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Structural mentoring barriers are policies, practices and cultural norms that collectively disadvantage marginalized groups and perpetuate disparities in mentoring. This study aims to better understand structural mentoring barriers at the postdoctoral training stage, which has a direct impact on faculty diversity and national efforts to retain underrepresented groups in research careers.

A diverse sample of postdoctoral scholars (“postdocs”) from across the USA were asked to participate in focus groups to discuss their training experiences. The authors conducted five 90-min focus groups with 32 biomedical postdocs, including 20 (63%) women and 15 (47%) individuals from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups (URG).

A social-ecological framework was used to categorize both the upstream and downstream manifestations of structural mentoring barriers, as well as mentoring barriers, overall. Notable structural barriers included: academic politics and scientific hierarchy; inequalities resulting from mentor prestige; the (over) reliance on one mentor; the lack of formal training for academic and non-academic careers; and the lack of institutional diversity and institutional mentor training. To overcome these barriers, postdocs strongly encouraged developing a network or team of mentors and recommended institutional interventions that create more comprehensive professional development, mentorship and belonging.

For postdoctoral scientists, structural mentoring barriers can permeate down to institutional, interpersonal and individual levels, impeding a successful transition to an independent research career. This work provides strong evidence for promoting mentorship networks and cultivating a “mentoring milieu” that fosters a supportive community and a strong culture of mentorship at all levels.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of organisational conditions and workplace characteristics in midcareer and senior employees’ intention to volitionally provide career support to junior organisational members, their protégés.

Hypotheses are tested using multilevel linear modelling on a heterogeneous sample of Dutch employees ages 29 to 69 who participated in a vignette study in the autumn of 2017.

In line with the hypotheses, the findings of this study show that volitional (informal) mentoring is positively related to an organisation’s endorsement of intrinsic values (e.g. learning opportunities) and negatively to the presence of hindrance demands (e.g. time pressure).

Practitioners could facilitate co-mentor consultation, employ autonomy-supportive direct supervisors and fulfil psychological contract obligations by providing job security and learning opportunities. Organisations could also lower time pressures through job carving.

This study extends extant mentoring research by combining insights from perceived organisational support (POS) and self-determination theory (SDT) to examine the role organisational conditions and workplace characteristics play in aiding or hindering volitional mentoring. It enriches extant knowledge management studies on the link between organisational aspects and (intended) knowledge sharing behaviour by showing that similar organisational motivators predict volitional mentoring, thereby launching a call to study knowledge management through volitional mentoring using a SDT- and POS-based lens. A methodological novelty is the reliance on a vignette study.

The purpose of this literature review is to critically analyze, synthesize and integrate the currently fragmented literature concerning the factors affecting the international transfer of individual career capital (CC).

This paper is a systematic literature review of the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC from/for expatriates, repatriates and other employed highly skilled migrants and return migrants. The findings are classified based on the Social Chronology Framework (SCF) proposed by Gunz and Mayrhofer (2015).

This systematic literature review suggests that the international transfer of individual CC, which can be expressed both as (1) individual-level transfer across different organizations located in different countries as the direct use and application of CC and (2) individual knowing-how transfer to other individuals within organization, is affected by the individual, organizational and broader contextual-level factors that are bound by the aspect of time. The authors summarize the findings by presenting a model of the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC.

The authors align the CC framework (Defillippi and Arthur, 1994) to the SCF (Gunz and Mayrhofer, 2018) by explaining the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC that go beyond the qualities of CC, including the Being, Space and Time domains. Moreover, the authors critique the current focus on the international CC transfer in the present suggesting that future research should explore this phenomenon as a more dynamic process. Finally, the authors contribute to the literature on the global mobility of highly skilled employees' by highlighting gaps in the knowledge of the international transfer of CC and presenting a future research agenda.

The search for competitiveness by family-owned companies has led us to research topics that may help these companies succeed. The management of human capital is undoubtedly one of the keys to success, and the practices of employee development (training, promotion, succession, career planning, mentoring and coaching) help improve the performance of these companies.

This paper is based on studying a sample of 560 family companies and analyzing the relationship between performance of the family businesses and the use of employee development practices. The techniques used were confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The results show that employee development has a direct effect on the indicators of performance in family companies. The authors have developed a series of practical implications for companies that justify investments in and efforts with regard to employee career development.

Family businesses need to understand the development needs of their employees. In addition, the very processes and tasks performed. The authors have developed a number of practical implications for companies that justify the investments and efforts made in employee career development. This work validates the usefulness of the use of certain practices for the development of employees in family businesses, allowing the company to generate human capital to build a competitive position in the market.

The results of this study suggest that family businesses should understand the development needs of their employees and that various practices are available to help detect these needs. Family businesses should see individual development processes as an opportunity to improve the performance of employees, which could avoid conflicts in such businesses (Qiu and Freel, 2020). Companies should develop career and succession plans that enable these changes to be faced throughout the company, ensuring that when handover occurs, the candidates are sufficiently qualified in accordance with their career paths. The present research study shows that coaching is a powerful tool for improving performance. Moreover, mentoring appears to be an important part of employee development. For this reason, mentoring programs should be formally planned with designated objectives. In addition, family businesses should provide employees with real opportunities for promotion and the development of their skills and abilities, which is a way to retain nonfamily professionals (Ramankutty and Pujar, 2017).

Family businesses are a very important part of the productive activity of a country and their continuity is necessary to maintain employment and income. The management of people in family businesses is a key aspect for their success, therefore knowing the key aspects for the development of human capital will have a positive influence on maintaining employment and income.

This paper addresses the study of people development processes in family businesses and proves its usefulness to improve performance, considering the formal planning of succession processes and professional careers, providing qualifications to candidates and ensuring that they are show satisfaction with their professional evolution in the company. Likewise, it is positive for family businesses to use coaching relationships, formally scheduled and employing a coach from abroad. The other tool that will favor the development of employees is mentoring, formally programmed, establishing objectives and properly studying the mentor's profile. For this tool to be applied successfully, it is necessary to get the participants to commit to the mentoring process. Finally, the organization must provide its employees with real opportunities to promote, training them and developing their skills.

This study explored the motives, relationship dynamics and outcomes of male executives in mentoring Black African women within the context of South Africa. The authors investigated the experiences of White, Black African, coloured, and Indian male mentors conducting cross-gender and cross-race mentoring in South Africa.

A qualitative study was conducted with 21 male executives within South Africa's male-dominated financial services industry. Data were collected via semi-structured, one-on-one virtual video interviews. The study endeavoured to deeper understand the mentors' experiences during their interactions with the intersecting marginalised identities of Black African women as protégés.

The authors found that the mentoring relationship is central to mentoring Black African women. This relationship is often influenced by the mentors' parental approach to mentoring, with resultant negative consequences, including the protégé not taking accountability for driving the relationship. Mentors' stereotypical expectations of women as homemakers and carers also influenced mentoring experiences. Mentors' motives included growing next generation leaders, which led to mentors' job satisfaction.

This study contributes an account of male executives' motivations for mentoring Black African women, the relationship dynamics as well as negative mentoring experiences, and the mentoring outcomes for protégés and mentors. Intersectionality theory was used to highlight the mentors' lack of insight into the intersecting marginalised identities of Black African women in the unique South African context, where inequalities in terms of class, race, and gender are amplified.

Many employers experiment with virtual working modes for project-based work. Virtual internships are one such mode that is gaining increasing popularity worldwide, particularly e-internships that require remote working with employers. However, little is known about the extent to which e-internships present learning opportunities to such e-interns.

The current study examined mentoring experiences among a cross-sectional sample of 158 e-interns working for different companies. Data were collected using an online survey in two data collection rounds.

The length of the e-internships did not increase mentoring satisfaction, but the likelihood of e-interns having a mentor was higher the longer the e-internships. Mentoring was offered irrespective of working hours per week. Mentoring increased reported skill development, particularly in relation to their communication skills and their ability to think strategically about problems. In addition, mentored e-interns were more likely to have opportunities to cooperate with and help others. They likewise had opportunities to share information, knowledge and experiences.

The study recruited interns from various countries. Potentially relevant cultural differences were not explored as part of this study.

The results demonstrate that the benefits of mentoring observed in relation to traditional internships can be fostered in e-internships. E-internships represent an opportunity for managers and employees, regardless of company size, to become mentors. E-internships thus represent another work-integrated as well as work-applied learning and skill development opportunity that creates additional options for many interns and organisations alike.

The evidence suggests that mentoring is becoming a regularly available feature for virtual and temporary workers such as e-interns, many of which are hired for short-term projects. As remote working has become a standard practice, e-internships are on the rise – and worthy of further study in order to promote best practices.

The purpose of this article is to present a systematic review of scientific production on career stages in the last decade (2011–2020). More specifically, it seeks to understand the methodological approaches, how career stages have been operationalized in research in the Management field, and the main results of these researches.

The authors searched articles about career stages on the Web of Science database published between 2011 and 2020. The final portfolio for the systematic review included 20 article based on pre-established criteria for the selection.

The results present an overview of these articles, as well as the methodological approaches used. The authors confirmed that there is no consensus on the operationalization of the career stage. Five topics associated with career stages were discussed: workers' attitudes and behaviors; training and mentoring; intentions; perception of success and work-life balance; and work values.

The authors found no other studies concerning the review of scientific production on career stages and divergences in the operationalization of the theme. However, considering the large number of research studies that deal with careers and their stages, it is relevant to discuss how the career stages can be operationalized and whether their operationalization is valid.

Skilled migrants' careers are heterogeneous, with existing theories capturing only some of their diversity and dynamic development over time and circumstance. This paper aims to draw out the multilevel (macro, meso and micro levels) influences impacting skilled migrants' careers by using the lens of the intelligent career framework. Furthermore, structuration theory captures the agency of skilled migrants facing different social structures at and across levels and explains the idiosyncratic nature of skilled migrants' careers.

Following an abductive approach, this paper examines the career influences for a sample of 41 skilled migrants in three different host countries. Individual career stories were collected through qualitative interviews. Important career influences from these narratives are categorised across the intelligent career competencies (knowing why, how and whom) at the macro, meso and micro levels.

Findings illustrate the lived reality for skilled migrants of these interrelated multilevel career influences and go some way in elucidating the heterogeneity of skilled migrants' careers and outcomes. The interplay of individual agency in responding to both facilitating and challenging social structures across the multilevels further explains the idiosyncratic nature of skilled migrants' careers and how/whether they achieve satisfying career outcomes. Some potential policy implications and options arising from these findings are suggested.

By considering multilevel themes that influence skilled migrants' career capital, the authors were able to better explain the complex, relational and idiosyncratic shaping of their individual careers. As such, the framework informs and guides individuals, practitioners and organisations seeking to facilitate skilled migrants' careers.

The purpose of this study is to empirically test the intelligent career framework in a public sector setting in a country with a clientelistic culture to inform human resource management strategies.

Based on a qualitative methodology and an interpretivist paradigm, 33 in-depth interviews were conducted with Greek civil servants before the COVID-19 pandemic. The interview recordings were subsequently transcribed and coded via a blend of inductive and deductive approaches.

Outcomes of the study indicate that in a public sector setting in a country with a clientelistic culture, the three dimensions of knowing-whom, knowing-how and knowing-why are less balanced than those reported by findings from private sector settings in countries with an individualistic culture. Instead, knowing-whom is a critical dimension and a necessary condition for career development that affects knowing-how and knowing-why.

The theoretical contribution comes from providing evidence of the dark side of careers and how imbalances between the three dimensions of the intelligent career framework reduce work satisfaction, hinder career success and affect organisational performance. The practical contribution offers recommendations for human resource management practices in the public sector, including training, mentoring, transparency in performance evaluations and fostering trust.

The South African vocational education and training (VET) sector is required by legislation to redefine postsecondary education, advance industrialisation and expand the job market to address unemployment in the country. Yet, VET leaders' heterogenous educational and occupational backgrounds do not enable them to address the needs of the VET sector. Continuous professional development of leaders in the education sector needs to include support structures such as mentoring.

The present study sought to investigate how VET managers in South Africa perceive three different types of mentoring – individual, peer group and expert-based key performance area (KPA) mentoring – during a part-time professional leadership development programme. Using interactive qualitative analysis (IQA), the authors collected and analysed data from focus group discussions (n = 24) and individual interviews (n = 21) from two cohorts of the programme.

The results revealed that individual mentoring represented the most important driving mechanism, followed by peer group mentoring and expert-based KPA mentoring. Participants identified leadership as a prerequisite for their development. Emotions formed the final outcome of the mentoring framework.

Based on the findings, the authors suggest investigating the role played by leaders' interpersonal competences such as emotional competence in the workplace. Additionally, research needs to clarify if and how mentoring can support leaders to develop interpersonal competences in formal and informal settings.

The study offers empirical evidence on a three-pillar mentoring framework adopted in a professional development programme for leaders in VET in South Africa. It highlights the importance of individual, social and emotional factors.