P: +61 7 4781 4254Professor Gianna Moscardo has qualifications in applied psychology and sociology. Her qualifications in applied psychology and sociology support her research interests in understanding how communities and organisations perceive, plan for, and manage tourism development opportunities and how tourists learn about and from their travel experiences. CHALLENGES FOR THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF BUSINESS COACHING: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE AbstractUntil recently there has been little published systematic empirical research into business coaching. This paper reports on a systematic, critical review of 111 published empirical papers investigating business coaching theory, processes and outcomes. The present paper identifies a significantly larger body of empirical research than covered in previous reviews and uses a Systematic Review method (SRm) to conduct a comprehensive review of the available empirical evidence into business coaching effectiveness focusing on implications for theoretical development, practice (within human resource development) and further research in this area. This review identifies convergence around factors that contribute to perceived effective coaching practice but nevertheless highlights a number of issues to be resolved in further research. These include determining the primary beneficiaries of coaching, the factors that contribute to coach credibility, and how the organisational and social context impacts on coaching. Weaknesses in coaching research methodology and research gaps are also noted.

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Many firms spend substantial resources in their efforts to recruit the best graduates, and recruitment advertisements can be a critical medium for potential employees deciding on whether to apply for jobs. It is important, therefore, that recruitment advertisements attract the attention of potential applicants and encourage them to apply. The purpose of this study was to examine the variables that influence attention to advertisements and the intention to apply for advertised positions among final-year commerce students. A quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate the relative impact of three factors in a recruitment advertisement: the use of the word graduate in the heading, the use of pictures in the advertisement, and the mention of a career path or opportunities for development and promotion. The results highlight the importance of a heading with the word graduate and support a proposed three-step model for designing a recruitment advertisement.

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Studies on coaching have largely explored effectiveness from the perspective of a coach or employing organization rather than that of the employee or coachee. There has also been a focus on ‘successful’ coaching, but little is known about unsuccessful coaching or the hindrances to achieving coaching success. Many empirical studies on training interventions have found that support and help for employees from managers and others within the workplace enhances training effectiveness and there is an assumption in coaching studies that this will also be true for coaching interventions. This study addresses the gap in academic literature by exploring survey responses from 296 industry professionals in 34 countries who had been, or were currently being, coached. The study found that facing barriers during the period of coaching engagements was common and we present a categorization framework of six barrier categories. Our analysis suggests that three of these barrier categories may be predictive of coachee perceptions of limited coaching effectiveness: difficulties with a coach; coaching relationships and overall coaching experience. The study also provides empirical evidence that suggests a lack of support from within an employing organization is not predictive of limited coaching effectiveness.

This chapter critically analyzes the use of business coaching as a leadership development tool for tourism operators in regional destinations. Business coaching is a practice that helps to focus the individual on particular goals through the use of one-on-one sessions which help with learning and behavioural change. The approach is more of a long-term practice and is supposed to be more comprehensive in terms of assessment, challenge and support. Business coaching can often include a number of different leadership development tools and can either focus on one specific tool or combine a number of different tools to help maximize effectiveness. For example, the use of workshops to relay generic coaching skills and follow up one-on-one coaching sessions has been suggested as an effective combination. To date there is no empirical literature on business coaching in the tourism sector. A case study was conducted in a regional destination in north-eastern Australia on a programme combining two different leadership development tools, workshops and one-on-one business coaching sessions for tourism operators in a regional destination. The first stage of the research project consisted of a 1-day workshop held with eight local tourism managers and business owners. Stage two consisted of a series of one-on-one coaching sessions with three volunteer participants from this group, starting 1 month after the initial workshop. The sample was made up of eight participants: three were graduate students in tourism management, one was a project officer, two were small tourism business owners, one was a festival director and one was a museum curator. Participants found the workshop either helpful or very helpful. When asked about the three best things that the participants liked about the one-on-one coaching sessions, they said: they felt that the individual focus on them was good and that having to meet up with a coach at a specified time meant that they had to make sure something had been achieved or worked towards before they met, ultimately helping them to achieve their goals. Some respondents also liked that they were able to get more personalized advice from the coach. The responses reaffirm that having an ongoing process where participants are returning to goals set and continuously working on their goals as being a more effective strategy for achievement. Having a coach who was outside the normal working context where participants felt they were in a safe environment and could discuss any topic was also a benefit of the one-on-one coaching sessions. Overall, participants who attended the workshop and those who participated in the one-on-one coaching sessions saw benefits for themselves. Those who did participate in the one-on-one sessions felt that they had a more personalized and individual service and reported that the relationship between the coach and coachee was important. The sessions were rated very highly and participants commented that not much was in need of change for future one-on-one sessions. As previously stated regional tourism operators do not always understand the difficult challenges that may arise. The use of coaching workshops where local tourism managers and business owners were able to learn skills and were provided the opportunity to network and use of one-on-one follow-up coaching sessions was found to be an effective way for these potential tourism leaders to deal with some of the challenges faced by their sector. But it is argued that an effective tourism leadership development approach could be a cycle between group and individual work. Furthermore, if coaching is to be effectively used to help develop local tourism leaders it is important to understand what an effective coaching process needs. The workshop provided a key platform as the start of the coaching process to encourage participants to focus on their values and goals and to encourage a positive attitude towards change. In this first phase tourism-specific information was valuable in helping participants to formulate detailed goals and translate these into action plans. It also provided the participants an opportunity to network with others from the local tourism sector. The one-on-one sessions then allowed for maintenance of change and further development. In this maintenance phase the coach's general skills and support become more important than their technical expertise or sector experience.

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