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Mapping the e-coaching field through the lens of an online
community
An explorative study
Stella Kanatouri
This study aimed to map the e-coaching field through the lens of an online
community of coaching practitioners and researchers. A qualitative
methodological design was used to gain insights into participants’
experiences with e-coaching, by means of content analysis of the
community´s online discussions during a 22-month period. The findings
generated five main themes covering conceptual, practical and research
related issues, which provided an understanding of the current state and
developments in e-coaching as a field of practice and research, and as
perceived by participants of this research.
Key term definition
The term e-coaching is used in this article to refer to coaching delivered via
distance and facilitated through the use of technologies, ranging from
telephone to web-based technologies, specific or not specific to coaching.
The terms e-coaching and distance coaching will be used interchangeably
throughout this article.
Our contemporary society is marked by the ubiquity of technology-mediated
communication. The widespread use of the internet and the continuously
evolving technological communication media have opened up unprecedent-
ed possibilities for comfortable, cost and time-effective communication that
surpasses geographic barriers. Whilst these practical benefits of technology-
mediated communication also pertain to technology-mediated distance
coaching, the acceptance of distance coaching by coaches and clients alike
has been a slow and reluctant process in comparison to other technology-
based fields such as, e-learning.
First attempts to integrate technology into coaching practice date only a
few years back, and these involved mainly the use of telephone (Berry 2005;
© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2016
R. Wegener et al. (Hrsg.), Coaching als individuelle Antwort auf
gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen , DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-12854-8_30
Mapping the e-coaching field through the lens of an online community 323
Grant & Zackon 2004). Empirical research has evidenced practitioners’ pos-
itive perceptions of telephone coaching, particularly with regard to the prac-
tical benefits it offers, which include enabling coaching on-demand, serving
geographically dispersed individuals, reducing costs (Frazee 2008) and
promoting follow through and accountability (Charbonneau 2002). Aside
from these practical benefits, a handful of research studies also highlighted
the qualitative advantages of telephone coaching as perceived by clients
(Ghods 2009) and by coaches (McLaughlin 2013), and suggested that tele-
phone coaching is a comparable option to face-to-face coaching, rather than
a second best solution (Berry 2005). Specifically, research evidence has
demonstrated that telephone enhances intimacy and disclosure (McLaughlin
2013) and strong rapport can be established via telephone (Ghods 2009).
However, the existing evidence on distance coaching remains scarce and
inconclusive. Empirical research has taken a rather narrow focus on tele-
phone, as a medium for delivering coaching via distance (Charbonneau
2002; Berry 2005; Ghods 2009). Aside from an experimental control study
conducted by Poepsel (2011), which suggested that participation in an 8-
week web-based coaching program increased participants’ subjective goal
attainment and well-being, research in web-based coaching is scant.
Despite the lack of empirical research however, there are signs that e-
coaching practice is gaining acceptance and it is growing (Grant & Zackon
2004; ICF 2007). The ICF Global Coaching Study (2012) and the seventh
Sherpa Coaching Survey (2012) have already demonstrated a growing trend
towards e-coaching and researchers have forecasted further growth of e-
coaching in future (Frazee 2008).
Which changes are, e-coaching practice and empirical research currently
undergoing? The present research study aimed to explore the current devel-
opments in the e-coaching field, through the perspective of an online com-
munity of e-coaching practitioners and researchers.
Method
As an explorative study, this research adopted a qualitative methodological
design, which allowed to tap into participants’ knowledge and to gain a de-
tailed understanding of their experiences with e-coaching. The online com-
munity »E-coaching: A dialogue between researchers and practitioners« was
set by the researcher on the professional networking platform LinkedIn in
324 Stella Kanatouri
August 2012. Over a period of 22 months, the community grew to 800
members representing 40 different countries worldwide, with different lev-
els of experience and different coaching approaches. Data was collected
from the discussions of this online community over a 22-month period, and
content analysis was carried out to interpret the data.
Findings
The findings of this research are presented in this section based on five
themes that unfolded from the content analysis:
a) E-coaching is conceptually fragmented.
The findings suggested a conceptual fragmentation around e-coaching, as
participants’ perceived meaning of e-coaching differed. Three main views
were advocated by participants: Firstly, the view that e-coaching may in-
volve any communication technology, ranging from telephone to web-based
communication media and tools. As one participant mentioned:
E-coaching refers to coaching, which is mediated through modern media
[…]. Here we can discern the following technological modalities: (1) video
communication, (2) audio communication (telephone), (3) synchronous text-
chat, and (4) asynchronous text-chat. These communication modalities can
be enriched by e-coaching tools.
According to a second view, e-coaching is facilitated through web-based
technologies and thereby, it excludes telephone coaching. Quoting one par-
ticipant:
I personally still struggle with phone-coaching being called e-coaching. For
me, my natural thought process (the gut-feeling) is that e-coaching is com-
puter-based. Everything »e« means electronic like »ebook«, »email« usw.
While phones obviously need technology and electricity to work, they don’t
feel »e« to me.
Based on a third view, e-coaching refers to web-based self-coaching, thus
without direct facilitation by a coach:
Mapping the e-coaching field through the lens of an online community 325
From my perspective I had taken e-coaching to be similar to e-learning i. e.
involving online or other technology based programs without direct facilita-
tion by the coach – the program effectively taking the role of provoking
thinking.
b) E-coaching offers practical and qualitative benefits.
The findings suggested that e-coaching offers several advantages, which
may be distinguished into practical – affecting the feasibility of e-coaching
– and qualitative – impacting the quality of the e-coaching process.
Among practical advantages of e-coaching that were advocated by par-
ticipants were, time and cost effectiveness, bridging geographical distance,
offering just in-time assistance and enabling wider reach to clients world-
wide, whereas qualitative advantages concerned establishing trust, eliminat-
ing bias and enabling strong focus on the coaching conversation. One partic-
ipant felt that the physical distance between coach and client enhances
intimacy and trust:
I find phone coaching takes me deeper and often is more intimate in what
the client shares, maybe because they feel safer with sharing over the phone
as there is some distance.
In addition, the lack of »visual distractions« when coaching via phone or via
text, was also considered a benefit, enhancing the focus on the conversation:
I think that the lack of visual »distractions« on both sides […] really does
allow both coach and client to focus on the conversation, on the words, on
the intentions and on the hidden and unintended.
However, practitioners’ personal sensory preferences played a role in what
they perceived to be a »distraction«. For instance, one participant with visu-
al sensory preferences, considered visual clues to be essential for under-
standing clients’ emotional states and thus, their lack was regarded as a dis-
advantage of e-coaching:
The match/mismatch of body language and words are crucial for me. Only
two weeks ago, in a face-to-face coaching session, I politely asked the
coachee how they were as they entered the room. The person said – in a
326 Stella Kanatouri
very breezy way – that they were »fine«, but you could see in their unguard-
ed moments that something was deeply troubling them.
c) Challenges of e-coaching can be overcome
According to the findings, challenges associated with e-coaching may be
prevented by developing skills and receiving specialized e-coach training.
Despite the fact that, the required set of skills was perceived to overlap with
the skills needed for face-to-face coaching practice, distance coaching skills,
such as careful listening and the use of vivid and descriptive language,
needed to be enhanced in order to compensate for the lack of physical pres-
ence. Quoting one participant:
You do become a more effective listener because you are listening to the
tones, breathing patterns, and words used rather than picking up all the
subliminal clues, which […] could potentially overload both the coach and
the client. I also believe it teaches coaches (…) not filling in all the quiet
gaps.
Moreover, to compensate for the lack of visual cues, which could potentially
lead to miscommunication when coaching via distance – particularly for
coaches with visual sensory preferences – participants suggested the use of
»audio visuals«:
My own experience is that a visual coach can usefully contract with their
telephone coaching client to ask for »audio visuals« so for example they
might say: »I am wondering what kind of silence this is – (…) could you tell
me what you think I would see if I was looking at you now?«
d) The technological landscape of e-coaching is becoming increasingly
complex.
The findings of this study revealed that the technological landscape of e-
coaching is expanding and the scope of possibilities for delivering e-
coaching is widening. Aside from technologies such as telephone, email and
Skype, participants of this study pointed out to the existence of numerous
technologies that have been developed for coaching purposes. Examples in-
clude Covocative, ProReal, CoachCampus, JournalEngine™, Virtual Coa-
Mapping the e-coaching field through the lens of an online community 327
ching (VC), CAI® Coaching World, Jigsawbox™, CoachingSpaces, LPS-
Cocoon®, and CoachMaster™.
An observation of these technologies reveals that they differ in at least
six ways:
• Industry focus: Some technologies are coaching specific, i.e. they have
been specifically designed for coaching (e.g. CoachMaster™) or non-
specific (SecondLife®).
• Function: Technologies serve three main functions: a) enabling the
communication between coach and client, b) supporting the coaching
process, c) managing data outside the coaching process, for instance,
booking appointments. However, technologies differ in terms of wheth-
er they serve only one or a combination of these functions.
• Communication channel: Technologies rely on different sensory cues
that range from: a) text (CoachCampus), b) audio (telephone), c) visual
with built-in voice and/or text chat (Skype video calls, CoachingSpaces)
or visual only (ProReal, LPS Cocoon®).
• Feature complexity: Coaching technologies can be distinguished into a)
Point solutions (Virtual Coaching (VC), LPS Cocoon®), which are fo-
cused on one main feature, such as providing sets of questions or a vir-
tual world for creating constellations or for visual representation of one-
self as an avatar and b) conglomerate solutions (CAI® Coaching
World), which are platforms with multiple capabilities, that range from
facilitating online communication between coach and client, providing
written exercises and visualizations, to making appointments, and pri-
vate messages.
• Synchronicity: Some technologies enable communication in either syn-
chronous or asynchronous mode, whilst others allow both modes of
communication.
• Content creation: Coaching technologies differ in terms of whether they
contain pre-defined materials, particularly pre-set coaching questions
(e.g. Virtual Coaching (VC)), or authoring tools for coaches wishing to
create their own coaching content (user-generated platforms, e.g. Jour-
nalEngine™).
328 Stella Kanatouri
e) Empirical research is expanding
Participants of this research shared references to past empirical e-coaching
research, as well as, about empirical studies that were carried out by partici-
pants during the last 22 months. Table 1 below presents an overview of all
empirical research studies, which were cited in the online community.
Date
Researcher(s)
Title
Design
Technologies
investigated
Past research
2002
Charbonneau,
M. A.
Participant self-perception
about the cause of
behavior change from a
program of executive
coaching.
Qualitative
Phone
2005
Berry, R. M.
A comparison of face-to-
face and distance
coaching practices: The
role of the working
alliance in problem
resolution
Quantitative
Phone
2008
Frazee, R. V.
E-coaching in
organizations. A study of
features, practices, and
determinants of use
Mixed Methods
Phone, Skype,
Email
2009
Ghods, N.
Distance coaching: The
relationship between
coach-client relationship,
client satisfaction, and
coaching outcomes
Quantitative
Phone
2011
Poepsel, M.
The impact of an online
evidence-based coaching
program on goal striving,
subjective well-being, and
level of hope.
Quantitative
Asynchronous
text-based
coaching program
Mapping the e-coaching field through the lens of an online community 329
Research conducted after 2012
2012
Geißler, H.,
Kurzmann, C.,
& Metz, M.
Coaching und Beratung
mit und ohne moderne
Medien – ein empirischer
Vergleich.
Qualitative
Various media
2013
McLaughlin, M.
Less is more: The
executive coach’s
experience of working on
the telephone
Qualitative
Phone
2013
Jones, C.
Improving the Experience
of Skype Coaching in an
Educational Setting
Qualitative
Skype
2014
Hancock, B.
The design of a
framework and instrument
for assessment of virtual
coaching competence –
An exploratory study
Qualitative
Skype and
CoachMaster™
2014
Andrews, A.
Avatar coaching: A case
study on the perceptions
of virtual reality coaching
interventions with an
avatar coach
Qualitative
SecondLife®
2014
Geißler, H.,
Hasenbein, M.,
Wegener, R., &
Kanatouri, S.
E-Coaching: Conceptual
and Empirical Findings of
a Virtual Coaching
Programme
Qualitative
Phone and
Virtual Coaching
(VC)
prep
Ribbers, A., &
Warringa, A.
Increasing employees’
well-being through web-
based coaching
intervention for their
managers.
Mainly
qualitative
CoachCampus
Table 1: Empirical research overview
As it can be seen from Table 1, over the past two years, the otherwise still
scarce body of empirical research has doubled. In addition, most of the em-
pirical studies conducted before 2012 investigated phone coaching, with the
exception of Poepsel (2011), who examined the effectiveness of an asyn-
chronous text-based coaching program. In the last two years however, re-
searchers and members of the online community began to investigate vari-
ous web-based technologies, thereby expanding the focus of empirical e-
coaching research.
330 Stella Kanatouri
Conclusion
Through the lens of the present community, the findings illustrated that e-
coaching practice and research are expanding, as new e-coaching technolo-
gies are introduced to practice, and empirical research is beginning to pro-
vide evidence on the effect of these technologies upon the coaching inter-
vention. The technological landscape is thus growing, thereby unfolding
new possibilities for delivering and augmenting e-coaching. These devel-
opments provide signs of a field, which is changing, learning and evolving.
In this process, whilst practitioners’ experiences of how to use technology
effectively to support clients via distance are beginning to form, the concep-
tual meaning of e-coaching remains fluid.
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