Executive coaching during organizational change: the moderating role of autonomy and management support

The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of executive coaching during organizational change processes on executives' self efficacy, leadership behavior and positive and negative affect, considering the influence of autonomy and management support as moderating boundary conditions. The Job Demands-Resources Model (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner & Schaufeli, 2001) constitutes the theoretical framework of this longitudinal study. Based on a quasi-experimental control group design with three times of measurement 66 middle management executives in different organizations during ongoing change processes (N-EG = 28; N-CG = 38) were examined. The multilevel analysis revealed significant three-way interactions, indicating that executives with high levels of autonomy or high management support benefited from change-coaching. After six month of coaching (EG), they reported higher scores in self-efficacy, change leadership and positive affect as well as lower scores in negative affect, compared to executives without coaching (CG). Based on these findings, recommendations for executives, coaches and human resource developers will be derived to ensure the effectiveness of coaching during organizational change processes.