PurposeUniversities and higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly recognizing the value of coaching for professional and organizational development. This study is designed to investigate whether Cognitive Coaching, implemented as a programme in an HEI in Oman, made any difference to the behaviour and attitudes of employees holding leadership positions in academic, administrative and professional services departments. It also explored the factors that hindered or supported the coaching programme and offers recommendations to strengthen coaching initiatives in similar contexts.Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect feedback from the 15 participants of the programme. A case study approach was adopted in this study for an in-depth examination of the effectiveness of coaching interventions.FindingsThe findings suggest that coaching can be an effective approach, facilitating personal and professional development and also contributing to the achievement of organizational goals.Research limitations/implicationsAs a case study of a coaching programme in a single institution, the findings of the study are not generalizable to other contexts, though a “thick description” of the context in which the study took place will enable institutions in similar contexts to draw lessons from the experience.Practical implicationsThis study discusses the benefits of a coaching programme for an HEI in the Middle East. Suggestions to strengthen coaching include board level endorsement and sensitivity to cultural nuances in coaching relationships.Social implicationsOne of the effects of a coaching programme is the collegial atmosphere that it can foster. This can have wider impacts on the community as there is more open communication and trust engendered amongst employers and employees belonging to different cultural backgrounds.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to report the findings of a systematically organized coaching programme in an HEI in the Middle East.

This paper investigates the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in dynamic econometric model on Pakistan economy data set (1970-2007). VAR, VEC, generalized impulse response functions, Granger causality, forecasting, three stage least square econometric techniques are used in empirical analysis. Results suggest cost related, macroeconomic factors and cumulative risk index variables are the major determinants emerged in short-run analysis. The results also suggest long run relationships among FDI, openness and macro economic factors consistently. Openness emerges as dominant factor in long run dynamics. Evidence suggests that determinant variables that exhibit short run dynamics may also exhibit long run dynamics and vice versa. The country requires to maintain macroeconomic stability and continuity in openness policies of reform processes of the last 20 years, along with maintaining cost advantage by controlling the level of prices, wage rate, cost of doing business and investment friendly environment. This implies continuity of sustained stable macro economic policies, improvement in country's risk profile followed by cost related and investment environment improving factors.

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This paper analyzes trade among and the convergence of per capita income for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The extent of trade and its relationship with the magnitude of income convergence is studied among these countries and their trading partners. We use intra-trade convergence and the difference-in-differences approach for the estimations. The results demonstrate that an increase in trade between the groups decreases the per capita income differential. Our results suggest that trade liberalization policies could be effective in achieving convergence. More importantly, we find that the per capita income of our source countries converged more rapidly under post-liberalization regimes than preliberalization regimes.