Mentoring and Diversity

"Mentoring and Diversity explores two critical topics relevant to organizations of today and tomorrow. The additional focus on developing diverse mentoring relationships within a global perspective makes this book unique and its contribution significant. The individual case studies add a practical dimension to the text that will be useful for students, scholars and practioners. The review and critique of research on diversified mentoring relationships is first-rate."

Audrey J. Murrell, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh, The Katz School

"Mentoring can serve as a great tool in gaining the business advantage especially when people interact from diverse backgrounds -- but only if the mentoring is done right. This excellent book teaches both the how and the why of mentoring. Belle Rose Ragins is America's leading academic expert on gender effects in mentoring, and David Clutterbuck, who consults to around the globe, is one of Britain's leading practitioners. Together they create the perfect trans-Atlantic marriage of theory and practice."

Faye Crosby, Professor of Psychology,University of California Santa Cruz, USA.

"This is a must-read book on diversified mentoring. It provides practical, real, cases of mentoring at two levels - the mentor-mentee pair and formal organizational programs in corporate, not-for-profit, and community sectors. Preceding the cases is the contemporary scholarly literature on mentoring and diversity, and following them is analysis drawing out the general principles to be learnt from programs that worked through to those that did not work. The organizational programs were at times designed specifically for diversified mentoring (e.g., race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, disability, disadvantage, offending, mental illness, and other forms of diversity). In other cases, the programs were designed simply to be mentoring programs that then informed practice and theory on diversified mentoring or they were designed as diversity programs to allow full use of all people again that resulted in insights specifically on diversified mentoring. The book traverses the challenge of whether formal mentoring programs do work, using the insights of the top scholar on diversified mentoring (Ragins) and the insights of the top practitioner (Clutterbuck), and gives general principles on how to increase program effectiveness as well as how to actually design effective formal mentoring programs. Its excellence is shown by being applicable on both sides of the Atlantic and most types of diversity."

Phyllis Tharenou, Professor of Organizational Behaviour, Department of Management, Monash University, Australia.

"Reconciling cultural values is at the core of successful organizations. Effective mentoring processes are crucial in helping people going beyond just observing differences. Mentoring helps you to integrate opposing values in many ways. I would highly recommend this excellent book on mentoring in diverse workplace"

Fons Trompenaars


"David Clutterback and Belle Rose Ragins achieve the rare accomplishment of delivering a book that speaks substantively and empathetically to multiple audiences. For those who study mentoring, Clutterback and Ragins effectively summarize what we know from the research on mentoring and diversity and then forge new ground into dimensions of difference that have received little attention. For those who develop and implement mentoring initiatives in organizations, the authors compile an impressive overview of best practices and pragmatic advice from companies at the forefront of integrating mentoring and diversity. For those who are personally motivated to learn about mentoring as a powerful tool for their career development, the authors include case studies and personal reflections that invite readers to authentically engage how the insights offered may hold real meaning in their career journeys. The international perspective undergirding this work provides a unique opportunity--the chance to traverse gaps in our understanding of the cultural nuances of mentoring and to fully appreciate the complexity and paradoxes inherent in explicating the phenomenon of mentoring across dimensions of diversity."
Stacy Blake-Beard, Assistant Professor in Administration, Planning and Social Policy, Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow,
Center for Gender and Organizations, Simmons Graduate School of Management (2001-2002).