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The purpose of this study is to explore the different contributions of work and non‐work relationships that comprise individuals' developmental networks to career success.

A multi‐method approach provides a rich understanding of how work and non‐work developmental relationships combine to support individuals' careers. Survey data were analyzed from 254 working adults who were also part‐time MBA students. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 37 participants.

Quantitative results indicate that non‐work developers provide more overall support than work developers. Support from non‐work developers is positively associated with career satisfaction and life satisfaction. In contrast, support from work developers is positively associated with salary level and career satisfaction. Qualitative data indicate differences in the sub‐functions and quality of support offered by work versus non‐work relationships, particularly in terms of role modeling.

Developmental relationships from different domains emphasize different sub‐functions of support and differentially affect career outcomes. While broad functions – career support, psychosocial support, and role modeling – are identifiable across domains, non‐work relationships provide some distinct sub‐functions from work relationships.

Practicing managers should develop and maintain developmental networks that extend beyond the boundaries of their current organization. Human resource professionals will want to consider how well their initiatives encourage individuals to enlist a variety of potential developers into their networks.

The findings indicate that non‐work relationships are a critical part of developmental networks and individuals' career success.

To elaborate how an adult development perspective can further an understanding of mentoring (developmental) networks and their value to focal individuals in terms of the developmental functions provided and outcomes such as personal learning, task performance and development.

The article utilizes Kegan's developmental stage theory to explore the implications of an adult development lens for individuals' mentoring networks.

Theoretical propositions suggest varying network structures among individuals at three of Kegan's latter stages of development: interpersonal, institutional, and interindividual, as well as implications for networks and stage on relationship dynamics.

Several propositions are offered for future research that will help to illuminate what mentoring networks may look like at various adult development stages, as well as what organizations should consider as they go about fostering both formal and informal mentoring for their members.

Individuals should consider how their developmental stage may influence the relationships that they have, and those that they should seek to foster for continuous development. Organizations should consider stage of potential mentors and protégés when creating formal mentoring programs, and include opportunities for individuals to reflect on their own developmental stage as part of the self‐assessment and career development process.

The article identifies and describes an individual antecedent – one's developmental stage – that influences developmental relationship qualities and outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate how an adult development perspective can further the understanding of developmental networks as holding environments for developing leaders confronted with challenging experiences.

The article utilizes constructive developmental theory (C‐D theory) to explore and address the implications of an adult development lens for leader development, especially as they confront complex leadership challenges that trigger anxiety.

Theoretical propositions suggest different kinds of holding behaviors (e.g. confirmation, contradiction, and continuity) necessary for enabling growth and effectiveness for leaders located in different developmental orders.

Propositions offered can guide future researchers to explore how leaders confronted with different kinds of leadership challenges sustain responsive developmental networks over time and how the developers in the leader's network coordinate to provide confirmation, contradiction, and continuity needed for leader development.

Leaders and their developers should reflect on how developmental orders may determine which types of holding behaviors are necessary for producing leader effectiveness amidst challenging leadership experiences. Organizations should provide assessment centers and appropriate training and development interventions to facilitate this reflection.

This paper demonstrates the important role that developmental relationships play in leadership effectiveness and growth over time. Individuals and organizations are urged to attend to the quality and availability of high quality developmental relationships for purposes of continuous learning and development.

This article re‐conceptualizes developmental networks as holding environments that can enable leader's growth as an adult and, hence, increase their effectiveness as leaders amidst complex leadership challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to examine expatriates' developmental networks in terms of their structure and content.

The study employed in‐depth interviews with 64 expatriate professionals and managers in Singapore and China.

The study highlights the unique characteristics of expatriates' developmental networks in cross‐cultural contexts including the nature of cross‐border and culturally diversified network structures, the dominance of psychosocial support, and the importance of cross‐cultural transition support.

Expatriates' self reports and retrospective sense‐making may suffer from hindsight bias and/or attribution bias. A longitudinal study that follows expatriates over time is necessary to examine relationship dynamics through different relocation stages.

The findings suggest the necessity for companies to recognize the limited role of formal mentoring in expatriates' overseas adjustment and relocation success, and to encourage a wider range of developmental relationships that comprise expatriates' developmental networks.

This paper makes two main contributions to the mentoring, developmental networks, and expatriate literature. First, it highlights the necessity of using “network base” as a new structural dimension of developmental networks to examine expatriation and repatriation adjustment. Second, it points out the importance of psychosocial and cross‐cultural transition support in expatriates' relocation success.

Proposes that the promotion decision‐making process contributes to the differential advancement of women and men in organizations. Compares the actual promotions of 13 women and 16 men at a company known for its diversity practices. Finds that bosses are more hesitant to promote women and require them to demonstrate personal strength and to prove themselves extensively before they get a promotion. Men are less likely to have promotions accounted for in terms of familiarity with job responsibilities and are more likely to have a high level of comfort with the boss as a reason for promotion. Strategies for addressing these differential dynamics include assessments of current promotion practices, modifications to human resource systems to increase accountability for the advancement of women, and coaching for decision makers and sponsors of high‐potential women.

The purpose of this research was to understand the lived experience of mentoring to provide insight for those who manage and experience mentoring at work.

Semi-structured interviews with a cohort of 43 mentors and their mentees plus key informants were conducted. It is a longitudinal qualitative study undertaken with a year's cohort of mentors (referred to as “devilmasters”) and mentees (“devils”) in the profession of law, amongst Scottish barristers, advocates.

The meanings of mentoring differed widely between individuals. Mentoring relationships differed in their depth, quality and benefits the mentees received. The research findings reveal the inconsistencies and inequalities that are a fundamental part of the experience of mentoring that, as yet, the research literature has missed. The research also revealed how mentoring alone was not enough and that structured training was required to supplement mentoring. Further, there is a dependency to be found in mentoring. The mentoring process is power laden.

Researchers may need to provide a definition of mentoring to those they research. Power needs to be fore-grounded in research.

As almost all previous research on mentoring is survey based, this is one of the few studies of the lived experience of mentoring, socialization and cognitive apprenticeship.

Describes an evolving dynamic relationship between protégé and mentor, which strongly impacts on the entire organization and those microcomponents associated with organizational behaviour in general. These include individual processes, interpersonal and work group processes, and organizational structure. Pays specific attention to leadership, corporate culture, gender differences, job satisfaction and performance. Finds that mentoring is related to organizational behaviour in general.

Some of the best entrepreneurs fail early and often. Less talented or less committed entrepreneurs do not even get a second chance. Failure and setbacks, however, can be instructive.What lessons can be learned from these experiences? How can the entrepreneur (and investors) navigate around the potholes on the New Venture Highway? Read on.

In today's turbulent business environment leaders must be able to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. For this research the authors aim to focus on the issue of adaptability defined as the ability to work effectively within a variety of changing situations, and with various individuals or groups. They also aimed to examine how variables of career complexity affect development of adaptability.

The authors draw on a unique database containing the career histories of 52 senior executives in a major global corporation. They use the term career complexity to represent the degree of variety in these individuals' career experiences, and they test the degree to which career complexity contributes to the development of adaptability later in their careers.

Findings from this study shed light on the relationship between specific career experiences and executive adaptability. Executives who had the experience to serve in an executive assistant role developed higher levels of adaptability. For executives without the executive assistant opportunity, job rotations through different types of roles provided a boost to their adaptability. Three role type changes (e.g. line, staff, or matrix) is optimal; 100 months is an optimal time to spend in each role type.

While the field of leadership development has generated substantial insight into the competencies required by executives, there are few models and empirical studies that describe the process of how specific competencies are developed. The authors' study highlighted the utility of the career complexity construct for both prospective understanding of career actions and processes and retrospective understanding of paths, patterns, and outcomes. The authors demonstrated the predictive value of the career complexity construct by presenting results of the statistical analyses of the hypothesized relationships between career complexity and career outcomes.