Politics understanding and networking ability as a function of mentoring: the roles of gender and race.

Some have suggested that mentoring in organizations tends to focus on "learning the ropes," or understanding organizational politics. This process is believed to result in building greater political skill and networking ability. The authors examined the relationships among mentoring, politics understanding, and networking ability. It was proposed that individuals experiencing the mentoring process would report higher levels of knowledge regarding understanding organizational politics, leading to greater networking ability. Specifically, the hypothesis that politics understanding mediated the relationship between mentoring and networking ability was tested with mediation analysis. The results provided strong support for the hypothesized relationship, demonstrating full mediation. Two additional hypotheses proposed a test of the "political skill deficiency" hypothesis, that the mediated relationships between mentoring, politics understanding, and networking ability would be moderated by gender and ethnicity, such that mediation would occur for men and Caucasians but not women and minorities. The results supported these hypotheses. Study implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: gender; mentoring; networking; organizational socialization; political skill; race

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All employees in organizations experience learning, understanding, and sense making, which is so critical to effectiveness, and organizational scientists have actively researched the formal and informal mechanisms through which such learning and understanding are transmitted. Socialization is the process by which individuals adopt the attitudes, values, and culture of an organization (Bauer, Morrison, & Callister, 1998), and this area has demonstrated recently that politics in organizations is a key content area of socialization (Chao, O'Leary-Kelly, Wolf, Klein, & Gardner, 1994).

Furthermore, mentoring has emerged over the years as one of the principal vehicles for disseminating information and building understanding and savvy about how things work in organizations (e.g., Noe, Greenberger, & Wang, 2002; Wanberg, Welsh, & Hezlett, 2003). In fact, mentoring has been viewed as the most likely way that employees are educated about politics in organizations (Ferris & Judge, 1991). Furthermore, Perrewt, Young, and Blass (2002) suggested that political skill development is a critical function of mentoring relationships.

The purpose of the present study was to explore the relationships among mentoring, politics understanding, and networking ability. Specifically, we investigated the extent to which networking ability, which is the core dimension of political skill, is significantly influenced by mentoring and politics understanding. Hypothesis 1 addressed politics understanding as a mediator of the relationship between mentoring and networking ability.

Hypotheses 2 and 3 addressed the validity of the "political skill deficiency" hypothesis, proposed by Ferris and his colleagues, which states that ethnic and racial minorities and women are at a decided disadvantage in not being educated in the politics of organizations (Ferris, Bhawuk, et al., 1996; Ferris, Frink, Bhawuk, Zhou, & Gilmore, 1996; Ferris, Frink, & Galang, 1993). Never able to build an understanding of the politics in an organization would leave such individuals incapable of developing their political skill, which would suggest the mediational chain of mentoring, politics understanding, and networking ability would not operate as such for these individuals. Therefore, the mediated relationship examined in Hypothesis 1 was tested in Hypothesis 2 as moderated by gender and in Hypothesis 3 as moderated by race.

Socialization and Mentoring

Van Maanen and Schein's (1979) taxonomy of socialization tactics is one of the major developments in socialization research. The tactics are categorized as collective versus individual, formal versus informal, sequential versus random, fixed versus variable, serial versus disjunctive, and investiture versus divestiture, and they are argued to represent the spectrum of formal organizational socialization processes. For this study, we focused on the serial tactic, whereby experienced members of an organization act as role models for new members. The serial approach is commonly referred to as "mentoring," because experienced members essentially groom newcomers who are destined to assume similar positions in an organization. For example, a police rookie is often intentionally paired up with a veteran police officer to "learn the ropes."

Research on mentoring in organizations has increased considerably over the past couple of decades (e.g., Noe et al., 2002; Wanberg et al., 2003). Noe et al. (2002) stated that "research needs to investigate the role of mentoring in helping proteges gain political skills" (p. 162). Furthermore, these researchers argued that the visibility and exposure of proteges is an important outcome of mentoring, and this can occur through access to important social and work networks that can increase networking ability.

Learning Content in Mentoring Relationships

In addition to socialization tactics, another major stream in socialization research views organizational socialization from the perspective of what is learned by an individual and examines the content or curriculum of what the tactics are seeking to convey (e.g., Fisher, 1986). This stream of research is centered on the work of Chao et al. (1994), who demonstrated support for specific content areas of socialization. On the basis of the earlier work of Feldman (1981), Fisher (1986), and Schein (1968), Chao et al. contended that the six content categories of organizational socialization consist of performance and proficiency, people, politics, language, organizational goals and values, and history. The authors found empirical support for their contention. Although full review of these content areas is beyond the scope of this article, we focused in this research on just the politics socialization content area.

The politics category of socialization content includes gaining information regarding formal and informal work relationships, power structures, learning to work from within a group's culture, and learning to deal with political behavior. Chao et al. (1994) suggested that individuals who are well socialized into organizational politics may be more promotable than those who are well socialized with people. They argued that the learning of cultural norms and appropriate behavior patterns implies a political dimension to organizational socialization.

Fisher (1986) noted that socialization was a learning and change process, yet other than Chao et al.'s (1994) research on socialization content and learning, few studies in the past decade have examined this knowledge transfer. Of notable exception is research conducted by Ostroff and Kozlowski (1992) and Morrison (1993), who focused on how socialization processes influence individual learning in such areas as job-related and role-related knowledge.

Although presented and often researched separately, the tactics and content perspectives are not necessarily exclusive. Instead, it might be more useful to view them in a linear fashion, with tactics leading to content, which in turn leads to individual and organizational outcomes. We adopted such an approach in this study. Specifically, we proposed that the serial tactic (i.e., mentoring) directly affects mastery and understanding of the politics content area, which in turn leads to the development of political skill (i.e., the networking ability dimension of political skill in this study).

In so doing, we empirically examined recent statements about the content of mentoring experiences suggested by Perrewe et al. (2002) and by Lankau and Scandura (2002). Indeed, if a primary role of mentors is to help proteges develop a more informed understanding of the work environment, then Perrewe et al. argued that because politics and political skill are key issues in work environments, the primary focus of mentoring experiences should be the development of political understanding and skill in proteges. Furthermore, Lankau and Scandura suggested that the individual learning that goes on in mentoring relationships tends to focus on both work content and interpersonal, social, and political competencies.

Mentoring and Understanding of Politics

From a serial perspective, new members in organizations seek cues and information regarding their new environment, and they will seek out more experienced members of the organizations for this information (Miller & Jablin, 1991; Morrison, 1993; Ostroff & Kozlowski, 1992, 1993), which often results in the initiation of mentoring relationships (Perrewe et al., 2002). Ferris and his colleagues proposed that proteges are apprentices who are shown "the ropes" and educated in the ways of the game in organizations. They suggested that mentoring is at the heart of this education process. These authors also suggested that it is through these mentoring relationships that proteges's understanding of politics and political skill are developed (i.e., Ferris, Bhawuk, et al., 1996; Ferris et al., 1993; Ferris, Frink, et al., 1996).