Executive Coaching and the Effect on Causal Attribution

F Moen International Journal of Coaching in Organizations 2011

This article investigates the impact of a one year executive coaching experiment on intrapersonal causal attribution. The results showed that executive coaching had significant effects on the executives’ causal attributions. Causal attributions of successful achievements to strategy, ability and effort increased, whereas causal attributions of unsuccessful achievement to ability decreased as a result from the experiment. The findings are discussed from the perspective of the principles characterizing coaching, such as the coachee’s controllability and responsibility in the process and the positive asset search focusing on strengths and positive assets.