چرا هنوز مشاوره رواج دارد؟ نقش حمایت سازمانی ادراک شده

The authors examined the mediating role of perceived organizational support in the relationship between mentoring support received and work attitudes. Perceived organizational support partly mediated the relationship between specific types of mentoring support and job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. Specifically, sponsorship, exposure and visibility, and role modeling appear to be related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment through perceived organizational support. Perceived organizational support did not appear to mediate the relationship between other specific forms of mentoring support and job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Organizational researchers have found that employees with mentors report higher levels of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, compensation and promotions (Allen, Eby, Poteet, Lentz, & Lima, 2004), showing the potential importance of having a mentor for achieving both subjective and objective career benefits. Despite this robust stream of research demonstrating the importance of mentoring relationships, the mechanism underlying the association between mentoring and protégé outcomes is largely unknown (e.g., Ragins and Verbos, 2007 and Ramaswami and Dreher, 2007). The lack of attention given to examining why mentoring works represents a significant gap in the literature since in the absence of this information it is difficult, if not impossible, to build comprehensive causal models of the mentoring process (Bearman, Blake-Beard, Hunt, & Crosby, 2007). The present study directly addresses the question of “why does mentoring work?” by drawing upon social exchange theory to propose that a key mechanism linking the receipt of mentoring support and work outcomes is perceived organizational support (POS) (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, & Sowa, 1986). The over-arching premise of the current study is that a mentor may be a lens through which the protégé develops beliefs about his or her organization, as has been suggested in the literature (Orpen, 1997) but not empirically examined. We focus on supervisory mentoring since it is distinct from leadership (Scandura & Williams, 2004), adds incremental variance to the prediction of work attitudes over and above leadership (Scandura and Schriescheim, 1994 and Scandura and Williams, 2004), and often correlates more strongly with work attitudes than does non-supervisory mentoring (e.g., Payne & Huffman, 2005). The present study extends mentoring scholarship in three important ways. First, we directly address the criticism that little is known about why mentoring works by examining POS as a potential mediator. Second, we provide a fine-grained investigation of why mentoring works by examining the relationship between specific types of career-related (e.g., sponsorship, exposure and visibility) and psychosocial (e.g., friendship, coaching) mentoring support and POS. Third, we bridge the mentoring, social exchange and POS literature to develop and test a parsimonious, theory-based model of the mentoring process. In doing so, we set the groundwork for future research and theory development on mentoring relationships at work. 1.1. A social exchange perspective on mentoring Social exchange theory rests on the assertion that individuals develop, maintain and exit relationships based on their perceived costs and benefits. As an individual benefits from a relationship this generates a norm of reciprocity where the person who is on the receiving end of an exchange feels compelled to reciprocate to balance out the social exchange (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). In mentoring relationships, the benefits exchanged fit into the social exchange resource categories of emotional support, information, services, and status (Kram, 1985). Protégés can receive two general types of benefits from the mentoring relationship, which we propose set in motion the social exchange process. The first protégé benefit is career-related support, which serves to advance the protégé’s career through the specific mentor support behaviors of sponsorship, coaching, protection, challenging assignments, and exposure and visibility. The second protégé benefit is psychosocial support, which provides protégés with a sense of social support, often serving to increase the protégé’s sense of competence, effectiveness, and belongingness. Friendship, role modeling, counseling, acceptance and confirmation are subsumed under psychosocial support (Kram, 1985). Although the specific forms of mentoring support are grouped according to career and psychosocial support, the specific forms of support relate differentially to theoretically related constructs. Meta-analytic research finds corrected correlations between protégé perceptions of relationship satisfaction and mentoring received that range from .37 for career-related support to .62 for psychosocial support (Allen et al., 2004).There are also sizable differences in the magnitude of zero-order correlations between the specific types of mentoring support (e.g., exposure and visibility, protection, role modeling) and relationship satisfaction, with correlations ranging from a low of .14 for protection to a high of .70 for friendship (Ragins & Cotton, 1999). These findings indicate that the specific types of mentoring support are related, yet distinct, suggesting that it is important to use more fine-grained measures of mentoring support. 1.2. Mentoring support as a predictor of POS POS is defined as a social exchange relationship that results from exchanges between an employee and his or her employing organization. Specifically, when employees believe that the organization is committed to them, they feel obligated to be committed to the organization (Eisenberger et al., 1986). Actions on the part of organizational agents lead employees to personify the organization and develop perceptions about how the organization values them. Empirical research supports this assumption by finding that POS mediates the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX; Graen & Scandura, 1987) and work attitudes and behaviors (Eisenberger et al., 2002 and Wayne et al., 2002). While mentoring has not been examined in relation to POS, it seems reasonable to argue that supervisory mentors may also be viewed as agents of the organization. In fact, Orpen (1997) speculated that seeing the mentor as a representative of the organization is the reason mentoring leads to increased organizational commitment, although this idea has not been examined empirically. According to Eisenberger et al. (1986), in order for POS to develop, the employee must perceive an organizational agent’s actions as discretionary. Mentoring may be a specific type of discretionary prosocial behavior (Allen, 2004). Moreover, the specific types of career-related and psychosocial support that are provided to a protégé are unique currencies of exchange in a mentoring relationship rather than resources that are universally provided to all subordinates (Ensher, Thomas, & Murphy, 2001). We propose that through supportive interactions with mentors, protégés may develop perceptions about whether or not the organization cares for their well-being. This can happen through the receipt of career-related and psychosocial mentoring. Career-related mentoring functions help prepare protégés for career development in the organization, increase the protégé’s sense of professional competence, and demonstrates the mentor’s commitment to helping the protégé (Kram, 1985). Both sponsorship and exposure and visibility involve the mentor providing public support for the protégé. This can come in the form of actively nominating the protégé for desirable lateral moves and stretch assignments (sponsorship) or by introducing the protégé to other influential senior individuals in the organization (exposure and visibility). Coaching support can also enhance career development by teaching the protégé how to effectively navigate in the organization by providing information on how to accomplish work tasks, receive recognition, and meet one’s career aspirations. Challenging assignments can also support career development by providing opportunities for new learning, especially when coupled with feedback and technical support. Finally, protection involves the mentor taking credit or blame in controversial situations, intervening on behalf of the protégé in potentially career-damaging situations, and shielding the protégé from high visibility assignments where the risk of failure is high or the protégé is ill-equipped for the task. Career-related support from the mentor may foster positive attitudes towards the mentor, which in turn contributes to the belief that the organization cares about the protégé’s well-being. Likewise, by preparing the protégé for long-term positive organizational experiences, career-related mentoring support is likely to signal to the protégé that the organization is invested in his or her career development, which again should facilitate the development of POS. Psychosocial support may also predict protégé POS since these mentor behaviors enhance a protégé’s sense of professional identity and competence. Acceptance and confirmation offered by the mentor helps the protégé derive a sense of positive self-regard and builds trust in the mentoring relationship. Counseling support from the mentor also fosters positive self-views by helping the protégé explore personal concerns that may interfere with his or her ability to feel comfortable in the organization. Friendship creates positive social experiences at work and allows the protégé to feel like a peer with a more senior organizational member, which can positively impact protégés’ perceptions of authority figures in the organization (Kram, 1985). Finally, with role modeling, the protégé comes to identify with the mentor and the mentor becomes a person that the protégé admires and respects. Over time the positive affective attitude associated with a sense of trust, camaraderie, and respect that characterizes a mentoring relationship marked by high psychosocial support may generalize to protégé beliefs about the organization as a whole such that the protégé feels that the organization also cares about his or her well-being and is deserving of respect and trust. This leads us to the first set of predictions: Hypothesis 1. Career-related mentoring support in the form of sponsorship, coaching, protection, challenging assignments, and exposure and visibility is positively related to POS. Hypothesis 2. Psychosocial mentoring support in the form of friendship, role modeling, counseling, and acceptance and confirmation is positively related to POS. 1.3. The relationship between POS and work attitudes Eisenberger et al. (1986) proposed that when employees believe that the organization cares about their well-being, they will feel obligated to help out the organization, which is reflected in the employees’ increased affective organizational commitment. Empirical research provides support for this assumption, indicating that affective organizational commitment is one of the strongest consequences of POS (Rhoades et al., 2001 and Wayne et al., 2002). Research has also established the link between POS and job satisfaction (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). Job satisfaction is typically seen as one of the antecedents of organizational commitment since individuals need to feel satisfied with their job before they can feel committed (Mathieu & Hamel, 1989). Replicating previous research, we predict: Hypothesis 3. POS is positively related to affective organizational commitment. Hypothesis 4. POS is positively related to job satisfaction. Hypothesis 5. Job satisfaction is positively related to organizational commitment. Finally, empirical research provides strong evidence indicating that job satisfaction and organizational commitment have unique predictive relationships with turnover intentions (Tett & Meyer, 1997). Turnover intentions are an important outcome variable, as intent to quit is perhaps the strongest predictor of actual turnover (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000). Based on this line of research, we offer a final replication of past research: Hypothesis 6. Job satisfaction and organizational commitment are negatively related to turnover intentions.

The reason mentoring works may be more complicated that initially expected. The current study demonstrates that explanatory variables, such as POS, are important for understanding the relationship between mentoring support and work attitudes, however, raised questions regarding what other explanatory mechanisms may be at play and how specific forms of mentoring support may have different reasons for relating to work outcomes. Understanding more about why mentoring works allows organizations to provide better formal mentoring experiences to employees. Specifically, in formal mentoring programs, individuals who will be a desirable representative of the organization should be chosen. The results of this study in conjunctions with research on negative mentoring experiences suggests that organizations should be careful about who they allow or encourage to mentor, as having a negative mentoring relationship might actually reflect poorly on the organization as a whole. Moreover, the current study found that mentoring support that was specific to the organization was related to POS. Thus, organizations should encourage managers to provide quality mentoring that is specific to the organization, which may in turn foster POS among participants. One factor that distinguishes mentoring relationships from other types of interpersonal relationships is the career-related and psychosocial support that the mentor provides to the protégé. Understanding how these types of mentoring support relate to work outcomes is challenging because they are unique behaviors, with unique relationships to other variables. In the current study, we examined POS as a possible mediating mechanism in the mentoring – work attitudes relationships and found that POS explains why some types of support relate to work attitudes, but not others. Our findings underscore the importance of examining the specific forms of mentoring support. Examining the distinct types of mentoring support is essential for understanding when and why mentoring is related to work attitudes and behaviors.