Page 314 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

300 enhancing performance through mentoring
his or her ideas and innovations. Also, mentors or sponsors may serve as “champions”
for the prot´eg´es’ ideas while they are in the development stages. Thus, mentoring and
innovation/creativity is yet another area that appears worthy of future research.

MENTORING MODELS FOR PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT

Mentoring may be formal or informal in nature. The degree of control exerted by the or-
ganization on the mentoring process typically characterizes where the mentoring process
lies along a continuum. Formal programs are those which are planned, implemented and
overseen by the organization, directed by written policy and guidelines, and required of
all employees, particularly entry level staff (Burke & McKeen, 1989). Informal mentor-
ing, on the other hand, usually lacks planning and specific guidelines. Responsibility for
involvement is left to the individuals to make the right prot´eg´e–mentor match. There is
no monitoring of the relationship or its outcomes. In between the two, an organization
may encourage the mentoring process and perhaps even build mentoring into a formal
reward system. The distinction between formal and informal mentoring is an important
one, since research has called into question the effectiveness of formal mentoring (Chao
et al., 1992; Fagenson-Eland et al., 1997; Noe, 1988; Ragins & Cotton, 1999).
The research literature has determined mentoring to be more effective as an informal
process. Kram (1985) cited major advantages and disadvantages to formal mentoring.
The major advantages of formal mentoring were that it (1) ensures that juniors and
seniors find each other and that relationships are readily available; (2) increases the like-
lihood that matches will be good ones; (3) provides support to the individuals and helps
to end incompatible relationships; and (4) changes attitudes and builds the necessary
interpersonal skills required for individuals to initiate and manage the new relationships.
However, Kram saw that formal mentoring had some disadvantages as well. The major
disadvantages cited were that formal mentoring may (1) result in feelings of coercion
and confusion about relationship responsibilities; (2) result in feelings of deprivation,
resentfulness and pessimism about their futures by those not in the program; (3) set up
an evaluation agenda which may put individuals in the program on the defensive; and
(4) assume that all individuals can learn the necessary interpersonal skills though some
may be ill-suited for these new responsibilities. Scandura and Williams (1998) echoed
the results of other researchers finding that prot´eg´es in informal relationships experi-
enced more career development and role modeling. Those in informal relationships also
reported higher commitment and career expectations than non-mentored individuals.
However, Scandura and Williams (1998) also found that mentoring relationships were
most successful when both parties were invested in the initiation of the relationship.
Thus, a potentially useful area of future research might examine how the matching pro-
cess is conducted in formal programs and the degree to which both mentor and prot´eg´e
are involved in the selection process.
In addition to how they are started, formal and informal mentoring relationships differ
in the length of the relationship, with formal relationships usually shorter than informal
relationships. Often, formal relationships are viewed as some form of organizational
program which may last for thefirst two years of an employee’s tenure in the organization.
The goals of such programs are often to socialize the newcomer into the organizations
(Forret, Turban, & Dougherty, 1996). Thus, the timeframe of the mentoring relationships
setbytheorganizationmayaffectthedurationofmentoringinformalprograms.Research