Coaching and mentoring activities are fast growing and developing across the world.  In the UK, such schemes are widespread through all types of organization – public, private, large, small and not-for-profit – and there is no doubt that coaching activity is on the rise in the whole of Europe and across the globe. Despite this growing significance, debates over what the universally-agreed definitions for either coaching or mentoring aren't being had within the academic community, and in essence this means that authors, practitioners, clients and researchers may not be discussing the same social phenomena and may be attributing different meanings to both coaching and mentoring.

This new six-volume major work therefore plays a valuable role in building a map of the topic by bringing together the most influential papers on the subject in a single resource. The volumes are organised thematically and contextualised by an introductory chapter written by editor, Bob Garvey.