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Mentoring and Employee Job-induced Stress:
An Examination of the Cultural Context on Mentoring Effects in China
Jing Qian
School of Management, Marketing and International Business, Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia
Email: [email protected]
Dr Jay Hays
School of Management, Marketing and International Business, Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia
Email: [email protected]
Dr George Chen
School of Management, Marketing and International Business, Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia
Email: [email protected]
Xiaosong Lin
School of Management, Marketing and International Business, Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia
Email: [email protected]
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Mentoring and Employee Job-induced Stress: An Examination of the Cultural Context on Mentoring Effects in China
ABSTRACT
From social support and social exchange perspectives, we used a sample of 241 protégés from a large company in China to examine two boundary conditions under which the negative mentoring- stress relationship is attenuated or strengthened. Results of moderating regression tests revealed that: 1) traditionality moderated the negative relationship between mentoring and job-induced stress in such a way that the relationship was stronger for protégés who were higher rather than lower in traditionality; 2) reciprocity norms moderated the negative relationship between mentoring and the protégés' job-induced stress in such a way that the relationship was weaker for protégés holding more, rather than less, reciprocity norms. Implications of these results for future research are discussed.
Keywords: Organisational Behaviour; Human Resource Management & Development; International Management
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INTRODUCTION
By focusing on one of the most important work relationships, mentoring research has become a
rapidly growing area of investigation, with researchers documenting many positive outcomes for
protégés, including objective outcomes such as compensation and promotion, along with subjective
outcomes such as career and job satisfaction, a renewed intention to stay and greater organisational
commitment (Allen, Eby, Poteet, Lentz & Lima 2004; Waters 2004). Given the high costs and
deleterious effects associated with job-related stress, the topic of managing stress reduction has drawn
great attention from researchers in recent years (e.g., Harris & Kacmar 2006; Ganster & Schaubroeck
1991). As one of the most important interpersonal relationships at work, workplace mentoring has
been hypothesised as negatively related to job-related stress in mentoring literature (e.g., Allen 1999).
According to social support theory, individuals tend to seek out and count on supportive relationships
to prevent, reduce, and cope with stress (House 1981). Thus, it would seem straightforward to expect
employees who have being involved in mentoring relationships to experience less job-related stress.
Contrary to this expectation, literature on the relationship between mentoring and job related stress
has yielded rather mixed and inconclusive results. While some research has found that mentoring can
lower the levels of job-related stress (Sosik & Godshalk 2000), other studies have discovered that
mentoring has no significant effect on stress levels (Allen, McManus & Russell 1999), or in some
cases it even increases stress levels (Kram & Hall 1989). This ambiguity clearly shows how the
relation between mentoring and stress is much more complicated than it has previously been taken to
be. For example, it is possible that under certain circumstances such negative relationships could be
enhanced or buffered. Thus, more research is needed to understand the relations between mentoring
and stress, with particular attention paid to the conditions under which such a negative relationship
becomes stronger or weaker .
Our research aims to tackle these difficult issues while contributing in several ways to the mentoring
literature. First, we are unaware of any published field study that has examined possible moderators
for the negative relationship between mentoring and protégés’ job-related stress. In the current study,
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we examined the moderating role of two individual level cultural values, that of traditionality and reciprocity (Yang, Yu & Yeh 1989; Uhl-Bien & Maslyn 2003). Examining the moderating effect of individual differences on mentoring relationships should provide a more complete understanding of the conditions under which it influences employee job-related stress. Second, we conducted the present study in China. Whereas mentoring has made considerable progress in Western counties, a recent review of the mentoring literature shows that research conducted in other cultures has lagged behind (Allen, Eby, O’Brien & Lentz 2008). These deficiencies have prompted Allen et al. (2008) to call for more research on workplace mentoring in other cultures so that the generalisability of mentoring theories developed in the West can be examined and enriched. In addition, although a few studies (e.g., Aryee & Chay, 1994; Aryee, Waytt & Stone 1996) have examined mentoring in other cultures, we are not aware of any research that has examined the unique influence that cultural values have on protégés. We have therefore answered these calls by theorising and examining the moderating effect of the individual cultural value of power distance and reciprocity on the mentoring- protégé relationship outcomes in a Chinese sample. Finally, ours is the first study that seeks to reconcile the conflicting implications of past research in order to further our understanding of the relationships between mood and creativity in organisations. The theoretical framework that guides the present study appears in Figure 1.
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES
Workplace Informal Mentoring and Job-induced Stress
Stress is defined in this thesis as an individual’s belief that the demands from the environment are important to satisfy yet exceed their coping abilities (Edwards 1992). In a workplace context, an employee may feel stress when the perceived job demands exceed his or her capability to accomplish them. Job-induced stress may affect the employee’s feelings about work, such as job satisfaction, and this is termed as job-related strain (LaRocco, House & French 1980). Consequently, the employee’s physical and psychological health, together termed as well-being , will be affected (Parker & DeCotiis
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1983). Although many empirical findings have suggested that mentoring can serve this function in
youth mentoring studies (Rhodes, Ebert & Fischer 1992; Rhodes, Contreras & Mangelsdorf 1994) and
in academic settings (House & Kahn 1985; Jacobi 1991), few studies have been conducted to test this
hypothesis in a work environment. To date, just two pieces of research have investigated this
relationship in an organisational setting, and only one of the studies’ hypotheses were fully supported
by their findings.
Kram and Hall (1989) found that individuals with a low job challenge and job involvement believe
that mentoring can ease stress during a time of “corporate trauma.” Allen, McManus and Russell
(1999) investigated the mentoring-stress relationship by measuring two scales of stress, work-induced
stress and perceived help with stress . The results indicate that mentoring is not significantly related to
a protégé’s work-induced stress, although protégés believe that mentoring can help to reduce their
stress levels. The relationship between workplace mentoring and protégés’ job-induced stress has
clearly not been tested enough; even the two existing studies have mixed results. The present study
therefore addresses this shortfall by continuing the investigation into the influence of workplace
mentoring on job-induced stress.
To prevent, decrease or cope with stress, individuals may seek ways to limit the perceived threats
from the environment. Researchers have found that social support can serve this purpose (House
1981). Specifically, social support provides a society member with the opportunity to gain more
sources of information, increased communication, and emotional comfort, which signals to the
member that in a certain context (such as in an organisation) there are sources available for their
personal and career development. The incorporation of positive messages into the member's effort to
use these resources can help to alleviate feelings of uncertainty and to lower stress levels. Indeed,
empirical studies have provided convincing evidence that social support is very effective in easing
stress (e.g., Beehr & McGrath 1992; Himle, Jayaratne & Thyness 1991; Terry, Neilsen & Perchard
1993).
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House (1981) identifies four broad categories of social support: (1) emotional support (e.g., esteem, trust, care, and empathy); (2) appraisal support (e.g. affirmation, feedback, and social comparison);
(3) informational support (e.g., information, directives, advice, and suggestions; and (4) instrumental support (e.g., money, labour, time, energy and modifying the environment). These categories of social support can be reduced to the two types of mentoring functions described by Kram (1985). These are psychological mentoring, which is similar to the emotional and appraisal functions of social support, and career mentoring, which can be operationalised as informational and instrumental support (Allen et al. 1999).
As a form of social support, the influence of mentoring on a protégé’s stress level can be explained using the same rationale. Mentors provide psychological support and career-related support, which can reduce the protégé’s perceived role uncertainty and ambiguity and consequently ease his or her stress levels. Social support literature therefore provides us with a solid foundation for workplace mentoring-protégé’s job-induced stress and leads us to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1. Mentoring will be negatively associated with a protégé’s reported job-induced stress.
Moderating Role of Traditionality and Reciprocity
Traditionality can be constructed at both societal and individual levels and can be traced to Yang’s early work of the 1980s, which defines it as the typical pattern of more or less related motivational, evaluative, attitudinal and temperamental traits that is most frequently observed in people from a traditional Chinese society, and which can still be found in people in contemporary Chinese societies such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China (Yang, Yu & Yeh 1989; Yang 2003). A culture characterised by traditionality is embedded with five clusters of values: submission to authority, filial piety and ancestral worship, conservatism and endurance, fatalism and defensiveness, and male dominance. Traditionality at the individual level works as a kind of social constructivism which orientates the individual to reflect socially accepted values (Yang et al. 1989). Since the present study
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focuses on the moderating effect of individual traditionality on the mentoring effectiveness in
workplace settings, the authors follow the lead of prior research and define traditionality as the extent
to which an individual accepts, respects and commits to the values and norms of a traditional society
(Schwartz 1992).
Since respect for authority is a prominent factor of traditionality (Farh, Earley & Lin 1997),
researchers have suggested that high-traditionality employees share certain characteristics with their
high-power distance peers (Hui, Lee & Rousseau 2004). This rationale has been used to build the
theoretical framework of previous organisational behaviour studies (i.e., Chen & Aryee 2007).
However, power distance is different from traditionality; the former being defined as “the extent to
which a society accepts the fact that power in institutions and organisations is distributed unequally”
(Hofstede 1980: 45), whereas traditionality is a particularly Chinese cultural orientation based on
Confucianism (Farh et al. 1997). Specifically, traditionality reflects the submission to authority in
regard to the five cardinal relationships in Confucianism (employer-subject, father-son, husband-wife,
older brother-younger brother, and friend-friend), and can be defined as the extent to which an
individual endorses the traditional hierarchical role relationships prescribed by Confucian social
ethics (Farh, Hackett & Liang 2007). Traditionality is thus conceptually distinguishable from power
distance.
Traditionality provides guidance as to what to do in a certain work context with how to execute a
given behaviour in a convincing manner. In the context of the mentoring-stress relationship, it is
typical for high-traditionality protégés to accept status differences and thus sense more tangible and
intangible information, knowledge and appropriate behaviour from their mentors’ career related and
psychological mentoring ('what to do'), while being more willing to internalise these resources and
transfer them into capabilities ('how to do it'). Based on the above arguments, we expect that high-
traditionality protégés will be fully committed to their mentor and can exploit more from their
mentoring relationship than low-traditionality protégés can, thus reducing uncertainty and
consequently stress.
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Hypothesis 2. Protégés' traditionality moderates the negative relationship between mentoring and job-induced stress in such a way that the relationship will be stronger for protégés who are higher rather than lower in traditionality.
There is an emerging trend of examining exchange processes in organisations (Rousseau 1990;
Rousseau & Parks 1993; Wayne, Shore & Liden 1997). Social exchange theory is an important underlying theoretical viewpoint across the majority of the research, and assumes that "individuals form, maintain, or terminate relationships with each other on the basis of the perceived ratio of benefits to costs in the relationship" (Ensher, Thomas & Murphy 2001: 421). Three types of exchange relationships have been studied in recent years. Exchanges between an organisation and its employees are called perceived organisational support (POS) (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison & Sowa
1986). Exchanges between a leader and his or her individual subordinates are referred to as leader- member exchanges (LMX) (Chen & Aryee 2007). Most recently, researchers have suggested that social exchange theory may be an appropriate theoretical lens for mentoring as well (Olian, Carroll &
Giannantonio 1993; Ensher et al. 2001).
Social exchange theory argues that in a social relationship each party offers something perceived as valuable by the other party and the relationship is maintained due to a perceived equity and fairness
(Graen & Scandura 1987). In other words, obligations are embedded in social exchanges. When one party offers something of value, the other party is supposed to reciprocate this, though the time and form of this may not be specified (Blau 1964; Gouldner 1960). Social exchange theory provides the solid theoretical basis for mentoring. In mentoring relationships there are two sides which need investigation: mentor and protégé. Each party measures the offering from the other party and offers to maintain the fairness which is needed in such a relationship. What is offered in a social exchange is termed as social exchange currency (Homans 1958). Mentors offer psychological and career-related support while expecting returns from their protégés, although the timing and forms that this may take are not specified (Kram 1985; Ensher et al. 2001). This evaluation of equity between offering and
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expected returns is a continuous process through different phases of mentoring, from decisions about
whether or not to be committed to a mentoring relationship, to how many mentoring functions should
be provided in a certain relationship. For example, Ragins and Scandura (1993) found that mentoring
experience was continuously evaluated by mentors and could influence the costs and benefits they
anticipate from the mentoring relationship, thus affecting their future decision to be a mentor. Allen
(2004) reports a positive relationship between a person's willingness to mentor others and the
potential protégé's ability and willingness to learn, all of which are perceived as important predictors
of future mentoring effectiveness.
Although the literature reviewed above explains mentoring using social exchange theory from the
mentors' perspective, the missing link appears to be the protégés’ perspective in terms of determining
how the support received from their mentors affects their attitudes, and how they are to offer the
expected return. This thesis thus investigates informal workplace mentoring relationships from the
protégé’s perspective, through the lens of social exchange theory. In the present study, the author
expects that the protégés' reciprocity norms would weaken the negative impact that mentoring has on
the protégé’s stress levels. Gouldner (1960) describes reciprocity norms as the imbedded obligations
created by exchanges of benefits or favours among individuals. An employee holding reciprocity
norms accepts the fact that when one party benefits another, an obligation is generated. The recipient
is now indebted to the donor, and remains so until he/she repays the debt. Mentors, in exchange for
the benefits they provide, expect to receive something in return from their protégés. The more
mentoring provided, the more expectations mentors hold. However, protégés may not necessarily
perceive and react to the expectations in the same way, given that they hold different values and
norms. More reciprocity oriented protégés accept and respect their mentor's expectations and tend to
do whatever they can to meet these expectations. When they perceive inequity in their mentoring
exchanges, these protégés tend to rebalance the benefits for each party within a minimal duration, to
move the mentoring relationship away from self-interest (for the protégé) to multi-interest (including
both protégé and mentor) (Uhl-Bien & Maslyn 2003). Consequently, they may be more likely to feel
guilt and stress when they cannot meet the high requirements and expectations of their mentors and/or
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fully execute the rebalancing process. In contrast, less reciprocity oriented protégés are less sensitive to the equity norm. They may not perceive as many expectations from the mentor, or they may feel less obligated to meet these expectations even when they perceive the same amount of expectations.
As a result, for high-reciprocity protégés the stress reduction function of mentoring may be offset by the stress induced by the increased obligation to meet higher expectations from the mentor. The conceptual analysis thus leads to the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3. Protégés' reciprocity norms moderate the negative relationship between mentoring and the protégés' job-induced stress in such a way that the relationship will be weaker for the protégé holding more, rather than less, reciprocity norms.
METHODS
Measurement
The translation, back-translation method was applied to verify the questionnaire in Chinese (Behling
& Law 2000).
Protégé status. Respondents were asked to indicate whether they currently have an informal mentor based on the definition provided (Fagenson 1992). The responders were also asked to give the number of informal mentors they currently have. Protégés who reported more than one mentor were instructed to complete the questionnaire by referring to the most influential mentor.
Mentoring functions. Noe’s (1988a) 21-item measure of mentoring functions was used in the present study to indicate the amount of mentoring received by the respondents.
Job-induced stress. House and Rizzo’s (1972) 7-item job-induced tension subscale was used to measure protégés' work stress.
Traditionality. Yang, Yu and Yeh’s (1989) Chinese 8-item individual traditionality scale was used to measure this construct.
Reciprocity. Uhl-Bien and Maslyn’s (2003) 14-item measure of reciprocity was used to indicate the participants' reciprocity norms.
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Control variable. Six demographic variables of age, gender, company tenure, education, job function,
and position were used as control variables. Five mentorship status variables (number of mentors,
mentorship duration, gender of mentor, mentor as supervisor, and protégé as mentor) were also
considered as controls.
Sample and procedure
The participants were 388 full-time employees of a private Chinese company that operates within the
hi-tech communications industry in Beijing. A total of 285 surveys were returned with a response rate
of 73.5%. After eliminating 44 incomplete questionnaires, 241 respondents remained and contributed
to the sample of the present study.
RESULTS
The means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among all the study variables are reported in
Table 1. Regression analysis was used to test the three hypotheses. As noted in the results presented in
Table 1, the correlation between mentoring and protégés’ job-induced stress was significant ( β = -.71,
p < .01). Hence, Hypothesis 1 was fully supported. Results for Hypothesis 2 are presented in Table 2.
Moderated regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Control variables were entered at Step
1. Mentoring and traditionality were entered at Step 2 and the mentoring by traditionality interaction
term was entered at Step 3. As predicted, traditionality moderated the influence of mentoring on job-
induced stress ( β = -.15 , p < .01). The same data analysis method was used to test Hypothesis 3. As
shown in Table 3, reciprocity moderated the negative relationship between mentoring and job-induced
stress ( β = 0.12, p < 0.01 ). To interpret the specific moderating effects in H2 and H3, the sample was
divided into two groups from the mean, which represent the high and low traditionality participants.
The regression equations were then calculated for the relationship between mentoring and job-induced
stress for the two groups respectively and plotted in Figure 2. Regression equations at the high and
low levels of reciprocity were solved and plotted in Figure 3 using a similar procedure. As predicted,
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the linear relationship between mentoring and job-induced stress was stronger for the high traditionality group but weaker for the high reciprocity group.
DISCUSSION
While research into mentoring has steadily grown, the contingencies under which mentoring may be related to protégés’ benefits remain largely unknown. To this end, our study has two findings to help counter this blind spot. First, mentoring was found to be negatively related to job-related stress.
Second, we found that the protégés’ cultural value of power distance moderates the relationship between mentoring and stress in such a way that the negative relationship is stronger for protégés who are higher rather than lower in traditionality, while the relationship is weaker for the protégés holding more reciprocity norms. Taken together, these results are consistent with social support and social exchange theory. In what follows, we discuss the theoretical implications and practical implications of these findings.
By and large, our study makes three primary contributions to the literature on workplace mentoring.
Firstly, it provides a plausible explanation of the mixed results obtained in prior mentoring literature by advocating an underrepresented perspective on the contingency effect of mentoring relationships.
Specifically, we addressed the exploratory question of whether individual cultural values play an important role in mentorship (Allen et al. 2008). This is the first study to empirically investigate the moderating effect of a meaningful individual-level cultural value, i.e., power distance and reciprocity, on mentoring relationships. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a complete view of how different cultural values separately or jointly influence the mentoring-psychological relationship, we think that this is a rich area that provides an interesting and meaningful framework for researchers to incorporate the moderating role of individual cultural values such as power distance, individualism and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede 2001) when conducting mentoring studies. Secondly, when studying the relationship between mentoring and job related stress, researchers have often used a social support perspective to argue that mentoring offers opportunities
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for protégés to obtain the resources, information, and guidance needed to reduce their job-related
stress (Lankau & Scandura 2002; Lankau, Carlson & Nielson 2006). Our theory and findings suggest
that this is just part of the story - it is not just support that protégés get from a mentoring relationship,
but also expectations. Specifically, we tested reciprocity value as a moderator to investigate such
buffer effects of expectation from mentors. Consistent with the predicted hypothesis, our finding
demonstrates that protégés' reciprocity norms moderate the negative relationship between mentoring
and the protégés' job-induced stress in such a way that the relationship will be weaker for the protégé
holding more, rather than less, reciprocity norms. In addition to having implications for mentoring
understanding, our findings have important theoretical contributions for the growing research on job
related stress (e.g., Harris & Kacmar 2006). To the extent that this study has tended to make main-
effect type assertions (e.g., developmental relationships help reduce job-related stress; Kram, 1989;
Allen, 1999), such assertions may need to be qualified to consider the context in which the behaviour
in question takes place. Indeed, Harris and Kacmar (2006) suggest that it is the context that
determines whether or not high quality relationships in the workplace help to reduce stress. Thus,
researchers interested in the stress reducers at work should consider how the context moderates such
influences.
As in most field research, the present study is not without limitations. First, the universal applicability
of the results remains to be tested because of several factors. The extent to which the results in the
current study are applicable to other cultures, such as American and Australian protégés, is an open
question since the hypotheses were only tested on a Chinese sample. Secondly, the data used in the
present study was only collected from one workplace within the high-tech industry, thus the extent to
which the results are applicable to other organisations or industries can only be speculated. The
general applicability of the present findings should therefore be examined in other types of
organisations and/or industries in future research. Another limitation concerns the use of a cross-
sectional design, which implies that cause and effect relationships cannot be ascertained from the
findings of the present study. Additional quasi-experimental or longitudinal research would be useful
to ascertain the causal basis of the relationships examined in this study.
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Figure 1. Hypothesised model
Traditionality
Mentoring Stress
Reciprocity
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FIGURE 2. Mentoring and job-induced stress by traditionality
5
4.5
4
3.5
3 low traditionality 2.5 high traditionality 2
1.5 Job-induced stress
1
0.5
0 -1 1 Mentoring
FIGURE 3. M entoring and job-induced stress by reciprocity
7
6
5
4 Low reciprocity High reciprocity 3
Job-induced stress 2
1
0 -1 1 Mentoring
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Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, Reliabilities, and Correlations among Study Variables
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 1 Mentoring 3.70 .83 [.95] 2 Job-induced stress 2.20 .94 -.71 ** [.90] 3 Traditionality 2.87 .81 -.21 .32 [.86] 4 Reciprocity 3.45 .66 .16 * -.05 -.11 [.88] 5 Age 2.71 .80 .03 -.1 -.04 .16 * 6 Gender 1.64 .48 .00 -.05 -.06 .00 .06 7 Education 2.76 .59 .03 -.11 -.07 -.05 .07 -.03 8 Tenure 2.35 .75 -.18 ** .11 .16 * .03 .41 ** .09 .11 9 Department 3.46 2.30 -.03 .10 .06 -.02 -.03 -.02 -.14 * .09 10 Position 1.19 .45 -.08 .07 .08 -.01 .08 .14 * -.21 ** .03 .00 11 Mentorship duration 1.73 .69 -.04 .05 .05 -.02 .09 .09 .29 ** .08 -.02 -.02 12 Number of mentors 1.76 .77 -.02 .00 -.01 .03 .10 .09 .00 .17 ** .09 -.06 .02 13 Gender of mentor 1.65 .48 .08 -.09 -.11 -.01 -.08 .00 .09 -.07 -.01 -.12 .01 -.02 14 Mentor as supervisor 1.73 .45 .00 -.03 -.02 .13 * .01 .04 -.09 -.07 .03 -.06 -.02 -.04 -.07 15 Protégé as mentor 1.04 .55 -.03 .03 .02 -.02 -.02 .01 -.03 -.07 .01 -.08 .06 .10 -.04 .05
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Table 2. Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Moderation by Traditionality Variables Job-Induced Stress Step 1: Controls Age -.17 * Gender -.07 Education level -.12 Company tenure .18 * Job function .06 Position .06 Number of mentors -.02 Mentorship duration .10 Gender of mentor -.08 Mentor as supervisor -.02 Protégé as mentor .04 ∆R2 .02 ∆F 2.71 Step 2: Main effect Mentoring - .64 ** Traditionality .19 ** ∆R2 .08 ∆F 10.95 ** Step 3: Moderating effect Mentoring x traditionality -.15 ** ∆R2 .05 ∆F 6.43 **
* P < .05 ** P < .01
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Table 3. Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Moderation by Reciprocity Variables Job-Induced Stress Step 1: Controls Age -.17 * Gender -.07 Education level -.12 Company tenure .18 * Job function .06 Position .06 Number of mentors -.02 Mentorship duration .10 Gender of mentor -.08 Mentor as supervisor -.02 Protégé as mentor .03 ∆R2 .03 ∆F 3.71 Step 2: Main effect Mentoring -.71 ** Reciprocity .08 ∆R2 .06 ∆F 10.65 ** Step 3: Moderating effect Mentoring x reciprocity .12 ** ∆R2 .04 ∆F 5.94 **
* P < .05 ** P < .01
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