The changing nature of mentoring in organizations: An introduction to the special issue on mentoring in organizations

Although the term ''mentor'' originated in Greek mythology, it has been only a decade since Kram's (1985) seminal book stimulated significant research on mentoring in organizations. This special issue brings together current empirical research and theory from diverse scholars who have been instrumental in advancing the field of mentoring. We first provide some background on the topic of mentoring and include a brief discussion of the changing nature of mentoring in organizations. Following this, we review the content of the special issue, starting with five research articles and concluding with four papers which describe new directions for theory building. We conclude with a discussion of needed research on mentoring in organizations. (C) 1997 Academic Press.