The influence of organizational coaching context on pre‐coaching motivation and the role of regulatory focus: An experimental study

Abstract This study responds to the call for a closer analysis of the role that contextual and individual factors play in workplace coaching as a context‐sensitive intervention. We build on theories of regulatory focus and training motivation, to propose and examine a model that explains employees' pre‐coaching motivation when assigned to workplace coaching. Specifically, we propose that the employees' perception of the organizational coaching context, as either developmental or remedial, contributes to their pre‐coaching motivation through employees' situational regulatory focus. Results of a scenario‐based experimental study ( N = 175) demonstrated that organizational coaching context affects employees' situational regulatory foci beyond their chronic dispositions. Further, the indirect relationship between developmental organizational coaching context and pre‐coaching motivation was mediated by employee situational promotion focus. However, we did not find the hypothesized indirect relationship between remedial organizational coaching context and employee pre‐coaching motivation via employee situational prevention focus. The study highlights the important role that organizations' management and human resource development personnel play in the “kick‐off” of a workplace coaching intervention by shaping the context of coaching assignments prior to coaching. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the importance of including the organization's informal feedback to the employee prior to coaching as a key contractual element that contributes to coachees' pre‐coaching motivation. We conclude with implications for future workplace coaching research and practice.