What Makes an Effective Mentor: A Cross- Cultural (BRIC) Comparison

Research shows the professional benefits of strong mentoring relationships. However, the majority of the extant mentoring research is either mentor-centric or Western-oriented. Even with the increasing trend of protégé-centric research, relatively little research exists that examines mentoring in India and what protégés from that country would most desire from the mentoring relationship and their mentors. This chapter uses the countries in the emerging economies group represented by the acronym BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), combined with Hofstede’s classification system for cross-cultural comparisons. Findings from mentoring studies from countries economically and culturally similar to India are then generalized to suggest criteria Indian protégés would find most appealing in their mentors. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of future areas for research on mentoring in India