Effectiveness of Mentoring in Organizations - Essay Example

What does research tell us about the effectiveness of mentoring in organizations ID 19714 Order No. 268611 31 January 2009 Table of Contents: Table of Figures Figure No. Description and Word Hyperlink Figure 1 Hypothetical model of mentoring received - built by Aryee, Samuel and Lo, Susanna et al. (1999) Figure 2 Mentor - Protg Diversity Model developed by Feldman, Daniel C. and Folks, William R et al. (1999) Figure 3 Developmental Network Typology - Model developed by Higgins, Monica C. and Kram, Kathy E. (2001) Figure 4 Dysfunctional Mentoring and Outcomes - A Model presented by Scandura, Terri A. (1998) Figure 5 Antecedents and Consequences of Developmental Networks (Source: Higgins, Monica C. and Kram, Kathy E. 2001) Figure 6 Structural Equation Model of social resources presented by Seibert, Scott E. and Kraimer, Maria L. (2001) Figure 7 Key dimensions of effective career discussions (Source: Wendy Hirsh and Charles Jackson 2001) Introduction In the modern era, one of the biggest challenges that organizations are facing is to build & protect their competitive advantages with respect to market demands and customer expectations. To effectively face the challenges organizations setup a framework of their own interests that help in evolution of the strategic business objectives of the organization. The employees are expected to tangibly build & demonstrate their competencies that result in deliverables complying with the strategic business objectives of the organizations. The performance of employees is dependent upon the degree of alignment achieved with the strategic business objectives which is measured effectively by innovative means in the modern organization. However, it is not easy for the younger talents to understand the detailed aspects of such alignments on their own whereas they bring to table some excellent competencies as an outcome of their respective educational backgrounds. Such talents require effective mentoring to help them align with the organizational goals such that they can gradually build a career in the system by effectively delivering results in line with the strategic objectives of the organization. The mentors need to be those senior experienced colleagues who have been star performers in the system by virtue of their recognized contribution to the goals of the organization. The mentor-protg relationships in organizations, however, are complex and require a lot of organizational focus (as a part of larger strategies) to ensure successful results in building talents for the future. There are numerous benefits to organizations that establish formal mentoring programs within the system and carefully managing the emotional dynamics between the mentors and the protgs by avoiding conflicts of interests. Some organizations practice such strategies for every level in the organization after recognising the need for such programs and clearly setting out their objectives. Such activities are normally carried out through Human Resources department having dedicated functional areas for training & development within the organization. Such a department possesses a senior management representative for effective communication to the top and also possesses their own quality goals in achieving people development in the system. The Human Resources function views the entire organization as a social system and tries to establish models of existing human dynamics prevailing within the organization. These dynamics are then mapped with the growth path that has been established within the organization as per the business requirements in order to build aspirations and healthy competition among people. The employees are then provided guidance and help through senior & experienced employees through well designed mentoring programmes such that every individual gets an equal opportunity to develop their individual competencies in order to align effectively with the organizational strategic goals in order to enhance competitive advantages as per market dynamics & customer expectations. The overall process is very complex and requires a lot of thought process, planning, execution, hard work, measurement, communication, continuous improvements, conflict management, etc. This paper critically evaluates the details of such mentoring programmes and their effectiveness in corporate environments. [Wilson and Elman 1990; Lips-Wiersma and Hall 2007] Mentor - Protg relationships in organizations Mentor - Protg relationships are very complex in professional environments. A number of theories have evolved trying to look deep into such relationships in corporate environments. We hereby present frameworks, hypotheses & research outcomes of some of the researchers that attempted to analyze such relationships in some practical scenarios. Kathy E. Kram in 1983 presented one of the original theories of phases of mentoring relationships in organizations. She sampled eighteen developmental relationships and evolved the following phases of development in mentoring relationships: Initiation - The senior manager (mentor) is viewed as a fantasy object during the first six to twelve months of young managers within the system. Thus the events in the first year of career transform these initial fantasies into concrete positive expectations from either sides thus building a strong foundation for the future. Cultivation - The expectations built during the initial phase get tested against realities during this phase that may last between two to five years. Separation - In this phase structural as well as psychological separation may occur offering the young manager to test self abilities developed in the last two phases without close guidance or supervisory support. This may happen more because of midlife crisis faced by the senior manager or blocked opportunities by the system. If this happens prematurely, the younger managers may feel abandoned or not prepared to face the forthcoming challenges without the support of the senior manager. Redefinition - The protg doesn't forget the relationship and neither does the senior manager. However, this becomes more of a friendship rather than any further mentoring by the senior manager. However, the senior manager takes pride in the successive accomplishments of the junior managers and continues to support the younger manager from a distance with occasional counselling, coaching and sometimes recommending him/her in formal forums. The relationship may not transition across all the phases as described above if hindrances like fear psychosis (example, fear of the younger manager superseding the senior manager) or lack of trust builds midway in the mentor relationship cycle. [Kram, 1983] In 1988, Raymond A. Noe presented one of the first studies of determinants of successful mentoring relationships. He presented a set of twenty nine mentoring items and thirteen variables and carried out complex statistical analysis. He concluded with affirmation to work done by Kram (1983) that mentors do provide a career function and a psychological function whereby items related to mentor's coaching behaviour share more common variance with the psychological functions due to perception of protgs of coaching behaviour being more instrumental for work effectiveness and self identity than for career advancements. Most of the protgs reported fruitful psychological outcomes whereby career outcomes remained limited. As an outcome of the study it is stated that Mentoring relationships, providing high benefits in psychological & career aspects need primary mentoring relationships (more one to one emotional interactions) as well as relationships with lesser intimacy (professional interactions more focussed on career enhancements), should be assigned in the formal mentorship programmes of organizations such that determinants of both the relationships can be used as factors leading to successful achievement of objectives. Further to work by Noe, Chao et al (1992) suggested that most protgs expect mentors to provide both career oriented & psychological benefits. However, the same provided through formal or informal means may lead to different results whereby informal mentoring may identify & build talents with sharper & deeper competencies while formal mentoring may identify & build talents with wider competencies. Overall, the way competencies are built may not impact in collective outcomes for the organization but may definitely impact salary & career advancement decisions. Ragins and Cottons (1999) affirmed further that Protgs having informal mentors received greater compensation & better career outcomes compared to protgs having formal mentors. In an another research carried out by Ragins and Cottons in 2000, they established a finding that mere presence of a competent mentor through either a formal or informal mentoring programme doesn't guarantee satisfaction with mentor relationship - it is the impact of mentorship programmes on job & career attitudes that matters more than the design & effectiveness of the mentorship programmes. [Noe, 1988] Samuel Aryee et al (1999) presented the four personality variables and three situational variables that influence protg initiated mentorship relationships (Figure 1). It was found that only extraversion had a direct relationship with the mentoring received. The situational variables however were found to possess a direct correlation with mentorship received thus affirming that developmental culture of an organization may be related to mentoring received. [Aryee et al 1999] Figure 1: Hypothetical model of mentoring received - built by Aryee, Samuel and Lo, Susanna et al. (1999) This fact was originally suggested by William Whitely and Thomas W. Dougherty et al. (1992) that presented a correlation between mentoring and age of the protgs. They affirmed the fact that organizational cultures support core employee development programmes to encourage the explanation of assignments, communications of expectations, provision of special coaching, and such other strategic alignments to the organizational goals if the youngsters have incompetent superiors, and poor provisions of feedback. Whitely et al also found that working youngsters (with average age of 30) from higher socio economic origins received more career oriented mentoring and the middle managers in organizations received more mentoring than higher ups. Moreover, gender possesses no co-relation with the amount of career oriented mentoring received. Later in 1996, Samuel Aryee and Thomas Wyatt et al (1996) studied the impact of career oriented mentoring, ingratiation and their interaction term on the measures of career success - Salary enhancement, number of promotions & career satisfaction to discover that such mentoring has significant effect on promotions & career satisfaction but insignificant effect on salary enhancements. Scandura and Schriesheim (1994) studied the same measures of career success in the context of leader - member exchange trying to affirm the theory that leaders use their position powers to (that is access to organizational resources) to develop different exchange relationships with different sub-ordinates. They found that Leader - member exchange didn't explain significant criterion variance between salary increase & promotion rate but the Supervisor Career Mentoring (SCM) did. Chandler, Dawn E. and Kram, Kathy E. (2005) established an outcome that individuals are more satisfied with their careers in hierarchical organizations whereby some organizations with deep hierarchical structures could even establish the notion of lifetime employment. This is the key feature of legacy career systems allows mentors and protgs to interact with predictive, secure and stable relationships for much longer durations. Such organizations have strong mentoring programmes to influence job commitment, job satisfaction and longer retention of employees. Daniel C. Feldman and William R Folks et al. (1999) presented the model of demographic diversity of Mentor - Protg relationship presented in figure 2. The model shows various parameters of mentoring output in the corporate social environment of demographic diversity. The research outcome revealed that probability of extension of task related, social related or career related support from mentors to protgs is lesser if they possess different gender or nationality. This result leads to further outcomes like lesser exposure to international business, lesser career instrumentations, poorer socialization, etc. [Feldman and Folks et al. 1999]. A research by Dreher and Cox (1996) also confirmed race and gender bias in mentoring relationships. Example, Black protgs reported less mentoring assistance than White protgs if the mentors are white. Figure 2: Mentor - Protg Diversity Model developed by Feldman, Daniel C. and Folks, William R et al. (1999) Monica C. Higgins and Kathy E. Kram (2001) developed network model of developmental mentoring having two core dimensions - developmental network diversity and developmental relationship strength. They presented four categories of developmental networking based on the core dimensions - High developmental network diversity & relationship strength called "Entrepreneurial" (spanning multiple groups or sub-networks - like social networks); High developmental network diversity & Low relationship strength called "Opportunistic" (the strength of network depends upon the protg's active interest in seeking help from developers thus forming development relationships); Low developmental network diversity & High relationship strength called "Traditional" (strong ties among fewer developers and protgs - typically one to one relationships); Low developmental network diversity & Low relationship strength called "Receptive" (weak ties among the developers and also between developers & mentors) (Figure 3). The network considers both protgs & their developers in the model. [Higgins and Kram 2001] Figure 3: Developmental Network Typology - Model developed by Higgins, Monica C. and Kram, Kathy E. (2001) Figure 4 presents the application of this network model in defining the antecedents, the mediating processes and the four consequences of development of protgs - Career Change, Personal Learning, Organizational Commitment and Work Satisfaction. The precedents have been presented as two broad influences - Work environment influences and Individual level influences. The mediating processes are primarily presented in two forms - the internal constraints & opportunities within the organization in building developmental networks and the developmental help seeking behaviour of employees. Figure 4: Antecedents and Consequences of Developmental Networks (Source: Higgins, Monica C. and Kram, Kathy E. 2001) Overall this model presents an excellent framework of developmental networking and its application in internal learning of organizations. Terri A. Scandura (1998) highlighted the negative aspects of mentoring in organizations whereby unpleasant aspects of mentoring can lead to disastrous results for the protgs being mentored. Scandura presented a model (Figure 2) in which positive and negative impacts on the protgs are exhibited as a result of dysfunctional mentoring determinants which in fact is an outcome of destructive relationships caused by poor "Psycho-social" or "Vocational" mentoring. Scandura built upon the model by Duck (1994; taken from the literature by Scandura) to evolve determinants of dysfunctional mentoring - Negative relations (Bullying, tyrannical or exploitive mentorship), Sabotage (bad intentions of mentors - like revenge), Spoiling (betrayal by mentor or sometimes even caused by good mentor having bad track record in the organization), Submissiveness (a characteristic of protgs causing increase in tyrannical behaviour of the mentors - an outcome of early family development issues that may result in disastrous influence on the adult relationships at work), and Harassment (gender, race discrimination or even sexual harassment). [Scandura. 1998] Figure 5: Dysfunctional Mentoring and Outcomes - A Model presented by Scandura, Terri A. (1998) Organization wide Mentoring Frameworks Having analyzed the dynamics of relationships between mentors and protgs within organizations, the theories around mentoring frameworks in organizations are presented herewith. Scott E. Seibert and Maria L. Kraimer, (2001) presented a structural equation model with an attempt to establish the importance of social capital to career success. They presented three benefits of being part of social networks within corporates - access to information, access to resources and career sponsorship. They modelled the inter-relationships between these three measures of "social resources" and their positive relationships with the current salaries, number of promotion over the career and career satisfaction (Figure 5). Their study revealed that weak ties and structural holes have their own effects on the level of social resources available to people whereby weak ties directly impact access to information and career sponsorship. This means that people with whom one has strong ties further open the channels to information access and career sponsorship. Figure 6: Structural Equation Model of social resources presented by Seibert, Scott E. and Kraimer, Maria L. (2001) James A Wilson and Nancy S. Elman (1990) presented benefits of mentoring of human resources in the organizations whereby the primary advantages presented are employee motivation, on-the-job performance and retention rates. These in turn are related to the long-term health of the organization as a complex social system whereby a common corporate culture based on values, changing of tacit knowledge into implicit, knowledge management as an overall practice, etc. can be vital to organizational success and effectiveness. The researchers argue that organization wide mentoring system should be applicable for people at all levels - even the highest ones - like the grooming of the next CEO of the company. In this context, Wendy Hirsh and Charles Jackson (2001) argue that effective & healthy career discussions are required at work to ensure that employees are satisfied with the career support they receive. This can be achieved by trust, challenge, relevant information, good career discussions, credible role of HR function, and an overall project design for career mentoring as presented in figure 7: Figure 7: Key dimensions of effective career discussions (Source: Wendy Hirsh and Charles Jackson 2001) Bozionelos (2004) presented the relationship between disposition and career success that suggests that intrinsic career success is primarily associated with personality whereas mental ability has almost NIL effects and experience has marginal effects. Conclusions Mentoring relationships between developers and protgs form the fundamentals of internal learning within organizations whether carried out formally or informally. The mentoring system however depends upon a number of factors and dynamics that has been presented in this paper as an outcome of multiple researches. Given the complex dynamics of human relationships between mentors and protgs, the Human Resources function need to establish well designed internal learning systems that are in line with the corporate social system rich with historical facts which can be studied and then used for the advantages of the organization clearly knowing the competitive advantages of the organizations, the strategic business objectives and the corresponding contributions required by the employees. Reference List: Aryee, Samuel and Lo, Susanna et al. (1999). Antecedents of Early Career Stage Mentoring among Chinese Employees. Journal of Organizational Behaviour. Vol. 20. No. 5. pp563-576. Aryee, Samuel and Wyatt, Thomas et al. (1996). Early Career Outcomes of Graduate Employees - The effect of mentoring and ingratiation. Journal of Management Studies. Vol. 22. No. 2380. pp95-118. Bozionelos, Nikos. (2004). The relationship between disposition and career success: A British study. 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Mentor Functions and Outcomes - A Comparison of Men and Women in Formal and Informal Mentoring Relationships. Journal of Applied Psychology. Vol.84. No. 4. pp529-550 Ragins, Belle Rose and Cotton, John L. et al. (2000). Marginal Mentoring - The effects of type of Mentor, Quality of Relationship and Program design on Work and Career Attitudes. Academy of Management Journal. Vo. 43. No. 6. pp1177-1194 Scandura, Terri A. and Schriesheim, Chester A. (1994). Leader-Member Exchange and Supervisor Career Mentoring as Complimentary Constructs in Leadership Research. Academy of Management Journal. Vol. 37. No.6. 1588-1602 Scandura, Terri A. (1998). Dysfunctional Mentoring Relationships and Outcomes. Journal of Management. Vol. 24. No. 3. pp449-467 Seibert, Scott E. and Kraimer, Maria L. (2001). A Social Capital Theory of Capital Success. Academy of Management Journal. Vo. 44. No. 2. pp219-237. Wilson, James A and Elman, Nancy S. (1990). Organizational Benefits of Mentoring. Academy of Management Executive. Vol. 4. No. 4. pp88-93. Whitley, William and Dougherty, Thomas W. et al. (1992). Correlates of Career-Oriented Mentoring for Early Career Managers and Professionals. Journal of Organizational Behaviour. Vol. 13. No. 2. pp141-154. Read More