Outcome linkage in formal & supervisory mentoring in a business organization.
Srivastava, Sushmita ; Jomon, M.G.
Introduction
The impact of mentoring on protege career was found to be stronger
when comparing "mentored versus non-mentored" individuals, as
opposed to the mentoring functions provided to proteges alone (Allen
et.al, 2004).Therefore, mentoring functions may be stated to be a
necessary but not a sufficient condition for establishing the existence
of a mentoring relationship. As mentoring functions/roles focus on what
a mentor does rather than what a mentee feels there are little
distinction across studies with regard to the implications of being in a
mentoring relationship (relational mentoring) versus receiving mentoring
function (traditional mentoring functions). The mentoring literature is
yet to examine the relational processes that drive the formation of
high-quality mentoring relationships that are potentially more impactful
and are fundamentally different from average relationships (Ragins &
Fletcher, 2007). This makes the study relevant in business
organizations. The study examines mentoring - outcome linkage in respect
of a large manufacturing organization, particularly with respect to the
factors in the mentoring process, linked to the goals, content and
nature of the relationship, that may impact mentoring outcomes.
In this study, the mentoring process has been examined both in
formal and supervisory mentoring programs. We felt it important to
examine the process of supervisory mentoring in order to investigate, if
they are likely to impact outcomes other than the psychosocial support
e.g., friendship found in earlier studies, and also clarify the
fundamental debate that supervisors cannot be mentors. This study tries
to derive process explanations as to why mentoring would lead to its
outcomes. Despite the amount of mentoring research, few studies have
examined processes through which supervisors direct their subordinate
mentoring relationships. Based on prior mentoring research, one could
extrapolate that a mentor-protege relationship between a supervisor and
subordinate may result in positive outcomes, but the same needs to be
tested.
Whether the mentoring process has contributed to the protege
'significant transition', could be best ascertained by
examining the factors in the mentor-protege relationship process that
may have caused such outcomes. Further a 'relationship-rich'
environment necessitates examining interdependent work and non-work
relationships that contribute to one's growth (Ramaswami &
Dreher, 2010).
The study is therefore designed to answer two research questions
1. What are the factors in the process of mentoring in both formal
and supervisory mentoring that may influence the quality of
relationship?
2. Why are the underlying processes in mentor-mentee interactions
different for different types of developmental relationships such as
formal and supervisory mentoring?
We expect our study to theoretically integrate mentoring theory
with theory on superior subordinate relationships. This investigation is
important to academicians and practitioners for three reasons. First,
this investigation extends prior mentoring research through examination
of the underlying factors that influence the mentoring process--outcome
linkages. Second, little research to date has examined the dynamics of
supervisor to subordinate mentoring relationship. Thirdly, there are no
comparisons of the dynamics of the supervisory with formal mentoring
relationship.
Literature Review
Mentorship traditionally refers to collaboration between two
individuals (not necessarily in a hierarchical relationship), where one
facilitates the professional development of the other, with the intent
of optimizing work performance and enhancing career progress (Scandura,
1992; Allen & Poteet, 1999). Mentoring is a process of transferring
specific knowledge from the mentor to the protege (Hendrikse, 2003).
While several definitions of mentoring have been provided, in the
past research, mentoring definitions mostly emphasized career functions,
"helped you by supporting your career" (Aryee, Lo & Kang,
1999: 568) or "looks out for you, or gives you
advice"(Wallace, 2001: 374) the phrase "is committed to
providing upward mobility and support" to the protege's career
(e.g., Ragins & Cotton, 1991: 942) therefore career outcomes of
mentoring became the most significant benefit of mentoring. Psychosocial
functions and role modeling were referenced less frequently (Haggard et
al, 2011) in the definitions provided on mentoring.
The operational definition of mentoring we have used in this
research is as an "off line help by one person to another in making
significant transitions in knowledge, work or thinking"
(Clutterbuck, 2001). The focus in our definition is on relational
mentoring, developmental mentoring or diversity mentoring that enables
significant transition in knowledge, skill and thinking through a
process of open dialogue characterized by suspension of judgments.
The mentoring process has been defined as a working relationship
that significantly affected protege career mobility in their firm
(Scandura & Ragins, 1993: 256). This description has the advantage
of being broad and inclusive and does not indicate which actions were
taken or who took them on behalf of the protege, hence the mentoring
process has not been defined in clear terms, based on the goals, content
and nature of the relationship.
While the mentoring process in informal mentoring programs has been
studied stating the distinct phases: initiation, cultivation, separation
and redefinition (Kram, 1983), there has not been the same degree of
attention given to the evolution of formal mentoring relationships
(Collins, 1983; Ragins & Scandura, 1997). We know there is an
initiation phase when the mentor and protege are first matched and that
there is a separation when the formal program ends. There are no study
that offers an empirical investigation of how the formal relationship
evolves between those two phases (Blake-Beard, 2001).Similarly, while
the leader member exchange construct has been widely studied, the
process of mentoring in superior-subordinate relationship has been less
so. Also while there have been work related and career related outcomes
of mentoring through over 90 or more studies, as per meta-analytic
studies, there are fewer studies on the process -oriented predictors of
protege outcomes (Haggard et al, 2011)
Formal Mentoring
Formal mentoring is defined as a deliberate pairing of a more
skilled or experienced person with a lesser skilled or experienced one,
with the agreed-upon goal of having the lesser skilled person grow and
develop specific competencies (Murray, 1991: 14). The purpose of formal
mentoring is to support and challenge the mentees to recognize their
career potential and to work towards their personal and professional
goals (Connor & Pokora, 2007). Formal mentoring can be seen as a
strategy, a formalized scheme, ranging from relationships that provide
advice and sponsorship to those that are highly intense, career focused
and developmental (Kram, 1985; Gibson, 2004).
Despite the increasing popularity of formal mentoring programs,
this area is currently under researched (Wanberg, Welsh & Heslett,
2003; Eby & Lockwood, 2005; Allen, Ebby & Lentz, 2006; Baugh
& Fagenson-Eland, 2007; Parise & Forret, 2008). Wanberg et al.
(2003) state that there are "black box gaps in terms of exactly
what and how learning is achieved for both mentors and mentees and what
factors contribute (or not) to this.
Supervisory Mentoring
"Supervisory mentoring is defined as a transformational
activity involving a mutual commitment by mentor and protege to the
latter's long-term development, as a personal, extra organizational
investment in the protege by the mentor, and as the changing of the
protege by the mentor, accomplished by the sharing of values, knowledge,
experience, and so forth" (Scandura & Schriesheim, 1994:1589).
Supervisory mentors differ from formal mentors in that they have regular
opportunities to observe their proteges and are in an organizationally
sanctioned position to protect and provide exposure to them. However,
supervisors with multiple subordinate proteges must allocate their time,
and their mentoring motivations may explain the manner in which they do
so. Specifically, mentors are more likely to provide career support to
proteges whose characteristics enable them to fulfill their motivations
for mentoring.
Several theories have been described to understand the basis of
mentor-protege relationships. The premise of these theories is that they
are based on mutual learning and development orientations. The theories
are on mentoring functions (Kram, 1985), social support or helping
(McManus & Russell, 1997), leader- member exchange (Thibodeaux &
Lowe, 1996), Transformational leadership (Sosik & Godshalk, 2000),
personal learning (Lankau & Scandura, 2002), and human development
(Levinson et al, 1978). However, our qualitative model is based on the
conceptual framework of the social cognitive model of development.
Social Cognitive Model
This theory posits that goals influence behaviors of the
individuals to outcomes (Lent et al., 1994). The model mentions that
individuals develop expectations of performance success through social
support systems like mentoring. Expectations are categorized into three
dimensions i.e. achievement (e.g., reputation, learning from role),
development (e.g., promotion, growth opportunities), and balance, e.g.,
work-family balance and well-being (Stephens, Szajna & Broome,
1998). The learning support offered influences the individual's
expectation of performance success which in turn in fluences his/her
beliefs about own ability and finally the outcomes of career decision
making and goal attainment (Sosik et al, 2004).
This theory posits that the ability to learn and be focused on the
goals encourage developmental relationships including mentoring. The
ability to be goal oriented is a stable trait (Button, Mathieu &
Zajac, 1996) and the individual seeks to develop himself by striving to
learn and focus his efforts on developing his abilities (VandeWalle et
al, 2000) by being optimistic, hopeful and persistent, (Dweck, 1999).
Method
Scholars are of the view that mentoring is in dire need for
qualitative research that would provide richer and deeper insights and
fuller contextual information of the phenomena being studied. This study
adopts the thematic analysis procedure of Braun, Clarke and Wilkinson
(2003) as a qualitative analysis tool to explain why and how mentoring
leads to its outcomes. Thematic analysis offers an accessible and
theoretically flexible approach to analyzing qualitative data.
The data used in this study was collected from multiple samples and
sources, both from mentors and mentees in formal mentoring programs as
well as supervisory mentoring using combination of telephonic and face
to face mode. We used purposive sampling to select respondents of the
study. We invited mentors and mentees who were part of the formal
mentoring program in the organization in the recent past and were known
as effective mentors. We also selected heads of large departments with
sufficient managerial experience, to understand the mentoring process in
supervisory situations and were known as effective supervisors.
Initially 15 mentor-mentee and 15 supervisor-subordinate pairs were
contacted for interview. As the coding pattern appeared well developed
from the 5th pair, 10 pairs under each type of mentoring were included
for the study. The profile of the respondents appear in Tables 1and 2.
As all respondents were drawn from a single organization, we were able
to control for industry context.
To control for bias and inherent subjectivity, two interviewers
were engaged in conducting the interviews. The second interviewer would
compare and contrast the information with the first interviewer and we
achieved 80-90% agreement on the codification of the data.
Results & Findings
The two paths that seemed to emerge as overarching themes in the
thematic analysis were:
Path Goal Clarity: The route to career benefits that deals with the
processes of clarifying how a protege can achieve his career goals and
building the protege self - efficacy and motivation in achieving those
goals is termed as path goal clarity
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
Values Goal Clarity: The path that deals with the process of
clarifying the status of the protege current work life situations, the
appropriateness of chosen career and life decisions and whether they
satisfy ones needs and preferences is termed as Values goal clarity.
The mentoring process functions highlight the pre-requisite
conditions or predictors of mentoring outcomes for transforming the
efforts of mentoring others into mentoring outcomes.
The mentoring process-outcome linkage highlights the missing link
in the mentoring value chain that merits consideration towards improving
mentoring outcomes.
Themel: Fulfillment of Performance Expectations--Path Goal Clarity
Fulfillment of performance expectations is defined here as high
quality performance going beyond the job that it is backed by results,
(support and challenge) actions (feedback and learning) and behaviors
(observation and inspiration), wherein the mentor removes the hurdles
and obstacles on the path of the mentee to enable performance success.
This is done by first understanding the developmental needs of the
protege and then proposing actions that would fulfill the protege's
aspirations/goals in life. The process is governed by the attitude,
aspirations and adaptability of the mentor and mentee.
"There was this chartered accountant, who was doing some task
at the Tarapur plant, which was not good enough for his ability. I told
him: can you think of moving around the finance function. He is now at
Bombay House (the headquarters of the Tata Group) and extremely
happy", formal mentee. "My mentor was able to remove several
confusions in my mind with respect to the job related processes being
followed, which helped me understand the importance of my work. Due to
him, I will be able to choose the right kind of assignments",
formal mentee.
In the mentoring process there are opportunities for the mentor to
help bridge the gap between expectations of a new comer (mentee), and
the existing work place reality.
The above coded data support the fact (category) that in the
mentoring process there are opportunities for the mentor to help bridge
the gap between expectations of a new comer (mentee), and the existing
work place reality and therefore the process is about marrying the
mentors capability/competence to reach out to the mentee, based on his
attitude, aspirations and adaptability--with the protege needs.
Most formal mentors in the interviews confirmed that as mentors
they "were observing their mentees from a distance", which
helped them provide "appropriate and objective feedback". Some
other mentors said that "I keep asking my colleague, the mentee
superior, whether he is delivering or not delivering at the work-place,
whether he has provided sufficient job responsibility for the mentee to
learn and grow. I keep on asking questions. Many superiors are not aware
that I am the mentor for some of their subordinates".
"As a result, his mentee who was not at all confident, when he
joined the department is now the de-facto plant manager". The
supervisory mentor would provide job challenge based on the
protegee's individual capability. "The younger subordinates
know things that we do not know ... simply because it was not in our
course, so we let them do ... the older ones are diploma holders, so
they tell me that if you do this the union will say this, if you say
this, they will say that."
The supervisory mentor developed and empowered his subordinates,
through involvement in the decision making process and his own attitude
of flexibility to change his decisions, based on inputs of the protege,
acknowledging their individual strengths and the likelihood of self to
go wrong. The mentee was found to feel always inspired by observing his
mentors admirable qualities and harbored a desire to be like him some
day. The mentee felt that his mentor was able to remove several
confusion in his mind with respect to the job related processes being
followed in the organization, which helped him understand the value of
his work. Due to the mentor the protege felt that he was able to choose
the right kind of assignments, which would have implications on his
individual performance.
Analysis & Findings: There are a few differences between
understanding of the process of mentoring by the formal mentor and the
supervisory mentor. In supervisory mentoring, mentoring process is
conceptualized as the process of reaching out to the mentee through
institutionalizing empowering processes e.g involvement in
decision--making processes, providing responsibility and challenging
assignments, recognition of the strength of individual contribution. In
formal mentoring, it is more of matching mentors action with mentee
needs and aspirations. There were also differences found in the
understanding of the process of mentoring by the formal mentee and the
subordinate. While the formal mentee emphasized learning and display of
socially accepted behaviors and norms learnt from observing the mentor,
the subordinates are in awe of their superiors (whom they look upon as
mentors, role-models) and want to acquire their skills and competencies.
The similarity in the process in both the situations of formal and
supervisory mentoring was familial/kinship brother, family member and
emotional connections.
Theme 2: Coping with Life & Job Challenges -Values Goal Clarity
Coping is defined as constantly changing cognitive and behavioral
efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are
appraised as taxing or "exceeding the resources of the
person". One of the key mentor attributes that emerged during
analysis of the qualitative data that led to the mentee coping with job
and life challenges was the mentors' attribute of pride in
mentoring and advocacy. This factor explains why the mentor helps the
protege at a more personal than at the professional level. The mentors
took pride in being selected as a mentor and although the time frame was
suggested in the formal mentoring program to be year-long, they assumed
it to be a life-long responsibility. This would reflect in the attitude
towards the mentee, helping him to feel self--assured and enhanced their
image of self-integrity, morality and adequacy and enhanced their
subjective well-being (SWB) that refers to how people experience the
quality of their lives and includes both emotional reactions and
cognitive judgments. "My mentees were putting up a cultural show
(Parichay) and they wanted me to attend. I was in Mumbai and told them
that I will not come. I changed my program and reached Jamshedpur. Just
at 5.30 PM, that day when their program was about to start. They saw me
and it gave them lot of satisfaction. Chote-chote cheez can make a huge
difference." (small things can make a big difference) --formal
mentor.
"When my mentee was confused which department to choose- TQM
or Sinter Plant, I gave her both sides of the picture. Frustration is
natural in any organization. People would want to leave. I used to give
them different formula many angles. Don't look at K(money)..."
(laughs.)--formal mentor.
"When I came to the department I found that this chap was
actually a genius and he has a very unique way of working and then I
tried to understand what is the reason for his insubordination,
absenteeism ... so it started from there and now he became one of the
best officers in the company" - supervisory mentor.
"She taught me certain basic details ... I used to tell her
for whatever reasons I used to tell her ... that I don't want to
work here. I want to resign ... she used to tell me Ms X people are the
same everywhere ... so that was a very big lesson for me ... human
beings are same everywhere"--supervisory mentor.
The underlying theme of the above quotes was that the mentor
through helping the protege cope with job and life challenges and was
able to help the protege understand their professional identities, and
what they can become in their role and work context. The protege
identifies with the mentor, his relationship with the organization and
other spheres of life (Kram, 1985), resulting in satisfaction with life
and career satisfaction.
Through the aforesaid actions of the mentor, the protege was able
to clarify the appropriateness of the chosen career and life decisions
and whether it satisfies his own needs and preferences for career
growth. Thus, the process vari able that influences the path of value
clarity leading to life and career satisfaction is the ability of the
mentor in helping the protege cope with job and life challenges.
While coping with job and life challenges would initially lead to
subjective outcomes, it may eventually lead to objective outcomes as
well. Also through coping with life and job challenges protege is
impacted first at the personal level but it was found to eventually
impact at the professional levels also. This could set new future
directions of research, where mentoring process may be studied
longitudinally to understand the "tipping point" when the
relationship can move from subjective outcomes to objective outcomes or
from more personal to a professional level.
Analysis & Findings: We found that both in formal and
supervisory mentoring, the mentor helped the protege cope with life and
job challenges that required pride and advocacy. The mentor's
ability to advocate the cause of the protege seemed to affect both
formal and supervisory mentoring and helped the protege grow both
personally and professionally. The protege in the mentoring process was
always inspired through observing his mentor. However this element of
the process led to differing outcomes, depend ing upon the protege
needs, capability of the mentor to understand the protege needs and the
priorities and context of the mentorship program in the organization.
Summary & Findings
The significant finding of our study is that the mentoring process
reflected that psycho-social mentoring which acted as the underlying
factor between both the dominant overarching themes, arrived at during
the study, i.e. path goal clarity and value goal clarity that served as
the explanatory mechanism between mentoring and its outcomes. This
finding is a significant departure from the Western literature on
mentoring, where career support functions of sponsorship and protection
also seem to play a role in the mentoring process. Our findings indicate
that socio-cultural context may also influence mentoring dynamics and
hence must be taken into consideration in designing formal mentoring
programs.
While both supervisory and formal mentoring processes were geared
towards fulfillment of performance expectations, the way of looking at
it is quite different. While the formal mentor would try to remove
obstacles and hurdles, to accelerate the learning, the supervisory
mentor will focus on creating processes, sensitizing the subordinate to
the need to involve others.
While the path undertaken by the mentor would be different in
formal and supervisory mentoring, there were no significant differences
in their perception of the factors that influence this relationship.
However our data shows that there may be differences in the perception
of the protege depending upon the career context. The new comers may
seek ways to cope with job and life challenges, although the mentor is
motivated towards fulfilling performance expectations. The subordinate
on the other hand would evaluate the mentoring relationship towards
fulfillment of performance expectations, whereas the superior as a
mentor may focus on providing coping skills.
Implications
This is the first known study that examines through qualitative
research, the relationship between protege perception of mentorship
quality and protege outcomes. Through the study of the dynamics of the
mentoring process by examining the goals, contents and nature of the
relationships, an attempt was made to unfold the reasons for the mentees
success both work and career related. Most business organizations would
like to design mentoring processes that are both efficient and
effective, in order to provide the organization the needed competitive
advantage. The mentees and subordinates in the study were able to
implement the suggestions and advice of their mentors due to fulfillment
of their performance expectations, which played the pivotal role in
their personal growth and development and that influenced the output of
performance. Further research into mechanisms to strengthen fulfillment
of performance expectations by the mentor- formal and supervisory may be
a proactive step for long term organzational success. As there were no
significant differences in the protege perceptions on the processes
involved in mentoring with respect to both formal and supervisory
mentoring, organizations may create a universal mentoring process
through focus on strengthening the process mechanisms.
Future Research & Directions
Our study guides future researchers to use coping skills and
fulfillment of performance expectations as the mediating variables
between psycho-social mentoring support and performance outcomes. Our
qualitative study also indicated several other variables that may be
taken up in future such as mentors advocacy and pride factor, role
clarity of the protege in the mentoring process, attitudinal
orientations of the mentor, aspirations and goals of the mentor and
protege and the change orientation and adaptability of the protege and
mentor, their subjective wellbeing and its impact on the mentoring
outcomes.
Our current study on the process-outcome linkage acts as pointer to
the fact that the effect of mentoring process on performance may be
toward not only task performance but also contextual performance, such
as team, career, OCB, innovation and job performance (Borman &
Motowidlo, 1997).
Limitations of the Study
Like other research studies, this study is not without limitations.
The study did not include informal mentoring relationships or peer
relationships, where the sense of mutuality and equality may influence
the process dynamics differently. It may be possible that since in the
organization studied, there was already in existence of healthy work
relationships, the process factors may vary in other organsational
contexts that must be studied.
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Sushmita Srivastava (E-mail: sushmita@tatasteel.com) is Doctoral
Student & M.G. Jomon (E-mail: joe@xlri.ac.in) is Professor in XLRI,
School of Business & Human Resources, Jamshedpur 831001
Table 1 Mentee/Subordinate (Formal/Supervisory Mentoring)
Respondent code Dept Job Title Total experience
FResp_1 (Mentee) SP Manager 2 years
FResp_2 (Mentee) CRM Manager 2 years
MResp_3 (Mentee) LD1 Manager 5 years
MResp_4 (Mentee) GW Manager 2 years
MResp_5 (Mentee) GW Manager 2 years
MResp_6 (Mentee) ETD Head 10 years
MResp_7 (Mentee) RMH Head 10 years
MResp_8 (Mentee) RMH Manager 2 years
MResp_9 (Mentee) LD2 Manager 2 years
Table 2 Mentor/Superior (Formal/Supervisory Mentoring)
Respondent code Dept Job Title Total experience
MResp_1 (Mentor) MM Chief 15
MResp_2 (Mentor) GW Chief 20
MResp_3 (Mentor) ETD Chief 30
MResp_4 (Mentor) RMH Chief 20
FResp_5 (Mentor) Lgl Chief 20
MResp_6 (Mentor) CGL Chief 15
FResp_7 (Mentor) MDs office Chief 15
MResp_8 (Mentor) Safety Chief 15
MResp_9 (Mentor) SP Chief 24
MResp_10 (Mentor) CEP Chief 30
Exhibit 1 Mentoring Process Functions: Path Goal
& Value Goal Clarity.
Fulfillment of Coping with Life and
Performance Job Challenge Values
Expectations Path Goal Goal Clarity
Clarity
1 Support and Challenge Self-Affirmation and
Belief
2 Feedback and Learning Role Clarity
3 Observation and Sense of Becoming
Inspiration
Exhibit 2 Mentoring Process--Outcome Linkage
Process--Global Definition Basic Themes
Theme (incorporating the
organizing themes)
1. Fulfillment of Fulfillment of An Attitude is an
Performance performance expression of favor or
Expectations--PATH expectations is about disfavor toward a
GOAL CLARITY high quality person, place, thing,
performance going or event (the attitude
beyond the job, it is object).
backed by
results,(support and Aspiration is defined
challenge) actions as the act of having
(Feedback and motivation.
Learning) and Adaptability is the
behaviors (observation ability to change
and Inspiration), something or oneself
wherein the mentor to fit to occurring
removes the hurdles changes. Adaptability
and obstacles on the has been described as
path of the mentee to the ability to cope
enable performance with unexpected
success. disturbances in the
environment.
2. Coping Coping is "constantly Self belief: Teops
with Life changing cognitive and self is to protect an
and Job behavioral efforts to image of its self-
Challenge manage specific integrity, morality
VALUES GOAL external and/or and adequacy.
CLARITY internal demands that
are appraised as Self worth: The self-
taxing or exceeding concept is what we
the resources of the think about the self
person".
Value clarification:
Subjective well-being Values can be defined
(SWB) refers to how as broad preferences
people experience the concerning appropriate
quality of their lives courses of action or
and includes both outcomes. As such,
emotional reactions values reflect a
and cognitive person's sense of
judgments right and wrong or
what "ought" to be.
The ultimate goal of Advocacy is a
the self is to protect political process by
an image of its self- an individual or group
integrity, morality which aims to
and adequacy Role influence public-
clarity describes a policy and resource
new employee's allocation decisions
understanding of his within political,
or her job economic, and social
responsibilities and systems and
organizational role institutions
