Date of Award

Spring 6-7-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial/Organizational Psychology (PhD)

Department

Industrial/Organizational Psychology

First Advisor/Committee Member

Joey Collins, Psy.D.

Second Advisor/Committee Member

Helen Chung, Ph.D.

Third Advisor/Committee Member

AJ Maguire, Ph.D.

Keywords

Coach, Identity, Constructivist Grounded Theory, Manager, Organization, Development

Abstract

In the 21st century, organizational expectations of managers have shifted away from traditional command-and-control toward a model of facilitating employee development (Ibarra & Scoular, 2019). Modern managers are expected to be good coaches, even though the coaching discipline is growing faster than it can be regulated (Garvin, 2013; Sherman & Freas, 2004). This research investigated the lived experiences of managers who coach and their emergent concept of identity through the lens of manager as instrument. I utilized a constructivist grounded theory approach to generate insights about coach identity experiences of managers who coach. This perspective and methodology provided an opportunity for robust investigation of coach identity within an understudied population, managers who coach, generating two novel contributions of interest: 1) rich description of manager-coach identity experiences, and 2) a model that describes how manager-coaches experience coach identity in the context of work. These findings inform directions about manager-coach identity, specifically identifying areas of opportunity for underrepresented identity experiences among manager-coaches, such as learning through imitation of other manager-coaches and engagement in a community of practice. This research also drives practical applications for both organizations and manager-coaches. Recommendations include: 1) actors, activities, and agreements are factors in the workplace environment that facilitate organizational coaching culture, 2) how manager-coaches can conduct an intrapersonal and environmental assessment, and 3) connecting coach training to definition and assessment of good manager-coaching.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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