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We examine the relationships between clients’ level of coaching readiness and trust in their executive coach and increases to both personal learning improved work performance. Distance relationships, the setting for this study, epitomize the norms of the New World of Work (NWoW), but also provide particular challenges for building trust and recognizing similarities between client and coach.

This study investigates distance coaching relationships in matched-pairs, longitudinal investigation of formal executive coaching.

Results support the proposed moderated mediation path. Findings reveal that both coaches’ perceptions of client readiness for coaching and client trust in coach each predict both client personal skill development and performance improvement.

While important toward gaining a better understanding of the relational functioning of distance coaching relationships, inclusion of only distance relationships may truncate the generalizability of our findings.

The study’s findings have practical implications for organizations that invest in executive coaching with regard to the importance of evaluating the candidates' readiness for coaching before the assignment, trust-building throughout distance coaching relationships and perceptions of similarity on client coaching outcomes.

Distance relationships, the setting for this study, provide particular challenges for building trust and recognizing similarities between client and coach and the current investigation points to the relevance of these relational mechanisms to client outcomes. In so doing, this study explores how perceptions of deep-level similarity between a coach and client may serve as moderators of these relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of mentor beliefs about effort related to the knowledge and learning process on their extent of mentoring at work, and to determine the role that the mentor’s perception of psychological safety plays in tempering this relationship.

This study was conducted at an 820-member organization maintenance and operations organization consisting of a number of professions in which apprenticeship-style learning is prevalent. Data collection resulted in 570 members self-identifying as having mentored a less experienced colleague. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to confirm that the measurement instrument represents one unified factor, and a structural equation modelling approach was used to assess the relationships among the study’s latent variables.

Results reveal that mentors who hold sophisticated effort-oriented beliefs are more likely to offer psychosocial support to their protégés. Further, although the relationship between effort-oriented beliefs and vocational support is not significant, the mentor’s perception of a psychologically safe work environment significantly moderates both sets of relationships.

As approximately 88 per cent of respondents work in service, as opposed to administrative groups, caution should be exercised in generalizing this study’s findings to the general workforce population. Further, the present study did not differentiate mentors who identified a current or previous subordinate as their protégé from those whose protégés were not a subordinate, nor did the authors differentiate formal from informal mentoring relationships. Thus, further investigation is needed to determine whether our hypothesized relationships differ in any unique manifestations of mentoring relationships at work.

By providing a better understanding of the relationship between effort-oriented beliefs and mentoring at work, this study may help in the design of more effective mentoring relationships and ultimately enhance knowledge management and workplace learning.

There is no previous research that investigates how one’s cognitions about the effort associated with the knowledge and learning process, in particular, influence mentoring at work. This study provides a model for understanding and developing enhanced mentoring relationships, which are considered a critical element of organizational learning.

The purpose of this paper is to present a knowledge-sharing model that explains individual members’ motivation to share knowledge (knowledge donation and knowledge collection).

The model is based on social-constructivist theories of epistemological beliefs, learning and distributed cognition, and is organized via the mechanism of propositional control, which suggests that attitudes or beliefs largely drive one’s behaviors. This paper also explores how epistemological belief systems may influence behavior processes at work.

The model presented consists of five epistemological belief dimensions consistent with previous theorization about personal epistemologies. This paper demonstrates how sophisticated (as opposed to naive) beliefs on each of these five dimensions can stimulate one’s intrinsic desire to engage in knowledge-sharing behaviors.

The model is constrained by the assumptions that learning takes place socially and within a specific context (in this case, the team setting), and that a great deal of knowledge sharing is preferred over little knowledge sharing. This paper adds to the understanding of workplace learning by establishing a possible new antecedent to explain the process of how team members are motivated to engage in knowledge-sharing behaviors.

The model may be used for knowledge management and to understand ineffectiveness in teams. It also may assist in human resource functions including selecting and training team members for knowledge-intensive positions.

Epistemology affects collaborative relationships. Collaborations and associated knowledge-sharing behaviors among work team members who design and implement products for public use are imperative toward developing products free from health and safety issues.

This paper provides a model for understanding and developing motivation to engage in individual knowledge-sharing behaviors among work team members, which is considered critical toward an organization’s competitive advantage.

Research on mentorship has been dominated by the West and little is known about the cultural variations of the mentoring phenomenon in Asian countries. A richer understanding of the cultural context that is more attuned to mentoring experience in Asia can help to improve workplace experience, in general, for those working in and for those who intend to work in the region. This chapter captures the important theoretical lenses in the mentoring literature, and also provides a clear demarcation between negative mentoring and dysfunctional mentoring. This is followed by contextualizing mentoring as per four of Hofstede's six cultural dimensions by dwelling on mentoring experience in countries such as China, India, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. It is hoped that this chapter will pave the way for further research, which may be a precursor for theory development.

Working collaboratively with local business is vitally important in the delivery of higher education (HE) in further education (FE). The purpose of this paper is to explore an effective way of engaging local employers to enhance the employability skills of students through a closely monitored and supported mentoring relationship. The project was developed in order to address the employability needs of final year business students at a HE facility offered by a college situated in the North West of England.

Qualitative data were collected through the use of reflective journals and a series of focus groups with mentors and mentees.

Overall both mentors and mentees reported positive responses to the mentoring scheme. From the mentees point of view self-confidence, employability skills and networks were enhanced. Mentors reported satisfaction in contributing to the local community. Challenges were found in matching mentors with appropriate mentees. A perceived poor match negatively affected the relationship. Mentors reported that mentees lacked career direction and seemed to have limited understanding of what was expected in the mentoring process.

The scope of this study is one mentoring scheme in one institution and therefore has limited generalisability. However, there are implications for the development of further mentoring schemes in other institutions in the UK and beyond.

This mentoring scheme was carried out in FE that offers HE courses in a northern town with above average levels of unemployment and with a diverse ethnic population. The scheme involves senior managers volunteering to support business undergraduates.

Considerable research has been done to link career-development strategies to career-management success, but little is known about how career shocks (CSs) relate to proactive career behavior (PCB). Furthermore, the study investigates the mediation mechanism of personal resources (i.e. perceived self-efficacy (PSE) and perceived employability (PEMP)) in the linkage between CSs and PCB using the tenets of conservation of resources (COR) theory.

Using the survey approach, the authors recruited 322 banking professionals and validated the proposed model and hypotheses in AMOS.

The outcome shows that CSs are significantly related to PSE and PEMP (personal resources), subsequently linked to PCB. Moreover, personal resources mediate the linkage between CSs and PCB. Thus, CSs cannot be ignored but can be minimized through proactive efforts.

The findings support the banks' management to protect their personnel career by not giving CSs and build their PCB through personal resources. The employees should strive for enhancing personal resources through organizational development opportunities (i.e. training and development) to rescue themselves from sudden CSs.

Shocks cannot be ignored but can be managed through PCB. This research is the first that successfully adds to the career-development literature by empirically establishing the direct and indirect association between CSs and PCB through personal resources.