John L. Cotton

Mentor Functions and Outcomes: A Comparison of Men and Women in Formal and Informal Mentoring Relationships

The authors examined the effects of the type of mentoring relationship and the gender composition of the relationship on mentoring functions and career outcomes reported by 352 female and 257 male proteges. Proteges of informal mentors viewed their mentors as more effective and received greater compensation than proteges of formal mentors. Proteges with informal mentors also received more career outcomes than nonmentored individuals, but no significant differences were found between nonmentored and formally mentored individuals. The gender composition of the relationship affected mentoring functions and outcomes, and protege gender interacted with the type of relationship to affect mentoring functions. Mentoring relationships are a critical career resource for employees in organizations . Mentors are individuals with advanced experience and knowledge who are committed to providing upward support and mobility to their proteges careers (Hunt & Michael, 1983; Kram, 1985a). Mentors help their proteges by providing two general types of behaviors or functions: career development functions, which facilitate the proteges advancement in the organization, and psychosocial functions, which contribute to the proteges personal growth and professional development (Kram, 1985a). The presence of a mentor is associated with an array of positive career outcomes: Proteges receive more promotions (Dreher & Ash, 1990; Scandura, 1992), have higher incomes (Chao, Walz, & Gardner, 1992; Dreher & Ash, 1990; Whitely, Dougherty, & Dreher, 1991), and report more mobility (Scandura, 1992) and career satisfaction (Fagenson, 1989) than nonproteges. Mentoring has also been found to have a positive impact on organizational socialization (Ostroff & Kozlowski, 1993), job satisfaction (Koberg, Boss, Chappell, & Ringer, 1994), and reduced turnover intentions (Viator & Scandura, 1991).

Marginal Mentoring: The Effects Of Type Of Mentor, Quality Of Relationship, And Program Design On Work And Career Attitudes

Employing a national sample of 1,162 employees, the authors examined the relationship between job and career attitudes and the presence of a mentor, the mentors type (formal or informal), the qual...

Gender and Willingness to Mentor in Organizations

We investigated differences in willingness to mentor among men and women in three organizations. When controlling for gender differences in factors relating to decisions to mentor (age, rank, tenure, and mentorship experience), women expressed equivalent intentions to mentor as men, even though they anticipated more drawbacks to becoming a mentor. Additionally, individuals with prior experience in mentoring relationships, either as a protege or as a mentor, reported greater willingness to mentor than individuals lacking mentorship experience.

The “name game”: affective and hiring reactions to first names

Purpose – The paper seeks to examine how the uniqueness and ethnicity of first names influence affective reactions to those names and their potential for hire.Design/methodology/approach – In study 1, respondents evaluated 48 names in terms of uniqueness and likeability, allowing us to select names viewed consistently as Common, Russian, African‐American, and Unusual. In Study 2 respondents assessed the uniqueness and likeability of the names, and whether they would hire someone with the name.Findings – Results indicated that Common names were seen as least unique, best liked, and most likely to be hired. Unusual names were seen as most unique, least liked, and least likely to be hired. Russian and African‐American names were intermediate in terms of uniqueness, likeability and being hired, significantly different from Common and Unique names, but not significantly different from each other.Research limitations/implications – The name an individual carries has a significant impact on how he or she is view...

The Impact of Type A Behavior Pattern on Role Overload-induced Stress and Performance Attributions:

A controlled laboratory experiment investigated the effects of Type A behavior pattern on role overload-induced stress and performance attributions. Although previous correlation studies have concluded that Type A individuals are more likely to feel stressed than Type B individuals, the present study did notfind this. The current study reports the alternative hypothesis that differences in reported stress between Type A and Type B individuals may occur because the Type A seeks out situations that are objectively more stressful. In contrast to the stress findings, performance attributions varied between Type A and Type B individuals. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.

Making Sense of Entrepreneurship Journals: Journal Rankings and Strategy Choices

Purpose – Dozens of peer‐reviewed, English language journals are currently published in our field. How ought we to evaluate them? This paper seeks to answer this question.Design/methodology approach – The paper utilizes both relevant literature and data on entrepreneurship journals. The literature derives from both information science and other research areas that reflect on their journals. The data derives from six citation measures from Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science.Findings – The paper finds that there are 59 currently published English language, peer reviewed journals in entrepreneurship. Contestable judgments based on their impact measures suggest that one of these 59 could be considered as “A+”, four as “A”, five as “AB”, eight as “B”, four as “BC”, 23 as “C”, thirteen as “barely detectable”, and one as “insufficient data but promising”.Research limitations/implications – Journal rankings affect the resources and prestige accorded to business schools, disciplines and subdisciplines, and...

A CROSS‐NATIONAL COMPARISON OF EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION: INSIGHTS FOR AMERICAN MANAGEMENT

Three manufacturing facilities of an international consumer products company were studied to determine cross‐cultural differences in how managers address employee participation. Despite nearly identical products, a common company culture, and other similarities, European managers demonstrated a very different perspective on employee participation than American managers. Implications for American managers are developed from these contrasts.

Some things are better left unseen

By default, most video-mediated communication systems show the user his or her own video feed, yet there is no prior research to show if this helps or hinders communication. In general, virtual teams desire richer media to improve team interaction. However, in this case more information may not be helpful. Drawing on Objective Self Awareness theory in social psychology and theories of cognitive overload from communication, hypotheses are proposed concerning how viewing oneself influences virtual team interaction. It is argued that viewing oneself will lead to lower team performance and other negative outcomes. The hypotheses are tested in a laboratory experiment, manipulating whether participants were able to view their own feeds during video-mediated communication. The results suggest that viewing oneself leads to a reduction in team performance and individual satisfaction. The findings, in terms of several theoretical explanations, and implications for managers and systems designers are discussed in the paper. Studied effects of video-mediation design features on virtual team performance.Changing whether users could see their own video feeds or not affected performance.Teams performed significantly better when individuals could not see their own feeds.Individuals were more satisfied when they did not see their own video feeds.Video communication systems should include functionality to disable self-viewing.

Whiteness of a name: is “white” the baseline?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the hypothesis that Whiteness is used as a normative standard when comparing a variety of first names. Design/methodology/approach – Respondents (full- and part-time business students) evaluated names that sounded common, African-American, Russian, and unusual. Findings – Results from two studies suggest that “common” or “neutral” names are perceived to be white, and to be more American than African-American, Russian or unusual-sounding names. Results also demonstrate that the common names have more positive attributes, including socio-economic class. Research limitations/implications – The study found that the basic comparison of American respondents will be to a white person. Second, the authors applied Critical Race Theory (CRT) to the research on names. Finally, the authors demonstrate that unless they are totally anonymous, virtual teams will still have the type of social categorization and stereotyping of team members found in ordinary teams. Practic...

The Impact of E-Mentoring on Information Technology Professionals

Our research examines the impact of virtual mentoring, or E-mentoring. We surveyed 133 IT professionals as to their experiences as protégés. We asked them about their mentoring relationships, as well as job and career outcomes, and the extent to which they interacted with the mentor virtually. We predicted that E-mentoring would lead to less effective mentoring relationships, less mentoring satisfaction, and lower career outcomes, and that these effects would be moderated by age (millennial protégés versus older protégés). We found few effects, other than lower satisfaction with E-mentoring relationships. The results suggest that E-mentoring can be as effective as face-to-face mentoring. However, few in our sample had completely virtual mentoring relationships, so it may still be possible that E-mentoring with almost no face-to-face interaction may be less effective.