The company you keep : The relational models and support expectations of key developer relationships

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify key developmental relationships for career‐spanning success and to examine relational models and support expectations associated with these relationships. The paper creates propositions associating developer‐protégé schema congruence and incongruence to relevant outcome variables. Design/methodology/approach – Study 1 employed qualitative coding of developers identified in 77 hall of famer induction speeches and Study 2 used a cross‐industry survey of 425 respondents to assess the relational model and support expectations associated with the seven most highly‐cited developer roles from Study 1. Findings – Study 1 identified these highly‐cited developer roles as a CEO, manager, work teammate, friend, spouse, parent, and unmet hero/idol. Study 2 described the expected relational models associated with these roles and found significant differences in the relational model and support expectations associated across roles. Research limitations/implications – While study 1 focused on a primarily male sample using retrospective data, it generalized and extended previous research on key developer roles for extraordinary career achievement. Based on the key findings from study 1, study 2 surveyed respondents regarding developer role expectations rather than expectations of particular developer‐protégé relationships. Practical implications – These findings identify how and with whom protégés should consider initiating and fostering key developmental relationships to enhance their networks while broadening and deepening organizations' understanding of the importance of their members having a variety of organizational and non‐organizational developers. Originality/value – These findings challenge the notion that developer‐protégé relationships fit a “one size fits all” reciprocal exchange motif as it is the first study to explore expectations associated with key developer relationships using relational models theory.