COACHING: AN EFFECTIVE PRACTICE FOR KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER BETWEEN UNIVERSITY AND BUSINESS FIELD

The current economic framework, highly competitive and changing, forces companies to implement significant improvement processes, so they can adapt themselves to constant changes. Many companies consider that, in order to achieve updating, it is not enough to incorporate information technology, redesign work processes or optimize quality and prices, but also it is necessary to consider the human talent as fundamental assets for the strategic change. However, pressure supported by companies and managers often complicates innovative processes and improvement implementation. Companies have the chance to solve the previously-indicated difficulties (especially for small enterprises) by making the most of know-how and taking university experience, resources and tools in order to assimilate innovative and updated solutions by means of some mutually beneficial collaboration. The current work is an example of business-university cooperation, offering an analysis of the effectiveness of one of the most widespread techniques, at present, for staff development and training, i.e., coaching. Specifically, this work analyzes the effects of the application of this technique in the business and managerial field, by studying its impact in the managers' capabilities development for making business improvements through the experience, knowledge and encouragement by advisors specializing in business management. To analyze the effectiveness of coaching, we have taken a sample of forty small companies, which have received a constant improvement method developed by university professors. In doing so, management diagnostics and specific performance plans have been elaborated and, complementarily, personalized advising and learning by means of coaching technique. Results show that coaching increases considerably the acceptance of the proposed strategic changes, such as the level of implementation of the improvement processes indicated by experts and also the satisfaction of managers that have been coached. Apart from obtained scientific results, whose academic diffusion will be applicable in future researches, the initiative has achieved direct and positive effects on the management and competitiveness of the trained companies, showing the benefits obtained both from the application of the capabilities of university experts on the business world and from the business-university active collaboration.