The Coaching Effectiveness Pathways Model (CEPM): how workplace coaching creates organizational value

Purpose Workplace coaching is widely used as a learning and development intervention, yet much of the literature confirms effectiveness rather than explaining how coaching creates value within organizational systems. This paper introduces the Coaching Effectiveness Pathways Model (CEPM) to address this gap. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a conceptual, theory-driven approach, integrating established workplace coaching research with organizational learning literature to identify how contextual conditions and psychological mechanisms shape coaching effectiveness. Findings CEPM conceptualizes coaching effectiveness as a pathway-based process linking organizational enabling conditions, psychological mechanisms activated through coaching, and differentiated outcome trajectories. It distinguishes proximal outcomes, such as clarity and confidence, from distal outcomes, such as sustained behavior change and goal attainment, and explains why performance-related outcomes show the strongest effects. Research limitations/implications As a conceptual paper, CEPM is not empirically tested. Future research should examine the proposed pathways, mediating mechanisms, and contextual moderators using longitudinal and multilevel designs. Practical implications CEPM gives HR and L&D professionals a framework for designing, embedding, and evaluating coaching within organizational learning systems, including evaluating proximal and distal outcomes separately. Social implications By clarifying how coaching sustains learning and behavior change, the framework supports healthier, more sustainable performance and humane, learning-oriented organizations. Originality/value The paper shifts coaching scholarship from outcome confirmation to pathway-based explanation, clarifying what an integrative, coaching-specific framework adds beyond generic input–process–output and context–mechanism–outcome models.