It has been suggested that career sponsorship is a critical tool for career advancement, perhaps especially for minoritized individuals. It remains unclear, however, how intersectional identity may shape individual experiences of career sponsorship. In the current work, we conduct a qualitative exploration of how contemporary workers understand and experience career sponsorship. Using an intersectionality lens to interpret our findings, we apply grounded theory techniques to analyze 40+ in-depth interviews with diverse workers who have received career sponsorship (and in some cases, provided it to others as well). Our investigation generates theoretical insights about the nature of career sponsorship and how intersectional identity shapes career sponsorship experiences.
