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The establishment, extension and development of formal mentoring schemes in workplaces have been accompanied by an extensive analysis of the preconditions for successful implementation. These have tended to explore the "mechanics" of formal mentoring schemes; namely policy development, scheme design, mentor competence, and mentor training. These studies tend to be normative and prescriptive. Substantive theoretical analysis of formal mentoring has been either absent, implicit, limited, or underdeveloped.
Stephen Gibb (1999) studied this question.