Applicability of the western concept of mentoring to African organizations: a case study of Zimbabwean organizations

Abstract

Research undertaken mainly in western countries has highlighted the importance of mentors and mentoring to an individual's career success. However, the generalizability of these findings to an African organizational culture has not been established. The findings of the study reported in this paper were based on responses from 184 senior and middle managers in banks and hotels in Zimbabwe who completed a postal questionnaire, which was followed by in-depth interviews. The findings of the study showed that mentoring as defined in the literature reviewed for the purposes of undertaking the study was not applicable to African organizations. Instead, a new way of conceptualizing mentoring from an African perspective, “the homeboy/girl syndrome,” is suggested.