The nature of peer coaching: definitions, goals, processes and outcomes

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this research is to create a definition of peer coaching using literature from various and disparate organizational and educational contexts. This research is intended to clarify what constitutes peer coaching overall, and guide the ever-growing practice of peer coaching. Design/methodology/approach This research uses a combination of inductive and deductive qualitative approaches through the implementation of qualitative content analysis (QDA). The research used a data reduction process with 87 existing scholarly articles in the area of peer coaching, in which the researchers focused on selected aspects of the data and followed the practice of staying close to manifest artifacts within the data. Findings The results of the qualitative data analysis indicated that five themes emerged within the literature. Themes were as follows: program structure, purpose and goals of peer coaching, peer coaching processes and mechanisms in which peer coaching is conducted, outcomes of peer coaching and relational contexts and functions of peer coaching relationships. Originality/value While there is an increase in peer coaching, research on this type of coaching is scarce with few empirical studies on the topic: what has been conducted has not been particularity reliable (Hagen and Peterson, 2014); and most of the published research is limited to education, nursing, other medical contexts and non-profit organizations. This research helps to clarify the nature of peer coaching and create a cogent definition that defines formal peer coaching within all peer coaching contexts.

Unintended consequence in implementation of work culture improvement program through peer-coaching in a sales and distribution center of a large multi-national high technology company

“…This result does not coincide with the results of Doppelt (2017), who suggested that it is no surprise that creating such an atmosphere of camaraderie improved supervisors' work-related interactions with each other and resulted in generating a better working relationship with the peer coaching circle. However, our findings condones with the result of Hagen et al (2017), and Hayes et al (2017) who stressed that the enhancement of working relationships among the supervisors might have created a significant impact on their performances regardless of their improvement or a lack of development in the behavioral dimensions. On an average, 40% of all supervisors' interactions are with other supervisors, and they perceive their interactions with other supervisors in the company to be very important (9 on a 10-point scale).…”

“…To be more decisive in a typical multifunctional meeting (with other supervisors and, possibly, managers and subject matter experts) is not accessible because the composition of the group creates hard constraints that make either decisiveness inappropriate or could result in strong opposition from the group. This repudiates the investigation of Hagen et al (2017), which stated that the sales supervisors had no difficulty in providing examples of improvement in 'relationship building', within their team. On the other hand, this paper found that due to the absence of hard constraints, the sales supervisors could readily organize personal meetings with their subordinates.…”

“…Further, Hagen, et al define formal peer coaching as the process of formalizing the voluntary, mutually beneficial relationship between two or more hierarchically equal peers (Hagen et al, 2017). Further, Hagen specified that the "stated goal, particularly related to performance improvement" is attained "through the use of the specific coaching processes and mechanism of learning, helping and support.…”

Coaching to Tackle COVID-19 Crisis: A Critical Review for Management Practitioners

“…Coaching has also been defined as an essential leadership and management activity that help leaders deal with employees in a more effective way to generate financial profit by driving employees and teams to targeted outcomes. (Hagen et al, 2017). Coaching from an organizational perspective is a useful tool for employee learning and development and is more widely used to fulfill organizational goals and objectives.…”

Capacity Building Indicators for Faculty Development Programs

“…A part from the five themes identified as a capacity building indicators for faculty development courses of basic teaching skills; peer coaching is extensively used in medical education at clinical setting. 10,11 It fosters collaborative learning and…”