A Social Capital Perspective on the Mentoring of Undergraduate Life Science Researchers: An Empirical Study of Undergraduate–Postgraduate–Faculty Triads

Undergraduate researchers at research universities are often mentored by graduate students or postdoctoral researchers (referred to collectively as “postgraduates”) and faculty, creating a mentoring triad structure. Triads differ based on whether the undergraduate, postgraduate, and faculty member interact with one another about the undergraduate’s research. Using a social capital theory framework, we hypothesized that different triad structures provide undergraduates with varying resources (e.g., information, advice, psychosocial support) from the postgraduates and/or faculty, which would affect the undergraduates’ research outcomes. To test this, we collected data from a national sample of undergraduate life science researchers about their mentoring triad structure and a range of outcomes associated with research experiences, such as perceived gains in their abilities to think and work like scientists, science identity, and intentions to enroll in a PhD program. Undergraduates mentored by postgraduates alone reported positive outcomes, indicating that postgraduates can be effective mentors. However, undergraduates who interacted directly with faculty realized greater outcomes, suggesting that faculty interaction is important for undergraduates to realize the full benefits of research. The “closed triad,” in which undergraduates, postgraduates, and faculty all interact directly, appeared to be uniquely beneficial; these undergraduates reported the highest gains in thinking and working like a scientist

A Call to Action: Taking the Untenable out of Women Professors’ Pregnancy, Postpartum, and Caregiving Demands

Despite becoming increasingly represented in academic departments, women scholars face a critical lack of support as they navigate demands pertaining to pregnancy, motherhood, and child caregiving. In addition, cultural norms surrounding how faculty and academic leaders discuss and talk about tenure, promotion, and career success have created pressure for women who wish to grow their family and care for their children, leading to questions about whether it is possible for these women to have a family and an academic career. The current paper is a call to action for academia to build structures that support women professors as they navigate the complexities of pregnancy, the postpartum period, and the caregiving demands of their children. We specifically call on those of us in I-O psychology, management, and related departments to lead the way. In making this call, we first present the realistic, moral, and financial cases for why this issue needs to be at the forefront of discussions surrounding success in the academy. We then discuss how in the U.S. and elsewhere, an absence of policies supporting women places two groups of academics—department heads (as the leaders of departments who have discretion outside of formal policies to make work better for women) and other faculty members (as potential allies both in the department and within our professional organizations)—in a critical position to enact support and change. We conclude with our boldest call—to make a cultural shift that shatters the assumption that having a family is not compatible with academic success. Combined, we seek to launch a discussion that leads directly to necessary and overdue changes in how women scholars are supported in academia

Personal Relationships: The Effect on Employee Attitudes, Behavior and Well-Being

This book uses research and theory on the need to belong as a foundation to explore how five different types of relationships influence employee attitudes, behaviors, and well-being. They include relationships with supervisors, coworkers, team members, customers, and individuals in one\u27s nonwork life. The first chapter provides an overview of different ways to view relationships, defining elements of relationships, and ways to think about relationship stages. The second chapter introduces the reader to emerging multidisciplinary theoretical perspectives that hold promise for enhancing our understanding of how relationships influence employee attitudes, behaviors, and well-being. This is followed by three chapters devoted to each type of relationship. One chapter discusses the positive aspects of a particular type of relationship and the companion chapter focuses on the negative aspects of this type of relationship. The third chapter provides a reflection and integration of the material covered in the two preceding chapters. After the chapters focusing on specific types of relationships come two chapters that discuss methodological issues germane to the study of relationships. The final chapter identifies areas of convergence and divergence across the different types of relationships that comprise this volume, identifies key unanswered questions, and proposes an agenda for future research. This book is written for a scientist-practitioner audience and targeted to both researchers and human resource management professionals. The contributors highlight both theoretical and practical implications in their respective chapters, with a common emphasis on how to create and sustain an organizational climate that values positive relationships and deters negative interpersonal experiences. Due to the breadth of topics covered in this edited volume, the book is also appropriate for advanced specialty undergraduate or graduate courses on industrial and organizational (I/O) psychology, human resource management, and organizational behavior

Mentorship Behaviors and Mentorship Quality Associated with Formal Mentoring Programs: Closing the Gap Between Research and Practice

Formal mentoring programs continue to gain popularity within organizations despite limited empirical research regarding how these programs should be designed to achieve maximum effectiveness. The present study examined perceived design features of formal mentoring programs and outcomes from both mentor and protégé perspectives. The outcomes examined were career and psychosocial mentoring, role modeling, and mentorship quality. In general, the results indicated that perceived input into the mentoring process and training perceived as high in quality were consistently related to the outcome variables. Implications for the design of formal mentoring programs and future theory development are discussed

Taking Stock of Two Relational Aspects of Organizational Life: Tracing the History and Shaping the Future of Socialization and Mentoring Research

As part of the centennial celebration for the Journal of Applied Psychology, this article reviews the literature on organizational socialization and mentoring. Our review includes a comparison of organizational socialization and mentoring as processes for employee adjustment and development, the historical context that fueled the emergence of these two areas of study, and a chronological mapping of key foundations, trends, themes that emerged across time, and major milestones. Along the way, a special emphasis is placed on research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and high impact work is highlighted. We conclude with a discussion of five areas for future research. Specifically, we outline ideas for bridging the socialization and mentoring literatures, better understanding and capturing dynamic processes across time, the development of multilevel theories and models, addressing causality, and considering the implications for organizational socialization and mentoring research based on how technology is changing the way we work

Recommended Practices for Academics to Initiate and Manage Research Partnerships With Organizations

Although academics can receive considerable training in selecting appropriate research designs, types of data to collect, and methods for analyzing data, as well as guidance on preparing scholarly manuscripts, there is a dearth of information on how to initiate and manage partnerships with organizations in order to conduct high-quality applied research, particularly when the research is quantitative in nature. In this article, we provide our own experience-based insights and recommendations to help academics more easily (a) initiate a research relationship with senior organizational leadership, (b) decide early whether to pursue or end a research collaboration with an organization, (c) keep the organization engaged during the study, and (d) maintain the relationship with the organization after data collection is complete. This information is proposed as a complement to traditional organizational research methods and as instrumental in the pursuit of research salient to the interests of organizational practitioners

Perceptions of Singles and Single Parents: A Laboratory Experiment

This study reports the results of an effort to develop a structured interview designed to measure the propensity to engage in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Results indicated that participants were unable to improve their scores by attempting to fake the interview. Evidence of construct validity was provided in that we observed several meaningful relationships between scores on the interview and theoretically relevant dispositional variables such as positive affect and empathy. Additionally, regression analyses revealed that ratings obtained from the OCB interview significantly related to coworker ratings of OCB. Overall, the results of the study provide evidence that structured interviews have the potential for being a useful tool for predicting who will engage in OCB in the work environment

Does Mentoring Matter? A Multidisciplinary Meta-Analysis Comparing Mentored and Non-Mentored Individuals

The study of mentoring has generally been conducted within disciplinary silos with a specific type of mentoring relationship as a focus. The purpose of this article is to quantitatively review the three major areas of mentoring research (youth, academic, workplace) to determine the overall effect size associated with mentoring outcomes for protégés. We also explored whether the relationship between mentoring and protégé outcomes varied by the type of mentoring relationship (youth, academic, workplace). Results demonstrate that mentoring is associated with a wide range of favorable behavioral, attitudinal, health-related, relational, motivational, and career outcomes, although the effect size is generally small. Some differences were also found across type of mentoring. Generally, larger effect sizes were detected for academic and workplace mentoring compared to youth mentoring. Implications for future research, theory, and applied practice are provided