What is it about?
The question of why mentees stay with a dysfunctional mentor has puzzled many scholars. In this paper, we argue that fresh graduates in an ongoing mentoring relationship are bombarded with feedback from both good and bad events that happened between them and their mentor, making it difficult for the mentee to know, with certainty, if their relationship with the mentor is objectively positive or negative. To decide whether they should stay with a mentor, we propose that mentees will constantly seek clues from their daily interactions with the mentor to judge if they will receive future benefits from the relationship. Drawing inferences from the intimate partner violence literature, we propose that fresh graduate mentees might misinterpret negative interactions with the mentor in a positive light, thus deciding to stay in the relationship because they expect to receive future benefits despite having experienced negative mentoring experiences.
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Why is it important?
Scholars studying mentoring relationships have assumed that mentees know contemporaneously whether they are in a positive or negative mentoring relationship. In this paper, we argue that fresh graduate mentees in an ongoing mentoring relationship are bombarded with feedback from both good and bad events occurring within the mentee–mentor dyad, and they do not really know if the relationship with their mentor is objectively positive or negative. A conclusion upon this can only be reached when the mentee has left the relationship, or when the relationship has lasted for a considerably long period of time, enabling the mentee to gain sufficient social and work experiences to interpret the nature of the mentoring relationship. The common practice for data collection that involves the researcher asking the participants to recollect and reflect upon their past mentoring experiences, and then answer to the researcher’s questions, has essentially overlooked this temporal aspect of the data.
Perspectives
Mentoring experiences are inherently subjective. They are influenced by both intrapersonal cognitive and emotional processes and interpersonal interactions. We hope that our research attracts the attentions of management scholars, guiding them to take extra precautions when dealing with data concerning mentees who have just entered the workforce versus those who are seasoned workers, and mentees in ongoing relationships with a mentor versus those who have left the relationship. Although these refinement recommendations will introduce challenges to the prevailing methodology adopted by mentoring scholars, the field will be rewarded with new insights.
Dr Jhony C Y Ng
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Influence of emotional coping on decision to stay in dysfunctional mentoring relationship, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, May 2018, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/1744-7941.12184.
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