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The authors introduce a new measure of felt obligation to mentor in order to explore generalized reciprocity in mentoring. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether felt obligation to mentor adds prediction to mentor job performance in combination with mentoring functions provided and mentor-assessed benefits and costs of mentoring.

Hypotheses were tested in a sample of firefighters in the Southwestern USA using moderated regression analysis.

Protégé reported mentoring functions provided predicted mentor performance, but neither mentoring benefits nor costs predicted mentor performance. Felt obligation to mentor interacted with mentoring functions reported such that mentor performance was highest when both mentoring functions provided and felt obligation to mentor were high.

The results indicate that the new measure may prove to be of value for exploring generalized reciprocity in mentoring. Further, more research using mentoring benefits and costs is merited. Findings are limited by use of a new measure of felt obligation to mentor as well as the fact that the research was conducted in a setting in which employees were expected to serve as mentors.

Organizations may leverage felt obligation to mentor in order to support effective informal or formal mentoring relationships, whereas focusing on the benefits of mentoring may be a less valuable strategy.

The research offers a new measure to help to understand generalized reciprocity as a motivation to mentor as well as suggesting that more empirical attention should be given to the perceived benefits and costs of mentoring.

To examine the influence of demographic differences on congruence of mentors' and protégés' perceptions of developmental support and frequency of communication.

Data on demographics (organizational tenure, age, gender, and educational level), mentoring functions, and frequency of communication were collected from both the mentor and protégé in 27 mentoring dyads from two medium‐sized high technology companies. Correlation and pattern analysis were used to analyze the data.

Results indicated significant congruence between mentor and protégé perceptions of developmental mentoring and frequency of communication. Differences between the mentor and protégé on organizational tenure and age reduced congruence of perceptions, whereas differences with respect to gender and education did not.

The small sample size limits the statistical power of the analysis and the inclusion of high technology companies limits generalizability.

While mentors and protégés generally view aspects of their relationship in a congruent manner, large discrepancies in age or tenure in the organization may lead to disagreement about the nature of the relationship. This information should be considered in developing formal mentoring programs.

This research is one of only a few studies that use the mentoring dyad as the unit of analysis. Unlike others, this study focuses on how the participants view the mentoring relationship itself.

This special issue seeks to examine mentoring relationships and offer new perspectives and frameworks, suggesting exciting avenues for future research on mentoring and career development.

In the last two decades, the workplace has been dramatically transformed. Individuals traditionally had careers entrenched in organizations, relying on the paternalistic firm for career development. Increasingly now, individuals are enacting careers outside organizational boundaries, defining career success on their own terms rather than by the organizational measures of salary and rank. Rapid technological change and globalization have intensified the decoupling of individual careers from organizations, putting more emphasis on individuals for their own career development and creating an even greater need for mentoring.

Although much research has been done on the impact of mentoring on subjective and objective career success, there are still many unexamined and under‐explored aspects of mentoring. This collection of ten articles tackles some of these areas, providing new insights and offering new avenues for research and practice.

These articles are authored by individuals from a variety of disciplines (e.g. organizational behavior, psychology, health care), and countries (e.g. USA, UK, Nigeria), with each article bringing a unique lens to the study of mentoring and careers. Individually, each article makes a contribution to the better understanding of how mentoring has evolved and is enacted today. Together, this collection of articles provides important insights that it is hoped encourage even further research into the complexities of developmental relationships and their impact on career development.

This article aims to examine the process of mentoring and career development within the global arena. Although much has been written on the adjustment of expatriates, relatively little research has examined the exchange of information and knowledge among workers in different countries via the mentoring process.

A model is offered of how an expatriate progresses through learning cycles aided by multiple mentors. Multiple mentoring contributes to the individual's career development and facilitates the development of organizational tacit and embedded knowledge.

Using Hall and Chandler's conceptualization of multiple learning cycles over the life span, it is proposed that the expatriate cycles through a learning cycle over the course of an extended assignment. These learning cycles are shorter than the traditional career stages, often lasting two to four years – similar to the length of an expatriate assignment. It is suggested that the stages of an expatriate assignment – predeparture, on‐site and repatriation – represent a learning cycle. A successful expatriate experience is more likely to occur if multiple mentors in various locations are available – as needed – to offer information and career support to the expatriate.

With increasing globalization and rapid technological advances, mentoring relationships that cross national and other types of boundaries have increased, yet theory has not kept pace. A framework is provided for the further examination of expatriate careers and how mentoring can increase career outcomes and knowledge transfer.

This study sets out to examine whether protégés have more favorable perceptions of an organization's culture for balancing work and family than non‐protégés.

Data were obtained from 418 employees of a major public accounting firm who completed a survey on mentoring and work‐family issues. Correlation analyses, t‐tests, and regressions were performed to test the hypotheses.

The results strongly support the view that protégés had more favorable perceptions than non‐protégés of the organization's work‐family culture – the degree to which integration of employees' work and family lives is supported. Having a mentor was significantly related to each component of work‐family culture (managerial support, time demands, and career consequences) in the predicted direction.

By focusing on respondents in a single firm, it is impossible to determine whether the findings generalize to individuals in other industries or companies.

To attract and retain employees, organizations have become increasingly concerned about their cultures for balancing work and family. By encouraging mentoring, organizations can transmit the message to their employees of resources and support available to help achieve balance.

Despite strong interest in the fields of mentoring and work‐family balance, few research studies have attempted to link these two domains. This research integrates these areas and demonstrates the important role mentors play in developing perceptions of an organization's culture for work‐family balance.

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the relationship between individuals' developmental mentoring networks and a subjective career outcome, clarity of professional identity. How developmental network characteristics are related to professional identity over time is explored. Design/methodology/approach – This is a three‐wave, longitudinal survey study, covering a five‐year span (1996‐2001). The participants (n=136), full‐time MBA students at the inception of the study, provided complete developmental network data on each survey. The relationships between clarity of professional identity and three different measures of developmental network density were explored: early‐career density; general density; and density dynamics (e.g. the change in density over time). Findings – Developmental network density, which reflects the professional identity exploration process, is negatively related to clarity of professional identity. Research limitations/implications – The study is limited by the use of graduating MBA students from a single, top‐20 business school as participants. Practical implications – The findings suggest that people might be able to improve their careers through changing their developmental networks, particularly during their early‐career years. Originality/value – This paper provides novel insights to the mentoring, identity, and careers literatures. Given the previously uncharted territory of understanding the dynamics of developmental networks and its relationship to career outcomes, this study opens avenues for future research, while also answering questions about developmental networks and the ways they function over time.

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.

This study investigates the influence of affective organizational commitment, career aspirations, and networking activities on propensity to mentor (serving as a mentor and desiring to become a mentor).

Data from websurveys of 262 managerial employees of a Dutch bank are analyzed using logistic regression.

Results indicate that affective organizational commitment is unrelated to propensity to mentor, whereas career aspirations are positively related, and networking activities are negatively related to serving as a mentor, but not desiring to be a mentor.

The study is limited by its reliance on self‐report data and the Dutch culture may have influenced the results of the study to an unknown degree.

Results of this study suggest that employees volunteering to be a mentor are clearly ambitious in terms of their own career, but are not necessarily highly committed to their organization nor do they perform exemplary behaviors in terms of extra role behavior or networking.

Individuals are more likely to engage in mentoring activities and to desire to become a mentor if they have high career aspirations. This relationship may be the result of an instrumental perspective on the part of the mentor, who sees developing a cadre of loyal and supportive organizational members as having a positive effect on his or her own career advancement.

Purpose – This paper aims to advance the argument for the transformative potential of e‐mentoring for professional women. Design/methodology/approach – Existing mentoring and e‐mentoring models are evaluated as the context for the development of an innovative e‐mentoring programme for professional women in the UK (Empathy‐Edge). The European Union‐funded programme consisted of 122 participants who were matched by a combination of psychological profiling and analytical processing of these data to produce optimal matches. The e‐mentoring system employed a comprehensive range of resources and communication media which are often not included in similar systems. Findings – Initial evaluation data are presented. The benefits and challenges of e‐mentoring are analysed, together with initial recommendations for implementing effective schemes. Practical implications – The paper argues that e‐mentoring is a valuable tool for the career and management development of both returners and employed women who wish to break through the “glass ceiling”. It also indirectly improves their information and communications technologies (ICT) skills. Additionally, the paper demonstrates the strategic importance of psychological profiling for matching mentoring participants. Originality/value – The field of e‐mentoring is relatively new and is under‐researched, particularly from a European perspective. Combining insights from the fields of mentoring, gender in management, and computer‐mediated communication, Empathy‐Edge offers a new approach to career development for professional women.

The purpose of this report is to review research on gender and diversity issues that was presented at the recent meeting of the Southern Management Association in Orlando, Florida, USA.

The Southern Management Association, a regional affiliate of the Academy of Management, draws participants primarily, although not exclusively, from the southern states in the USA. The papers covering topics relevant to gender and diversity are summarized.

The diversity related papers presented at this conference were included in a number of tracks other than the diversity track, suggesting an increasing acceptance of diversity research in “mainstream” management research. The forms of diversity investigated included age, ethnicity, and gender, leaving out “invisible” forms of diversity as religion, sexual orientation, or some types of disability.

The research presented at this conference gives some insight into the issues of gender and diversity as they are perceived and investigated by researchers who generally are attached to smaller colleges and universities, rather than the major research institutions, in the USA.