Coaching and Human Resource Development: Examining Relevant Theories, Coaching Genres, and Scales to Advance Research and Practice

The Problem. Coaching is a pervasive form of development that has garnered significant attention among scholars and practitioners. Although interest in coaching has grown considerably in recent years, coaching has been criticized as being opinionand best-practice-based, as well as atheoretical. It has been critiqued as being an under-examined and researched concept. The Solution. The contributions in this issue address existing concerns in the literature by providing an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of coaching, synthesizing existing literature on research and practice related to genres, types and approaches to coaching, specifically executive coaching, managerial coaching, and action learning coaching. Furthermore, to spur research on coaching, a comprehensive review of currently available measurement instruments is provided. The Stakeholders. Researchers and scholarly practitioners in the human resource development (HRD) field, internal and external coaches, and line managers who are committed to improving the practice of and expanding empirical research on coaching will benefit from this special issue on coaching.