The dynamics of helping behaviors at work: A model integrating mentoring and social support.

Both organizational researchers and business practitioners alike consider mentoring and social support increasingly important topics in today's complex organizations. Although there has been a growing interest in mentoring and social support, to date these two parallel literatures have remained strikingly separate research streams that barely acknowledge each other. Moreover, there is little consensus regarding definitions or operationalizations of either construct. This dissertation begins to address these deficiencies both theoretically and empirically by integrating these two literatures and developing a theory-based comprehensive framework of mentoring and social support. This study focuses on three research questions. First, what are the critical helping dimensions in an integrative framework of mentoring and social support? Because one important focus of both literatures is on the helping nature of these relationships, a main focus of this study is identifying the critical helping dimensions. Second, what is the best measure of those helping dimensions of mentoring and social support? Using the conceptual framework as a basis, detailed and inclusive measures of the helping dimensions are developed and validated. Third, what are the social structural predictors and individual outcomes of mentoring and social support? The dissertation considers social structural antecedents such as organizational position, organizational context, and organizational type, and individual protege outcomes such as empowerment, career success, job satisfaction, stress, and well-being. Questionnaire data were collected from graduates of a top ten MBA program from the classes of 1980 through 1995. The model of organizational antecedents, helping dimensions, and individual outcomes was empirically examined using LISREL8. Confirmatory factor analyses provide support for the construct validity and reliability of the integrative framework, with 3 second-order helping dimensions labeled nurturing, advocating, and teaching, and 16 first-order helping dimensions: friendship, role modeling, acceptance and confirmation, personal counseling, motivating, exposure and visibility, protection, material support, status support, training, challenging assignments, political assistance, coaching, informational support, and appraisal support. Structural equations modeling yielded mixed support for the organizational predictors and individual outcomes of mentoring and social support. Limitations of the design, contributions of the study, and directions for future research are also discussed.Ph.D.Labor relationsManagementSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/130557/2/9732155.pd