Formal Mentoring Systems: An Examination of the Effects of Mentor/Protégé Cognitive Styles on the Mentoring Process

Abstract

In informal mentoring systems, protégés seek help from other organizational members between whom there is often mutual attraction and rapport resulting in a level of interpersonal comfort between the members of the relationship. Because of the apparent benefits for both employee and organization, many human resource managers now attempt to establish formal mentoring systems in which mentors and protégés are brought together systematically. It is recognized, however, that assigned mentoring relationships are not usually as beneficial as those that develop informally. There appears, therefore, to be a need to match partners in some way. It has been suggested that a better grasp of psychological factors is necessary if this is to be achieved. One personality variable that may be partly responsible for shaping the overall effectiveness of such relationships is cognitive style. The present study, involving 53 mentor-protégé dyads, examined the effects of the cognitive styles of mentors and protégés on the process of formal mentoring. Data were collected from both partners in each dyadic relationship, and findings suggest that in dyads whose mentor is more analytic, congruence between the partners' cognitive styles enhances the quality of their mentoring relationships. Cognitive style was also found to work indirectly through its influence on other variables to enhance mutual liking and psychosocial and career mentoring functions. Gender composition was also found to have a significant impact on the mentoring process. Dyads with female mentors and male protégés were found to be the least favourable combination. The concept of mentoring is not new. Although it is closely related to craft apprenticeship schemes of the past (Wilbur, 1987), its origins can be traced back much

Looking for Professor Right: mentee selection of mentors in a formal mentoring program

“…Like the study conducted by Armstrong et al (2002), mentoring participants who demonstrated mutual liking not only enhanced the quality of mentoring relationships, but also, in our cohorts, gave strong indications that they would continue their relationship after the formal part of the program had concluded.…”

Do Birds of a Feather Communicate Better? The Cognitive Style Congruence Between Managers and Their Employees and Communication Satisfaction

“…Studies on cognitive style congruence have mostly used the difference score approach or median split (Allinson et al, 2001; Armstrong et al, 2002Armstrong et al, , 2004Armstrong & Priola, 2001;Lin et al, 2010;Vanderheyden & De Baets, 2015), the polynomial regression analysis approach used in the current study preserves the independent effect of each component measure (Shanock et al, 2010). Polynomial regression and surface analysis allowed us to analyze communication satisfaction in four major settings which would not be possible by using difference scores.…”

“…A significant shortcoming of existing studies on cognitive style congruence is the fact that they have used a difference score approach to measure the absolute distance between cognitive style scores of the dyads or a median split approach to categorize the cognitive styles (Allinson, Armstrong, & Hayes, 2001;Armstrong, Allinson, & Hayes, 2002, 2004Armstrong & Priola, 2001;Lin, Kao, & Chang, 2010;Vanderheyden & De Baets, 2015). The difference score fails to differentiate between the relationship among an analytic manager managing an intuitive employee and an intuitive manager managing an analytic employee, since the difference in the scores would be the same in both cases.…”

The Role of Attachment in Faculty Mentoring

“…Because the characteristics of two people in a relationship influence the extent and quality of their interactions between each other (Hinde, 1997;Neyer, 2004), mentors' and protégés' individual differences are key factors that warrant investigation (Armstrong, Allinson, & Hayes, 2002;Knox & McGovern, 1988;Noe, 2002;Redmond, 1990b). Studies that have examined relationships between mentoring and individual differences such as cognitive styles, personality, locus of control, learning goal orientation, and mentoring (Armstrong, Allinson, & Hayes, 2002;Ellinger, 2002;Godshalk, & Sosik, 2003;Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2007;Kim & Kim, 2007;Siegel, Smith, & Mosca, 2001) definitely suggest that interpersonal interactions and relationship between the participants are critical to mentoring.…”

“…Studies that have examined relationships between mentoring and individual differences such as cognitive styles, personality, locus of control, learning goal orientation, and mentoring (Armstrong, Allinson, & Hayes, 2002;Ellinger, 2002;Godshalk, & Sosik, 2003;Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2007;Kim & Kim, 2007;Siegel, Smith, & Mosca, 2001) definitely suggest that interpersonal interactions and relationship between the participants are critical to mentoring. Particularly, studies that identified correlations between mentor personality and functions of mentoring and outcomes of mentoring (Chang, 1981;Theophilides & Terenzini, 1981;Wilson, Woods, & Gaff, 1974) and protégé personality and functions of mentoring and outcomes of mentoring (Aryee, Lo, & Kang, 1999;Turban & Dougherty, 1994) are important in the context of this study because mentoring is a relationship or interpersonal process where personalities play a part.…”