New ways of investigating coaching: linguistic research on executive, business and workplace coaching–a systematic scoping review

Abstract

In this review, we give a systematic overview of linguistic coaching process research. This research represents a relatively recent inductive, descriptive-phenomenological approach allowing to linguistically document and analyse the in-situ co-construction of the coaching conversation by coach and client. Applying qualitative, linguistic methods and working with transcribed, video/audio-recorded authentic coaching sessions as data, this approach allows insights into what coach and client actually do together on a moment-to-moment basis. Using a scoping review methodology, the aim of this paper was to systematically collect, present, synthesise and critically assess for the very first time what we know about linguistic process research on business, workplace, and executive coaching to date; to map its most important concepts and findings; to carve out advantages and limitations as well as research gaps. Following a rigorous search strategy, 46 contributions were reviewed. Findings are divided into quantifiable results regarding, for instance, coaching format, methods, and data used etc., and non-quantifiable results. The latter give an overview of the most important research foci and findings on the macro, meso and micro levels of coaching interactions to provide readers with a comprehensive picture of the depth and richness as well as the complex opportunities of linguistic coaching research.