Informal mentoring is dependent on the relationship developed between mentor and protege, but job needs and task designs within organizations may also define and construct them. The intent is to foster organizational goals and help new employees become acclimated to workplace culture while learning from experienced practitioners. How to choose mentors and proteges is problematic. Since informal mentoring has tended to exclude women, people of color, people of other social classes, and those of different sexual orientation, formal mentoring programs have sought to address exclusion by pairing proteges from historically marginalized groups with mentors who are mid- or high-level employees. Senior employees may be chosen to serve as mentors because they best represent corporate culture and dominant cultural values; proteges may also be chosen based on dominant organizational culture. Marginalized employees may never have the opportunity for formal mentoring. Formal mentoring may provide opportunities for previously marginalized groups to participate in mentoring relationships from which they learn and receive career help and psychosocial support, but they may encourage unquestioning replication of organizational values and hegemonic culture by a new generation of employees. Power issues arise as formal mentoring programs are planned, such as whose interests are primarily served, whether mentoring programs are set up to manage learning or empower learners, and who should decide the mentors and proteges to be included. (Contains 29 references.) (YLB)