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This paper suggests that motives for engaging in affiliative‐promotive “helping” extra‐role behavior is related to cross‐cultural differences. The cultural dimensions of in‐group collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, performance orientation, and humane orientation, and their differential effect on helping extra‐role behavior in a diverse workforce are examined. Theoretical implications provide guidance for future empirical research in this area, and provide managers with more realistic expectations of employee performance in the workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the research question: what recent experiences – other than undertaking training and development programmes – do mature managers and professionals regard as important for their development as leaders?

A survey was issued to mature managers and professionals, asking them to rate the contribution of certain experiences to their recent development of leadership capabilities, and to provide qualitative data on the most important experiences.

The experience that was rated most highly in developing leadership capabilities was “tackling a significant challenge or challenges”, followed by “taking, or contributing to, major decisions”, and then by “taking on new responsibilities”. Controlled interventions such as coaching/mentoring, appraisal feedback, and temporary new responsibilities were awarded relatively low ratings.

The sample was drawn from graduates of an executive master’s degree, who are likely to have positive attitudes to self-development and to learning from experience.

The findings can be used to help mature leaders, and those who facilitate leadership development, to identify and use experiences that may develop leadership capabilities.

There are few recent studies on the kinds of experiences that are perceived to develop leadership capabilities of mature managers and professionals.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of why sex harassment persists in organizations for prolonged periods – often as an open secret.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 28 people in diverse organizations experiencing persistent sex harassment. Data were analyzed using standard qualitative methods.

The overarching finding was that perpetrators were embedded in networks of complicity that were central to explaining the persistence of sex harassment in organizations. By using power and manipulating information, perpetrators built networks that protected them from sanction and enabled their behavior to continue unchecked. Networks of complicity metastasized and caused lasting harm to victims, other employees and the organization as a whole.

The authors used broad, open-ended questions and guided introspection to guard against the tendency to ask for information to confirm their assumptions, and the authors analyzed the data independently to mitigate subjectivity and establish reliability.

To stop persistent sex harassment, not only must perpetrators be removed, but formal and informal ties among network of complicity members must also be weakened or broken, and victims must be integrated into networks of support. Bystanders must be trained and activated to take positive action, and power must be diffused through egalitarian leadership.

Understanding the power of networks in enabling perpetrators to persist in their destructive behavior is another step in countering sex harassment.

Social network theory has rarely been used to understand sex harassment or why it persists.

One of the main aspects of a mentoring relationship involves the expectations that mentees have of an ideal mentor. However, the traits that mentees envision in an ideal mentor are unclear. The purpose of this paper is to present series of studies examined mentees’ ideas about their ideal mentor’s physical characteristics and mentoring functions. The authors also examined gender and racial (white/nonwhite) differences in ideal mentor preferences.

The two studies examined what mentees envision when they picture their ideal mentor, and whether the ideal mentor prototypes varied by participants’ ethnicity and gender. Study 2 further examined mentees’ ideal mentor characteristics in a forced choice ranking scale and the ideal mentor scale (Rose, 2003).

When asked to describe their ideal mentor’s appearance, participants provided detailed descriptions of the ideal mentor’s features. They also emphasized mentoring characteristics and behaviors, such as guidance. Participants’ preferences for their ideal mentor’s gender and race varied by the question format (open-ended description vs scale).When asked to envision their ideal mentor (Study 2), participants emphasized guidance, interpersonal warmth, and ethical integrity. Other mentoring characteristics and behaviors emerged in the content coding framework. Prototypes of the ideal mentors varied based on ethnicity and gender, but also on how the question was presented.

These findings suggest that the ideal mentor prototype involves guidance, understanding, and role modeling ethical values. Like other organizational roles (i.e. leaders), awareness of these traits informs how employees view mentors and what they expect from mentoring relationships. Facilitators of mentoring programs can consider the ideal mentor prototype during the matching process and the initial stages of the mentoring relationship.