Beyond the dyad: the role of organisational factors in workplace coaching outcomes

While workplace coaching is widely used as a developmental intervention, empirical research has largely neglected the organisational context in which it is embedded. Drawing on a macro-meso-micro framework of organisational influence, the study examines how different organisational factors (organisational culture, organisational support, and goal alignment) are associated with coaching success and side effects of coaching. Using a cross-sectional survey design, data were collected from 119 coachees who had completed individual workplace coaching within the past 18 months. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to predict perceived coaching success and side-effect frequency, controlling for coach employment type, coachee leadership position, and organisation size. Results indicate a selective pattern: a culture for psychological empowerment was positively associated with coaching success and negatively associated with side-effect frequency, whereas organisational support and goal alignment showed no significant associations with either outcome. Supplementary relative importance analyses indicate that the competence facet of empowerment culture accounts for the largest share of explained variance in both outcomes. The findings advance coaching theory by empirically demonstrating that coaching outcomes are associated with macro-level cultural conditions. The findings underscore that coaching is a context-sensitive developmental intervention and highlight the importance of empowerment-oriented cultures in fostering beneficial coaching outcomes.