theorien über Lernen und Veränderungen durch Coaching in Organisationen – Eine empirische Untersuchung

There are many different ways to understand and use coaching in organization which are influenced by the organizational culture with different basic assumptions about learning and change of humans. The question is on behalf of which implicit theory the members understand and develop their organization. The goal of the following investigation is to describe these implicit theories of change. Therefore a large sample of human resource managers were interviewed about assessment criteria for coaches, coaching topics, expectations on coaching, attitudes on coaching and the impact of coaching in their organization. The results show that there are no distinguishable patterns in the formal coaching processes but clear und different types of implicit theories about coaching. Finally some implication for coaching in organization and for external professional coaches were made.     

Der Coaching-Boom. Eine Printmedienanalyse

From its very beginning executive coaching has been suspected of being a consultancy fad. To meet with the fashion point there are three standpoints: (1) Executive coaching is a real competitive social innovation; (2) it is both, a fad and an instrument for coping with problems; (3) executive coaching is almost ignored as sheer fashion phenomenon. The article takes a fourth account by showing that the fashion verdict applies only for the booming coaching literature whose rate of expansion exceeds all rates of comparable issues like human resource development, leadership development, clinical supervision, and mentoring. In contrast in organizations executive coaching is of little importance. What is more, the discussion of coaching fails to keep up with recent organization science’s standard of knowledge.     

The Relationship Between Diversification and Performance in Export Intermediary Firms

The study examines the impact of product, functional and geographical diversification on the sales, exports and profitability of export intermediaries (EIs). It is based on a mailed survey of a sample of 135 British EIs. The results indicated that product and unrelated functional diversification are important to an EI's export stability. EIs that tend to carry undifferentiated products also exhibit more stable export sales. Although geographical diversification itself was not found to affect performance, focus on the economically developed countries seems to be critical for an EI's stability and growth of sales and exports.     

A Sales Forecast Model for Short‐Life‐Cycle Products: New Releases at Blockbuster

We develop, in this article, a sales model for movie and game products at Blockbuster. The model assumes that there are three sales components: the first is from consumers who have already committed to purchasing (or renting) a product (e.g., based on promotion of, or exposure to, the product prior to its launch); the second comes from consumers who are potential buyers of the product; and the third comes from either a networking effect on closely tied (as in a social group) potential buyers from previous buyers (in the case of movie rental and all retail products) or re‐rents (in the case of game rental). In addition, we explicitly formulate into our model dynamic interactions between these sales components, both within and across sales periods. This important feature is motivated by realism, and it significantly contributes to the accuracy of our model. The model is thoroughly tested against sales data for rental and retail products from Blockbuster. Our empirical results show that the model offers excellent fit to actual sales activity. We also demonstrate that the model is capable of delivering reasonable sales forecasts based solely on environmental data (e.g., theatrical sales, studio, genre, MPAA ratings, etc.) and actual first‐period sales. Accurate sales forecasts can lead to significant cost savings. In particular, it can improve the retail operations at Blockbuster by determining appropriate order quantities of products, which is critical in effective inventory management (i.e., it can reduce the extent of over‐stocking and under‐stocking). While our model is developed specifically for product sales at Blockbuster, we believe that with context‐dependent modifications, our modeling approach could also provide a reasonable basis for the study of sales for other short‐Life‐Cycle products.     

THE EFFECT OF RETAIL PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES ON SALES*

This article reports the formulation and results of a multiple equation econometric model to relate retail sales by brand and package size to retail promotional variables for a branded, frequently purchased grocery product. Primary emphasis is placed on the formulation of the model as opposed to the results obtained from its use.     

E-Coaching: Prozess- und Ergebnisevaluation des„Virtuellen Zielerreichungscoachings“

The authors present the design and first results of an ongoing research project. The main emphasis of the research lies on observable and mental processes of the coach and the coachee in and between coaching sessions as well as for the coachee after the coaching. The research is based on a particular e-coaching format named “virtual goal attainment coaching”, consisting of telephone-based coaching sessions combined with by internet mediated questions that the coachee answers with support of the coach. The ambition of this particular type of coaching, since based on empirical findings of coaching success factors and combined with modern media, is to generate excellent results within a short amount of time. Preliminary findings confirm the efficiency and effectiveness of this blended coaching program.     

Evaluating leadership coaching: A review and integrated framework

Leadership coaching reflects an evolving dynamic between the client and coach that is qualitatively different from most approaches to leadership development and therefore holds particular challenges for evaluation. Based on reviews of academic and practitioner literatures, this paper presents an integrated framework of coaching evaluation that includes formative evaluations of the client, coach, client–coach relationship, and coaching process, as well as summative evaluations based on coaching outcomes. The paper also includes a quantitative synthesis examining evaluation methodologies in 49 leadership coaching studies. The results revealed that self-reported changes in clients' leadership behaviors are the most frequently assessed coaching outcome, followed by clients' perceptions of the effectiveness of coaching. Recommendations to advance coaching evaluation research include the creation of collaborative partnerships between the evaluation stakeholders (client, coach, client's organization, and coaching organization) to facilitate systematic formative evaluations, the collection of multi-source and multi-level data, and the inclusion of distal outcomes in evaluation plans.     

Interne und externe Coachings in Unternehmen

When organizations employ coaching as an instrument for personnel development, the question arises whether they should opt to engage internal or external consultants. In a first step, this article identifies the characteristics of internal and external coaches by means of a series of criteria. It then goes on to discuss the factors which influence the suitability of choice between an internal or external coach at the level of the organization, in terms of the coachee and in terms of the coach. It becomes apparent that there is a situational consideration of the advantages and disadvantages. The article concludes with an actual example which demonstrates possibilities to combine the advantages of internal and external coaching.     

Erfolgsfaktoren beim Einzel-Coaching

Success factors of executive coaching. A screening of the coaching scenery from the client’s point of viewThis survey, based on questionnaires, examines the success factors of one-to-one coaching from the client point of view. Firstly, ten success factors in coaching were established by means of factor analysis. Secondly, more extensive analysis shows that, contrary to previous research in this field, the “professional system” is not necessarily a determining success factor in coaching. As an exclusive instrument of staff development, coaching seems to be effective even without support from the professional system. The analysis also indicates that the clients perceive their coach as an advisor and confidant as regards role expectations. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis discloses the predictive effects of the two success factors “the coach’s qualification” and “the coach’s involvement” for the overall success of coaching from the client’s point of view. The overall success of coaching itself is established through three items: the clients’ attitudes towards coaching, their attitude concerning further coaching, and the extent to which their objectives were met in coaching.     

Selbstmanagement-Entwicklung durch coaching?

Development of self-management by coaching? An expert survey on the promotion of self-management competenciesThe much-discussed assumption that business coaching promotes clients’ self-management competence was explored through an expert survey. In a qualitative questionnaire study, 20 professional coaches provided information on their conceptual understanding of self-management, their approaches to promoting client self-management and on strategies employed to assess intervention outcome. In addition, coaches specified the obstacles and constraints clients encounter when transferring improved self-management skills into everyday working life. The results corroborate the relevance of the self-management concept in a coaching context. The benefits resulting from an increased consideration of self-management processes in coaching research, vocational training courses and day-to-day coaching practice are discussed. The use of theoretical concepts which provide a guideline is recommended.     

Hier ist dort – Coaching auf dem Weg in virtuelle Beratungswelten

When it comes to Online Coaching in its different forms, there is now an increasing number of publications to describe possible fields of application, concepts and prerequisites. In contrast to that, the following article focuses on the coach-client encounter, and how it changes in virtual coaching formats as opposed to face-to-face coaching. The article presents ideas on how big a role changes in sensory and communicative aspects might play, and reflects upon the consequences these changes imply.     

A note on the deterministic EPQ with partial backordering

In a recent paper published in Omega [Pentico DW, Drake MJ, Toews C. The deterministic EPQ with partial backordering: a new approach. Omega 2009; 37(3):624–36], the authors proposed an EPQ model with partial backordering. In the EPQ model, a critical value of backordering rate was developed, below which the optimal production policy is either to lose all sales or meet all demand, above which the optimal policy is to allow stockouts with partial backordering and meet fractional demand. However, there exists a flaw in the critical value of backordering rate, which will be amended in this note.     

Anmerkungen zur Professionalisierung des Coaching auf dem Hintergrund des klassischen Professionsbegriffs

Some comments on the professionalization of coaching with regard to the classical concept ?profession“ In the current discussions on the professionalization of coaching the concept ?profession“ often is not clear. Therefore, the author first delineates the classical concept of profession and its main criterions. He then discusses the question whether these criterions are present in coaching and whether coaching may or should be conceived as an independent profession. Considering the tendencies of deprofessionalization in the traditional professions, it seems to be meaningful to understand coaching as a profession, but with a revised theoretical concept of profession: Particularly concerning the necessary scientific orientation it demands an interdisciplinarity instead of a fixed corpus of knowledge. The professionality of the practitioner means an orientation on general values and concepts of understanding and acting and is a central aspect of quality of coaching.     

Die Coachingkultur als Wirkfaktor

The coaching culture as an impact factor on the efficacy of Coaching has rarely been addressed in scientific research so far. This article differentiates the coaching culture in aspects of the organizational embedding and attitudes towards coaching. The results of the quantitative study, where N = 49 members of organizations took part, show that the coaching processes are conducted in diverse ways, that the format is being applied for a broad range of issues and that the attitudes towards coaching lead into a positive direction. As a significant predictor for the judgement of coaching effects the reputation of the format in the organization was identified.