Developing Cultural Intelligence and Empathy Through Diversified Mentoring Relationships

Abstract

Given increasing globalization and the foreign-born workforce characterizing many organizations around the world, managers are increasingly called on to effectively manage a culturally diverse workforce. One way to increase the cultural intelligence and empathy of managers was proposed by Ragins, who indicated that mentors in diversified mentoring relationships (DMRs) may become more culturally intelligent and empathic as a result of exposure to the situations and challenges faced by their lower power protégés. To test this proposition regarding the efficacy of DMRs, a quasi-experimental design was employed using an experiential training intervention involving DMRs between primarily White, affluent student mentors and newly resettled refugees to the United States. Grounded in the theoretical foundations of contact theory and DMRs, our findings suggest that DMRs of even limited duration may be influential in increasing cultural intelligence and empathy.

Exploring the Determinants of Becoming a Mentor in Turkish Organizations

“…Mentoring programs have gained an important role in organizations (Chrysoula, Georgios, Miltiadis, Stamatios, & Grigorios, 2018;Humberd & Rouse, 2016;Janssen, Tahitu, van Vuuren, & de Jong, 2018;Park, Newman, Zhang, Wu, & Hooke, 2016;Young, Haffejee, & Corsun, 2018). It is intriguing to examine the characteristics of the individuals who are willing to mentor and the situational factors that reinforce their intentions to mentor.…”

“…The tacit assumption here is that when employees are in harmony with company values, organization change efforts have a better probability of succeeding than when they are not. Often forgotten is the importance of mentoring for successful OD interventions (Humberd & Rouse, 2016;Young et al, 2018). Resistance to change is mostly left unattended even though it is widely accepted that readiness among employees to have a positive attitude toward organization change interventions is a necessity.…”

Evidence‐Based Practices in Mentoring for Leadership Development

“…As globalization and diversity increases, faculty, student affairs professionals, teachers, administrators, and student leaders are increasingly asked to mentor people who are different from themselves (Young, Haffejee, & Corsun, 2018). Yet, achieving social justice and inclusion in mentoring relationships and programming on college campuses and beyond can be challenging.…”

“…While mentees typically seek mentors similar to them, such as shared racial or ethnic background (Liang & Grossman, 2007), the availability of mentors who match the mentee demographics is often limited (Liang & Grossman, 2007; Ragins, 1997; Rhodes, 2002). For example, institutions of higher education, particularly Predominantly White Institutions, often do not have enough African, Latino, Asian, and Native American (ALANA) faculty and staff to match student demographics, thus resulting in increased intercultural mentoring relationships (Young et al., 2018). Race/ethnicity is just one aspect of cultural difference: mentoring pairs may also differ in household income, social class, timing of first postsecondary enrollment, cultural difference, gender, political affiliation, religious or spiritual preference, ability, age, and sexual orientation.…”

“We Don’t Need Another One in Our Group”: Racism and Interventions to Promote the Mental Health and Well-Being of Racialized International Students in Business Schools

“…One of the most cited articles on racial diversity in management, for example, adopts a resource-based view of the firm to model diversity as a valuable, inimitable, and rare source of sustained competitive advantage (Richard, 2000). As well, a recent study models the benefits of diversified mentoring relationships in terms of increasing the cultural intelligence of managers (Young et al, 2018).…”