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Organizations have become increasingly interested in developing their human resources. One tool that has been explored in this quest is mentoring. This has led to a surge in mentoring research and an increase in the number of formal mentoring programs implemented in organizations. This review provides a survey of the empirical work on mentoring that is organized around the major questions that have been investigated. Then a conceptual model, focused on formal mentoring relationships, is developed to help understand the mentoring process. The model draws upon research from a diverse body of literature, including interpersonal relationships, career success, training and development, and informal mentoring. Finally, a discussion of critical next steps for research in the mentoring domain is presented.

This paper reviews the literature of formal mentoring programs in organizational settings. Additionally, the components of mentoring, how it works, and how it can be implemented in an organization is addressed. Further this paper also proposes that formal mentoring is possible in organizations. Formal mentoring will be shown to be less effective than informal mentoring. Furthermore, it will be shown that formal organizational mentoring can be effective to meet the needs for all employees to have the opportunity to be mentored, to learn from the wisdom, experience and mistakes of others, and to increase the protégé’s career opportunities.

Many organizations have implemented formal mentoring programs within the last few years. Some organizations have realized success with their formal mentoring programs, while others have not fared so well. A missing link with many formal mentoring programs is a corporate level mentoring strategy. The lack of a corporate level mentoring strategy inhibits the mentoring process from becoming an integral part of an organization’s culture, therefore not allowing for the maximization of benefits that can be gained from effective formal mentoring processes and programs. Thus, this paper offers a framework for creating a corporate level mentoring strategy; a standardized mentoring process; and customized mentoring programs, all of which should align with the organization’s strategic positioning to facilitate the achievement of maximum effectiveness from the implementation of formal mentoring programs.

Research indicates that although women have achieved virtual parity with men when entering organizations, within five to six years their careers begin to lag behind those of their male counterparts. This lag is often attributed to the glass ceiling and mentoring has been suggested as one tool to assist women in breaking through. We still have very little empirical research that informs our understanding of the effectiveness of formal mentoring in comparison to informal mentoring relationships. The purpose of this article is to take a hard look at formal mentoring programs and the implications for women participating in them. It compares formal mentoring to informal mentoring. It focuses on the practice of formal mentoring relationships and the unique challenges that women may face as they negotiate these planned relationships as well as some suggested strategies to deal with these challenges. It concludes by discussing the implications of this work as well as alternative sources of support for women.

Formal mentoring programmes have developed in public accounting firms in order to gain career development and organizational advantages and, although there is substantial literature concerning problems with formal mentoring programmes, there are few studies which actually have compared the mentoring process at firms with a programme with those using an informal process. Compares mentoring activities at each level in two accounting firms, one using a formal mentoring programme and the other an informal approach, to see how they differ. Qualitatively, no significant differences were found between the two approaches on the perceived influence for career development. Differences were found, though, regarding the respondents′ personal development and the numbers of mentor relationships between the two types of approaches. Concludes that personal development tended to be rated higher under the informal than the formal approach at the critical staff and senior levels. Regarding numbers of mentor relationships, the results indicate that the significant differences were related to rank.

While mentoring plays an important role in Japanese working places, formal mentoring programs have only recently been introduced. This chapter provides an overview of the development of mentoring in Japan and presents a conceptual model to comprehend mentoring in Japan and beyond. The chapter begins with the illustration of how the characteristics of Japanese organizations and Japanese-style human resource management (HRM) promoted the naturally occurring informal mentoring in the Japanese workplace in early years. In response to the stagnating economy and declining demographics during the last few decades, many Japanese firms adopted Western-style HRM practices, including formal mentoring programs. We provide statistical data to demonstrate the widespread adoption of formal mentoring programs in recent years. We then report the results of the systematic review of the academic literature on mentoring in Japan, suggesting that research on mentoring in Japan is still in the early stage. Based on the historical overview, current data and the systematic review of the academic literature, we develop a conceptual model of how the socio-cultural and economic context as well as organizational characteristics influence the adoption of Japanese-style naturally occurring informal mentoring and/or Western-style formal mentoring practices. We conclude this chapter with practical and theoretical implications.

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether work-family spillovers significantly affect company managers’ determination of career goals by examining the importance of gender and formal mentoring to these managers.

The study sample consisted of 4,222 Korean managers compiled from a large-scale data set (Korean Women Manager Panel) that was collected by the Korea Women Development Institution in two waves (2009 and 2011).

Positive work-family spillover is positively related to managers’ career goals, whereas negative work-family spillover is negatively related to such goals. In the presence of positive work-family spillover, formal mentoring is more effective in helping male managers establish and develop career goals.

The mentoring programs company managers are willing to engage in should be consistent with the gender role. Mentoring programs for female managers are moderately related to the importance of positive work experiences in establishing and developing their career goals. Therefore, to promote the career success of female managers, companies and societies must take actions to change the female managers’ perceptions of their management potentials.

Gender and formal mentoring programs influence the salience of company managers’ work and family roles, which determines the relationship between positive and negative work-family spillovers and career goals.

Most past research on formal mentoring has investigated its antecedents, outcomes and benefits with little attention given to what goes on inside the dyadic relationship. The purpose of this paper is to explore the types of mentor and mentee behaviours that are perceived as critical factors contributing to either a positive or negative mentoring experience for the mentee and the mentor.

Concrete examples of “effective” and “ineffective” mentor and mentee behaviour were collected from the research participants using Flanagan's Critical Incident Technique (CIT). The obtained CIT data were analyzed using forms of open and axial coding. Variants of content analysis were then used for conducting a series of subsequent comparative analyses.

From a total of 187 coded critical incidents the study identified 11 positive and four negative behavioural criteria of mentoring effectiveness as perceived from the mentee perspective, and nine positive and three negative behavioural criteria of mentoring effectiveness as perceived from the mentor perspective. Comparisons against “theoretical” and “best practice” models and taxonomies of positive and negative mentoring reveal varying degrees of overlap and commonality.

There are two main limitations. First, the number of research participants was at the bottom end of the typical sample range for qualitative research, which means the collection of critical incidents did not reach the point of data saturation. Second, the study explored the “start‐up” and “ongoing” phases of the mentoring lifecycle but not the “end” phase.

The findings provide new insights into mentor and mentee behavioural effectiveness within formal mentoring relationships, and thereby add to a sparse empirical knowledge base in this substantially neglected area of mentoring research. Also, they provide a foundation against which to compare and contrast future empirical research that may be conducted on perceived effective and ineffective mentor and mentee behaviours within formal mentoring relationships.

This study seeks to examine the impact of career growth prospect (CGP) and formal mentoring support (FMS) on overall organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and its five dimensions.

Data were obtained from 72 supervisors and 182 of their subordinates in branches of a bank located in a city in South‐western Nigeria.

Results indicate that CGP accounted for a significant percentage of the variance in overall OCB (β=0.46, p<0.001), predicting three dimensions: sportsmanship, conscientiousness and civic virtue. Contrary to hypothesis, FMS did not predict overall OCB, but significantly influenced three OCB dimensions: sportsmanship, courtesy and altruism, predicting “sportsmanship” (β=0.26, p<0.001) to be better than CGP (β=0.22, p<0.01).

Although generalisation is limited in a study of a single organisation, the findings of the study imply that CGP and FMS have differential relevance in OCB.

Altering negative perceptions of CGP among employees engenders OCB but FMS needs to be complemented with other interventions to foster overall OCB.

Although career growth prospects and formal mentoring support are projected to foster OCB in the Nigerian banking sector, no research has investigated this expectation. The extant literature shows that research on the impact of career growth prospects on OCB is virtually absent. Again, the absence of African perspectives on research issues such as OCB, has limited comparative studies and the global scope of most reference journals. This study narrows these gaps in literature and contributes empirical information that equips management to deal more strategically with the integrated approach to OCB.