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Despite its growing popularity in applied settings, executive coaching has to date received little attention in empirical research, especially in regard to the coaching process. This paper aims to investigate the effect of working alliance rating discrepancies on the development of coachees' self‐efficacy, a key outcome in leadership development.

The paper reports on a pre‐ post‐test study of a leadership development program taking place in a large North American manufacturing company. Data were collected from two samples: managers receiving coaching over an eight‐month period and internal certified coaches. In total, 30 coach‐coachee dyads were analyzed.

Results from an analysis of covariance did not support the authors' hypothesis, by indicating that coachees having worked with a coach who underestimated the working alliance, in relation to his or her coachee, experienced more growth in self‐efficacy than coachees who worked with a coach who either accurately estimated or overestimated the working alliance.

The results sugges that coaches should coach with an “ongoing and deliberately maintained doubt as their only certainty”. The importance for coaches to be sensitive to signs of what the coachee is experiencing, and to take the initiative to verify the coachee's comfort level with the way coaching is proceeding is addressed.

This study intended to delve deeper into the complexities of the coaching process by linking a key coaching process variable, the relationship, to coaching outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to use psychological theory to improve our understanding of financial advice-taking. The paper studies how a working alliance between financial service customers and advisors affects the advisor's assessment of the financial service buyer's perceived risk preferences, and what role trust plays as a mediating variable.

The paper obtained data by means of a questionnaire that was answered by 375 matched pairs of bank advisors and customers.

This paper explains how the working alliance method – a concept from psychotherapeutic theory – between financial service customers and advisors affects the advisor's understanding of the financial service buyer's perceived risk preferences. The paper also finds that the role of trust is perceived differently by the advisor and the customer. Advisors see that as their clients learn to trust them they lose touch with the customer's perceived risk preferences, whereas customers do not perceive that their trust in the advisor has any relationship to their risk preferences.

This results suggest that advisors lose touch with the risk preferences of trusting customers, and that psychological methods are needed if the advisor should actually understand customer perceived risk preferences.

The paper advances psychological methods in marketing, and provides a partial answer to the difficulties of financial advice giving.

The results of empirical research on the patient–psychotherapist relationship have led to the fundamental conclusion that the therapeutic alliance is one of the key factors ensuring the positive outcomes of psychotherapy. The main aim of the present study is to determine what variables pertaining to the context of psychotherapy (type of treatment applied in accordance with the psychotherapist’s modality/orientation, type of disorder diagnosed in the patient) differentiated the alliance.

Participants for the main study were recruited from public and private psychotherapy offices across Poland. The working alliance was assessed based on 262 psychotherapist–patient dyads. The sample consisted of 428 participants. To assess the quality of therapeutic alliance, the author used the full version of the Working Alliance Inventory as adapted into Polish.

The results of analyses led to several basic conclusions. The study revealed a differentiating effect of type of psychotherapy on the quality of therapeutic alliance. Alliance quality was not differentiated by the type of disorder diagnosed in patients and treated in the psychotherapeutic process.

The results of analyses presented in this empirical study allowed for exploring the quality of the therapeutic alliance with contextual variables related to the psychotherapeutic process taken into account.

The current study attempts to bridge the existing gap related to the role of knowledge acquisition from international alliance partners to improve competitiveness by examining the distinct processes of knowledge acquisition and the challenges confronted in this learning process in order to enhance local and international market performance.

Following case-study approach based on systematic combining, the study presents a case of knowledge acquisition and learning in the context of an international consultancy alliance between leading Pakistani and Chinese engineering firms using six in-depth interviews of key engineers to explore the dynamic mechanisms for knowledge acquisition and learning from the Chinese firm. Grounded analysis drawn upon the Straussian version of grounded theory (GT) {{Strauss, 1990 #136} Strauss, 1998 #139} is used for data analysis in this research.

It was found that the processes of explicit and implicit knowledge acquisition from Chinese firms are integrated consultancy working, social and technical adaptability and seeking confirmation about the work done and knowledge/theories and models used in work. However, these processes are quite complex, posing serious challenges for National Engineering Services, Pakistan to acquire the required knowledge, which can be addressed through partners' motivation to share and acquire knowledge, cultural intelligence and friendship and informal association. The study also found that the knowledge acquired from technologically advanced international organizations by the host partner in the international strategic alliance not only provides a competitive edge to the local host in its local market but also builds its capacity to undertake similar projects in other parts of the world, substantially enhancing its market success.

Adding up to the current literature that focuses on knowledge acquisition in a parent-subsidiary relationship, the current research proposes a framework for knowledge acquisition in the unique context of international strategic alliances. The research provides managerial guidelines to manage knowledge acquisition for gaining a competitive edge that would be helpful for the managers in the era of growing interdependence among the organizations across the borders.

Project alliancing – a project delivery model used in delivering complex projects – demands new organizational capabilities for successful project implementation. The purpose of this paper is to define the concept of project alliance (PA) capability and to identify the elements that constitute an organization’s PA capability.

This study provides empirical evidence of PA capability based on an investigation of participants’ experiences of Finnish construction and infrastructure alliance projects. The adopted research approach is qualitative and inductive.

The paper conceptualizes PA capability and defines the elements that constitute an organization’s PA capability, including important activities in the pre-formation, development and post-formation phases of PAs and the contractual, behavioral, relational, and operational skills that organizations need for successful alliance project initiation and implementation.

The identified alliance project activities are targets for routinization and best practices that organizations can deploy from one project to another. The identified skills indicate areas in which organizations should build and develop expertise.

There is limited empirical research on the elements defining an organization’s capability to bid, manage and operate in alliance projects. This study presents some preliminary thoughts to augment knowledge of the successful initiation and management of alliance projects and to suggest why some organizations may be more successful than others in alliance projects.

The purpose of this paper is to examine why and how the Trades Union Congress (TUC) – the labour movement's peak body, “think tank” and exemplar – engages in alliance building with civil movements and groups. In particular, it investigates: the rationale for such; the nature of the alliances and the extent to which they inform TUC revival efforts or a new approach to trade unionism.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with eight senior TUC personnel. Most interviewees provided documentary evidence to elaborate on their comments. The dimensions of a thematic analysis of this and web site evidence were structured to reflect the above areas of inquiry.

The findings are that: interest in the TUC and labour movement in alliance building with civil groups is building at all levels; TUC engagement with, promotion of and guidance on civil alliances is largely emergent and sporadic; notwithstanding this, certain parts of the TUC have increased its promotion of and to a lesser extent direct engagement with alliances. It also is shown that: such engagement looks likely to continue to grow as a feature of other revival strategies and there is little assessment of whether alliance building can help strengthen the British labour movement.

The findings inform the paper's discussion of potential TUC and union revival purpose, policy and practice.

This paper provides an in‐depth empirical study of the TUC's involvement in alliance building with other social movements and groups. Policy‐maker and practitioner interest in such is growing rapidly, particularly in light of the debatable effectiveness of familiar British union revival strategies.

This article aims to take a further step forward in examining those important business factors that will shape the future of best practice in the quality management of internal and external strategic alliances.

The article presents a speculative scenario on the future of strategic alliances in education, training, development and business, inspired learning by applying information and data from well‐established professional alliance management sources as the underpinning context for its guidelines.

Many different attempts have been and still are being made by business and academic institutions to set up working relationships that are intended to work well for both parties. These relationships travel under various titles, with the term “partnership” being the most common. Problems of sustainability and/or quality of outcomes are prevalent as a result of the alliance management perspective being taken on a limited understanding of the total relationship dynamics for success; too narrow a perspective on what dynamics have to be managed. Models for success are, however, readily available.

In the broader context there is a wealth of research, best practice and practical experience in the field of strategic alliance management. iPCo's current research is therefore focused on how this professional resource and experience can be adopted to provide a quality framework of management practice that will enable business management to ensure that they make the right choices in the selection and construction of their strategic learning relationships both internally and externally.

The need for major innovations in the management of lifelong training and learning is now well established. Trying to achieve the successful implementation of these developments on a piecemeal basis has, however, proved to be an unrewarding process for many managers. The inertia of large institutional bodies and the “not invented here” syndrome have been proved to slow down or sideline major innovations. Knowing the size of the problem in each situation and how to deal with it effectively and efficiently at the right level is now one of the main strategic imperatives for corporate university managers.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the theory and practice of governance for integrated care, using the case of New Zealand’s healthcare alliances.

This is descriptive analysis.

Alliance governance provides considerable scope for bringing health professional together to focus on whole system approaches to care design. As such, it facilitates care integration.

This is a descriptive review.

Descriptions of alliance governance in New Zealand and in general are rare in the literature. This paper fills this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into how a project alliance contract is conducive to the development of cooperative relationships between client and contractor organizations involved in a complex project.

A longitudinal case study of a complex construction project was conducted in which the contract was changed at the end of the negotiation period from a design‐build into a project alliance form.

Data show that opportunistic behaviour is reduced when there is an incentive structure, as is to be found in project alliances, for client and contractor organizations to cooperatively realize the project. However, it is not sufficient for project partners to agree upon an appropriate incentive structure. For cooperative relationships to develop, they also have to put substantial efforts into reducing their remaining inclinations to make use of opportunities that arise to deviate from the alliance contract.

It is shown that both principals and contractors not only need to carefully select staff for such projects; they also have to work with the people employed such that appropriate attitudes are reinforced and rewarded. Developing cooperative relationships in project alliances needs the surrounding working methods to offer support.

The longitudinal character of the case study offers exceptional opportunities for studying the dynamics in preventing and overcoming the deteriorating patterns of opportunistic behaviour that organizations regularly face in many traditional and design‐build projects.

Eli Lilly's director of alliance management tells how the company has learned to make a success of its partnership strategy.

The author describes best practices and key principles.

The Lilly process has proven successful – of the last six products the firm has launched, four are promoted with a partner.

Lilly has developed a “three‐dimensional fit” analysis that helps the firm identify elements of strategic fit, cultural fit and operational fit between Lilly and a partner company.

Lilly describes how the elements of their alliance program increase the likelihood of success for individual partnerships and how a continuous learning process contributes to the success of future alliances.