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This chapter discusses how attachment theory, a theory that provides insight into the processes through which psychological and emotional bonds are developed in relationships, can be useful for understanding mentoring relationships. We develop a conceptual model emphasizing how attachment-related constructs and their relationships with mentors’ and protégés’ behaviors and emotions influence each phase of a mentoring relationship. Recognizing reciprocity in the mentoring process, the model also explains how the interpersonal dynamics of the mentor–protégé relationship influence the benefits gained by both partners. Propositions for future research on mentoring relationships are provided. We contend that examining mentoring through the lens of attachment theory can increase our understanding of the underlying factors or mechanisms that determine individuals’ involvement in mentoring relationships and differentiate successful from unsuccessful mentoring relationships. The research and practical implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between mentoring, managerial effectiveness and demographic variables. Being in a mentoring relationship offers a low-cost experiential learning, encourages diversity and inclusion, helps in expanding professional associations and boosts engagement. The use of mentoring programs can achieve this to a larger extent by making managers effective.

The study was administered on 350 middle-level managers, representatives of five private sector banks in Delhi/NCR. Variables in the study were assessed using validated instruments. Descriptive statistics, t-test, correlation and hierarchical regression were used for data analysis.

The study depicts that mentoring has a positive and significant impact on managerial effectiveness. The research contributed in establishing that the demographic variables (gender and marital status) positively moderate the relationship between mentoring and managerial effectiveness.

Although the knowledge base and skillfulness of the young mangers are taken care by the way of organizational training, mentoring relationships complement it with added focus on personal directions to deal with minutiae of organizational processes. Mentors provide a critical linkage to an organization’s competitive advantage by helping expanding connections and networks of employees, and thereby, enhancing productivity which directly affects profitability. Managers and policymakers should chart out the mentoring plans, keeping in perspective the demographic variables, specially the gender of the mentee and the marital status.

This is a pioneer study contributing to the present reserve of knowledge and understanding of the subject by contextualizing the impact of demographic variables on mentoring and managerial effectiveness in Indian private sector banks.

To expand the literature and enhance understanding of the mentoring process, this research proposes the social exchange theory (SET) as a framework for the exchanges that take place between individuals in a mentoring relationship.

A detailed literature review for mentoring and Fiske's social exchange theory propositions, as well as work by Hofstede on power distance, gender, and diversity studies, provide a new approach to mentoring research.

The four relational structures (communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching and market pricing) developed by Fiske and the effects of diversity are integrated with the existing mentoring literature to create a new model explaining the effects exchange type and diversity have on the perceived amount of support given and received during the maturation process of the mentoring relationship.

This paper extends an under‐researched area of mentoring with discussion and suggests areas for future research. Specifically, the study focuses on operationalising and testing the proposed, expanded mentoring model in both qualitative and quantitative research for confirmation and further theory building.

By integrating mentoring and Fiske's social exchange theories to provide an alternative explanation for the mentoring process, this paper proposes a number of new possible relationships that will require quantitative, confirmatory research but should add significantly to this area of study. Propositions for further testing are provided as well as suggestions for operationalising and testing the model.

The purpose of this paper is to examine mentoring relationships involving minority graduate students in the USA.

The authors take a multifaceted approach to providing strategies to improve the opportunities of minority students to acquire mentors by directing attention to institutional practices, faculty development, and the behaviors of students themselves.

Mentoring relationships provide critical personal and professional development opportunities throughout one's career. These relationships are especially important for racial minorities who often lack access to informal networks and information that is required to be successful in academic and professional environments in which they are under‐represented. The lack of mentors for minority graduate students is important to consider given the potential impact of this experience for minority graduate students’ retention and subsequent success, but also for the future diversity of the discipline (especially its instruction and research). This article identifies the challenges that minority graduate students confront in establishing healthy mentoring relationships, and the unfortunate outcomes of when minority graduate students lack productive mentoring relationships.

The paper provides a multilevel analysis of mentoring of minority graduate students.

A mentoring relationship has the potential to be widely used throughout an individual’s lifespan. Including mentoring relationships into one’s life can assist with transition management in and out of various life scenarios. A mentoring model has been proposed that blends human development with the dimensions of mentoring. It is assumed that the dimensions of the model are continuous and multidimensional. We recognize three interactive dimensions that surround the mentoring interaction which shape the mentor and protégé relationship. These dimensions are defined as: socialization; task development; and lifespan development. The model can be utilized as a diagnostic tool or as a training model to promote mentoring relationships.

The paper aims to follow social exchange theory and group social capital theory, to predict positive relationships between (informal) mentoring and various support resources for two types of performance (i.e. perceptions of individual and team performance).

The associations of individual‐level mentoring and team‐level support with job performance were examined in a cross‐level field study using data from 480 teachers working in 64 interdisciplinary teams.

Multilevel analyses showed that after controlling for having a mentor, those teachers with more team‐level support resources scored higher on self‐reported job performance and perception of team performance. In line with expectations, the association between mentoring and individual job performance was stronger for teachers scoring high on team‐level support (i.e. support from informal networks and support from team orientation). One basic assumption of the present study was a positive relationship between individual‐level mentoring and job performance. Surprisingly, such a direct relationship between mentoring and job performance was not found: only the moderating relationships mentoring appeared to be associated with job performance.

In the present study, only a global measure of mentoring was used (only yes or no) and this measure did not differentiate between mentoring functions and/or outcomes. However, future research could benefit from including more differentiated measures of mentoring to be able to predict more precisely how various support measures are linked with job performance.

Typical dependent measures in mentoring research include career success, career satisfaction, income, promotions, etc. However, with increasing emphasis on working in teams, there is a need to expand the criterion domain and to include a team level measure. Therefore, a distinction was made between the perception of individual job performance of the respondents and the perception of team performance of the team where the respondent is working in.

This paper seeks to examine the effects of mentoring and organizational justice on auditors' relationships with their non‐mentor supervisors. While having a mentor should cause higher quality protégé auditors and their non‐mentor supervisor relationships, organizational justice perceptions should mediate this mentoring association. Thus, having a mentor should see higher procedural justice perceptions, which, in turn, should result in higher quality relationships between protégés and their non‐mentor supervisors.

A survey of 95 audit professionals shows that protégés report higher quality auditor‐supervisor relationships than do non‐protégés; however, having a mentor does not appear to be the determining factor.

Building on a prior study of Siegel et al., the paper finds that auditor attitudes towards the job (job satisfaction) and the firm (job commitment) eliminate the association between mentoring and quality of auditor‐supervisor relationships. Procedural justice, but not distributive justice, perceptions also mediate the relationship between job satisfaction and quality of auditor‐supervisor relationships. Procedural justice perceptions produce higher quality auditor‐supervisor relationships with non‐mentor supervisors.

Using mediation regression techniques instead of the more stringent path analysis and using self‐reported survey data that derives a method variance could affect the generalizability of our results. Future research can correct these limitations.

The paper finds that while merely having a mentor need not improve relationships, mentoring programs can still greatly improve auditor‐supervisor relationships.

The paper includes implications for developing effective mentoring programs for CPA firms.

Mentoring is more and more studied by researchers on account of its professional and personal impact on mentees. This contribution has two main objectives. First, to empirically validate the benefits for the mentor and to test links between mentoring activities and benefits through a multidimensional analysis. Second, to incorporate two variables structuring the relationship into the analysis: the formal vs informal nature of the mentoring relationship and the gender composition of the dyad. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In total, 161 French managers have been surveyed.

The results show that mentors value the personal dimension of the relationship more than the professional dimension. Moreover, informal mentoring favours the perception of a rewarding experience by the mentor, whereas formal mentoring is synonymous with improved professional performance. This research calls into question the advantage of same-sex dyads, suggesting that heterogeneity favours improved performance.

The originality of the paper was to focus on the homogeneity of the mentor-protégé dyad in terms of gender.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between specific gender combinations of mentor‐mentee and distinct mentoring functions.

Of the 500 participants, 272 were mentees and 228 were mentors from public‐ and private‐sector organisations, representing all four gender combinations of mentor‐mentee. Participants completed a 36‐item measure of mentoring functions.

Hierarchical regression analyses revealed few significant relationships between gender and mentoring functions. As far as mentees were concerned, female mentors provided personal and emotional guidance to a greater extent than male mentors; female mentors provided career development facilitation to a greater extent than male mentors and female mentees were provided with career development facilitation to a greater extent than male mentees; also female mentees were provided with role modelling to a greater extent than male mentees. As far as mentors were concerned, there were no significant differences in the functions provided to female and male mentees.

The study emphasized the need to use measurement tools that examine distinct, rather than categories of, mentoring functions. The findings also suggest that gender may not be as influential, with regard to mentoring functions, as has previously been proffered. Knowledge about the relationships between gender and particular mentoring functions may be beneficial for potential and actual mentees and mentors as they make decisions about becoming involved in mentoring relationships, engage in contracting processes, and monitor and review their relationships.

The study was the first to explore the perceptions of both mentees and mentors on gender differences in mentoring functions provided, using an adequate sample and a mentoring instrument designed on a gender representative sample.

This paper assesses the incidence and contribution that mentoring has to the career development of retail managers. Previous research has identified the benefits that mentoring relationships have for the protégé, the mentor and the organisation, although none have compared the experiences and attitudes towards mentoring within the retail environment. Drawing on a sample of 132 UK retail managers, this research found that half the sample had experienced being a protégé in a mentoring relationship. No significant differences were found between a respondent’s sex, age, position in the organisation and whether they have been mentored. Mentoring was found to play an important role in the development of a protégé’s current job, career and self development. It was less apparent whether the incidence of mentoring affected retail managers’ ultimate career ambitions. However, it appears that the advantages of mentoring as a management development tool far outweigh any disadvantages for the protégé.