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Coworkers' Perspectives on Mentoring Relationships
Suzanne Janssen1, Joël Tahitu1, Mark van Vuuren1
1University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.
Group & Organization Management
|March 24, 2018
Summary
Coworkers perceive workplace mentoring relationships as impacting team performance and climate. These relationships can both enhance and detract from a team's success and overall atmosphere.
Area of Science:
- Organizational Psychology
- Social Science
Background:
- Workplace mentoring research predominantly focuses on individual experiences.
- Limited research exists on the impact of mentoring on the broader social environment within workgroups.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore how coworkers' perceptions of informal mentoring relationships relate to their views on workgroup functioning.
- To understand the influence of mentoring on workgroup performance and climate from a coworker perspective.
Main Methods:
- Conducted 21 semistructured interviews with coworkers.
- Analyzed qualitative data on perceptions of mentoring and workgroup dynamics.
Main Results:
- Coworkers believe mentoring relationships influence workgroup performance, with both positive and negative effects.
- Mentoring relationships can negatively impact workgroup climate due to perceptions of subgroups, distrust, envy, and power dynamics.
- Coworkers view mentoring through instrumental (performance) and relational (climate) lenses.
Conclusions:
- Mentoring relationships significantly affect workgroup functioning, influencing both performance and climate.
- The broader organizational context is crucial for understanding mentoring relationships.
- Future research should investigate mentoring within workgroup dynamics more extensively.
Keywords:
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