Sex Roles, Vol. 40, Nos. 3/4, 1999

Perceived Mentoring Fairness: Relationships withGender, Mentoring Type, Mentoring Experience,and Mentoring Needs1

Talya N. Bauer 2

Portland State University

While mentoring is often recommended as a career enhancement strategyfor men and women, this study examines perceptions of the fairness ofmentoring relationships. In this experiment, a total of 124 male and femaleparticipants provided data concerning their fairness perceptions in reactionto mentoring scenarios presented to them. A total of 49% of the samplewere male and 51% were female and 82% were Caucasian, 12% were AsianAmerican, 3% were Latino American, and 3% were African American. Sev-eral individual factors such as past mentoring experiences and having metmentoring needs as well as interactions with gender (by mentoring type,mentoring received, and met needs) were related to ratings of fairness. Inaddition, past mentoring received and perceived fairness of mentoring wererelated to reports of how much mentoring participants reported they hadgiven others.

Career mentoring has enjoyed a great deal of popularity in both the public

and private sectors (Phillips-Jones, 1983) as well as receiving a great deal

of research attention. Due to its popularity many companies have actually

organized formal mentoring programs (Noe, 1988; Phillips-Jones, 1983)while others promote informal mentoring through the reward system

(Hunt & Michael, 1983). And as noted by Kram (1985), employees are

often encouraged to ® nd mentors to help them enhance and advance their

careers. While the virtues of mentoring have been identi® ed in the area of

1Special thanks go to Marilyn Haring, Dean of Education at Purdue University, for hersupport and helpful feedback regarding this study, and to Krista Brockwood for her helpwith the analyse s.

2To whom correspondence should be addressed at Portland State University, School of Busi-ness Administration, P.O. Box 751, Portland, OR 97207; e-mail: TalyaB@sba.pdx.edu.

211

0360-0025/99/0200 ± 0211$16.00/0 Ó 1999 Plenum Publishing Corporation

212 Bauer

enhanced prote ge promotion (Dreher & Ash, 1990; Fagenson, 1989;

Whitely, Dougherty, & Dreher, 1991), job satisfaction (Burke & McKeen,

1995; Mobley, Jaret, March, & Yong Lim, 1994) and salary (Dreher & Ash,

1990; Whitely, Dougherty, & Dreher, 1991), only occasionally have authorsreferred to the potential drawbacks or dangers of mentoring relationships.

Merriam (1983) wrote, `̀ There are no studies which attempt to document

the prevalence or seriousness of the negative effects of mentoring, or the

absence of mentoring. Only successful mentoring relationships have been

reported,’ ’ (p: 170). So while authors of review and theoretical papers have

highlighted some of the potential drawbacks of mentoring (e.g., Kram,1985; Scandura, 1998), overall the topic has been empirically neglected.

The purpose of this paper is to predict the fairness stance males and

females will take on the issue of mentoring relationships in the workplace

using an experimental design and employing scenarios describing ® ctitious

mentor relationships. This paper will speci® cally focus on informal men-

toring as formal programs vary greatly in what they offer and how prote ge sare selected. In addition, a majority of mentoring relationships are informal

(Phillips-Jones, 1983). Theoretically problems surrounding perceptions of

fairness and equity for mentoring relationships may exist but the question

needs to be addressed empirically so that companies and individuals who

may engage in and encourage mentoring relationships can be aware of boththe pros and cons of mentoring for all concerned within an organization

and throughout an individual’ s career. The proposed study allows this to

be tested.

A mentor is anyone who provides guidance , support, knowledge, and

opportunity for the prote ge during periods of need (Burlew, 1991) and is

traditionally a more senior individual who uses his or her experience andin¯ uence to help the advancement of a prote ge (Olian, Carroll, Giannan-

tonio, & Feren, 1988). Mentors have been found to provide two major

functions: psychosocial support and vocational/care er mentoring functions

(Noe, 1988; Schockett & Haring-Hidore , 1985). While these functions are

often positive for those receiving the bene® ts, by de ® nition, others are

receiving lower salaries and being promoted less rapidly. For these individu-als, positive bene® ts are not accruing and resentments and jealousy may

result (Scandura, 1998).

Further, research has shown that men and women often differ in their

experiences with different levels of these types of mentoring. Studies have

also found that women perceive themselves as receiving less mentoringthan their male counterparts (e.g., Goh, 1991). This may be due to power

differences in organizations (e.g., Ragins, 1989; Struthers, 1995). Based on

these reported differences, issues of justice need to be examined.

Organizational justice theory relates to employee perceptions of justice

Mentoring Fairness 213

within or around an organization. Justice perceptions come in two forms.

Procedural justice relates to the perceived fairness of an organization’ s

procedures and policies while distributive justice refers to the perceived

fairness of actual outcomes (Greenberg, 1990). These two fairness percep-tions may be two of the ways in which mentoring relationships can be

perceived as unfair. First, both anecdotal reports and empirical research

show that mentored individuals do reap bene ® cial organizational outcomes

(e.g., Whitely et al., 1991) and therefore non-mentored co-workers may

have feelings of distributive injustice. Almost by de® nition, the traditional

one-on-one mentoring or the `̀ grooming-me ntoring’ ’ model is based uponfavoritism because mentors commit their time and resources to promoting

prote ge s over other organizational members (Green & Bauer, 1995; Haring-

Hidore, 1993). Co-workers may feel that one employee is favored and gets

rewards that are not totally deserved. These feelings of resentment could

lead to dysfunctional organizational outcomes.

However, feelings of injustice should only surface if co-workers haveneeds that they feel are not currently being met. Discrepancy theories

predict that employee satisfaction or dissatisfaction is uniquely related to

negative discrepancies between their actual job experience (`̀ What I have.’ ’ )

and their desired level of those job experiences (`̀ What I want.’ ’ ) (Rice,

McFarlin, & Bennett, 1989). If employees are having their psychosocial orcareer needs met, feelings of distributive injustice should be ameliorated.

In addition, being mentored in the past should also lead to mentoring

others subsequently as satis® ed prote ge s at one point should be related to

mentoring at another point. This leads to the ® rst hypothe sis.

Hypothesis 1a: Individuals whose psychosocial and career needs are

met will rate informal mentoring relationships as more fair than those

whose needs are not being met.

Hypothesis 1b: Individuals whose psychosocial and career needs aremet will report giving more mentoring to others.

The second type of perceived organizational justice is even more sub-jective and involves the process of decisions or reward allocation. Evidence

suggests that people evaluate distribution schemes as fair if they bene ® t

themselves. If the outcomes of a program or policy are bene® cial to the

perceiver, that person should be more likely to see the program or policy

in a favorable light. For example, research by Grover (1991) found thatthe perceived fairness of parental leave policies was moderated by the

similarity to leave takers. Those individuals who could see a similarity

between themselves and those receiving a bene ® t, saw that bene ® t as more

fair than others. In another study of perceived policy support, Greenberg

214 Bauer

(1981) found that gasoline rationing allocations were heavily favored by

those who bene ® ted from the system. This type of relationship should hold

for those who have been mentored as well. Beyond reactions of fairness,

behavior might be in¯ uenced as well. For example, those who have beenmentored in the past may want to repay this kindness by mentoring oth-

ers. Therefore:

Hypothesis 2a: Individuals who have received mentoring in the past

will rate informal mentoring relationships as more fair than those who

have not received mentoring in the past.

Hypothesis 2b: Individuals who have received mentoring in the past

will be more likely to subsequently mentor others than those who have

not received mentoring in the past.

Similarly, it is believed that those who believe that mentoring is fair

will be more likely to mentor others when opportunitie s arise. Therefore,it is predicted that perceptions of mentoring fairness will be related to the

amount of mentoring given to others.

Hypothesis 2c: Perceptions of mentoring fairness will be related to

mentoring given to others.

Self-interest theory would posit that those who have received bene® ts

from mentoring in the past would be likely to see it as fair while those who

have not would see it as less fair (Thibaut & Walker, 1975). In organizations

where mentoring is informal, the tendency for individuals to surround

themselves with people like themselves (Tsui & O’Reilly, 1989) may make

mentoring less accessible for women and more accessible for men. Studieshave shown that women do perceive themselves as having less access to

mentoring relationships (e.g., Ragins & Cotton, 1991) although there are

some exceptions where no differences have been found (Dreher & Ash,

1990) . As the number of women increase in the American workforce and

move up the ranks of organizations (Johnston, Packer, & Jaffe , 1987) this

should become less of an issue. However, presently the `̀ glass ceiling’ ’effect (Morrison & von Glinow, 1990; Morrison, White, & Van Velsor,

1987) , where fewer women enter upper-level management positions, may

make female mentors harder to ® nd than male mentors. Further, myriad

potential problems have been noted in association with different gender

mentoring situations (Kram, 1985). Due to the disparity of opportunitiesfor women to gain same-gender mentors that may avoid some of these

potential problems, women may rate the fairness of mentoring in the work-

place differently than men and they may also report having given less

mentoring as well.

Mentoring Fairness 215

Hypothesis 3a: Men will rate mentoring as more fair than women.

Hypothesis 3b: Men will report giving more mentoring than women.

A potential resolution to these feelings of unfairness lies in a new

conceptualization of mentoring. Networking-mentoring refers to a ¯ exiblecareer strategy where multiple individuals share training, information, and

support (Swoboda & Millar, 1986). This type of mentoring differs from

grooming-mentoring relationships which are often intense, one-on-one , and

involve potentially large risks for both parties (Levinson, Darrow, Klein,

Levinson, & McKee, 1978). Network mentoring involves individuals at any

level. They may be higher, peer, or lower level colleagues. The importantthing about network mentoring is that the psychosocial and career functions

usually provided by a single mentor are instead provided by multiple men-

tors. As Swoboda and Miller (1986) note, networking-mentoring should

not produce any resentment from colleagues because many colleagues are

included, not just one. Individuals who successfully use the networking

model shouldn’ t be perceived as succeeding due to special favors. Whilelittle research has been conducted on this form of mentoring, it is believed

that success by those under this model should be seen as merit and collegial-

ity based rather than favoritism. Therefore:

Hypothesis 4: Regardless of gender, respondents will rate networking-

mentoring scenarios as more fair than traditional one-on-one groom-

ing-mentoring scenarios.

Interactions can yield important additional information above and

beyond those ® nd by main effects. For this study, beyond these main effects

of mentoring type, mentoring received, and met needs, it was felt that

gender may interact with each of these main effects to help in understanding

perceptions of mentoring fairness and mentoring given. For example,women may be more likely to see network mentoring as fair based on

perceptions of easier access to mentors and fewer potential problems for

them when using the multiple-mentor model than men would. Additionally,

women who have received mentoring and who report having their needs

met should see mentoring as more fair than men. Similar relationships are

proposed for giving mentoring as well.

Hypothesis 5a: Gender will interact with mentoring type, mentoring

received, and met needs in predicting mentoring fairness.

Hypothesis 5b: Gender will interact with mentoring type, mentoring

received, and met needs in predicting mentoring given.

216 Bauer

METHOD

Participants

A total of 124 undergraduate business students at a large, public West

Coast university participated in this study. All were working at full-time

(76%) or part-time jobs (24%) when they participated in this study. The

average age of participants was 26 years old (SD 5 6 years) . The average

length of work experience of participants was 4.33 years (6.83 years). A

total of 49% of the sample are male and 51% are female and 82% areCaucasian, 12% are Asian American, 3% are Latino American, and 3% are

African American.

Procedure

Data were collected during sessions of undergraduate management

sessions by an experimenter who was not known to the students. Partici-

pants were told that the experimenter was interested in how undergraduate

students felt about different aspects of on-the -job mentoring. All thosestudent present volunteered to participate in the study. Therefore, the class

was randomly given surveys that varied by condition. Participants were

unaware that the surveys differed in the scenario described. There were

two types of mentoring scenarios described (grooming versus network men-

toring).

Participants were asked to ® ll out the survey without consulting otherclass members. They ® rst rated how satis® ed they were with how much

mentoring they currently received at work (100% of the students were

currently employed at least part-time) . They next rated how often they

had a mentor who engaged in mentoring as well as how often they had

mentored individuals at work. The overall fairness of mentoring was then

rated. And ® nally, participants shared demographic information. Whendone, participants returned surveys directly to the researcher.

Measures

Correlations among measures are presented in Table I. Means and

standard deviations are given along with scale descriptions below. All alphas

were above . 80.

Mentoring Fairness 217

Table I. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlation Matrix for Study Variablesa

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Gender2. Condition 2 .13b

3. Received Mentoring 4.62 .92 2 .02 2 .01 (.91)4. Gave Mentoring 4.46 .78 .15c 2 .02 .48d (.87)5. Met Needs 4.62 1.13 2 .03 2 .04 .51d .22d (.85)6. Fairness 4.66 1.57 2 .21d .15c .14b .32d .15c (.89)

aN 5 124; Gender is coded `̀ 1’ ’ for females and `̀ 0’ ’ for males. Condition is coded `̀ 1’ ’for network mentoring and `̀ 0’ ’ for grooming one-on-one mentoring. The alphas, whenappropriate, are given in parentheses on the diagonal.

bp , .10.cp , .05.dp , .01.

Demographics

In terms of demographics, respondents provided information regarding

their age, gender, previous work experience, work status (full-time, part-

time, or not working) and ethnicity.

Met Needs

Each participant was asked to indicate how satis® ed they were with

the amount of each of the eight mentoring functions (Hunt & Michael,

1983; Kram, 1985): role modeling, encouraging, counseling, moving fromsuperior relationships to friendship, educating, consulting, sponsoring, and

protecting, compared to how much they would like to receive on a 7-point

Likert-like scale. This scale ranges from 1 (totally dissatis® ed ) to 7 (totally

satis® ed ). An index of mentoring `̀ Met needs’ ’ was generated by adding

up each response and taking the average. This methodology avoids someof the potential problems associated with asking respondents to rate both

their desired and received mentoring function and then calculating differ-

ence scores (Cronbach & Furby, 1970). The average on this scale was 4.62

(SD 5 1.13). The alpha was .85.

Mentoring Received and G iven

Participants also rated how much experience they had had in the past

with each of the eight roles. They were asked to indicate how often they

had ful® lled these roles for someone else and how often these roles have

218 Bauer

been ful® lled for them on a scale that ranges from 1 (never) to 7 (many

times). Two scales were formed. For the ® rst scale, the greater the score,

the more mentoring the participant had received. The average on this scale

was 4.62 (SD 5 .92) and an alpha of .91. Mentoring given referred tohow much the participant had mentored others (M 5 4.46 (SD 5 .78

(alpha 5 .87) )).

Conditions

Two scenarios were created. One involved a network-mentoring situa-

tion (Coded `̀ 1’ ’ ) and the other depicted a grooming-me ntoring situation(Coded `̀ 0’ ’ ). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two condi-

tions. The gender of both the mentor and the `̀ prote ge ’ ’ were kept neutral

(neither male nor female) with no reference being made to gender in the

scenario. Care was taken to ensure that the names selected were gender-

neutral. This is dif® cult to do as regions and generations differ in common

usage of names for girls and boys. The names selected came from Lansky(1995) which is a book including names which, across the United States,

are typically seen as `̀ gender-neutral names.’ ’

Scenarios were as follows:

Network Mentoring:

Shawn Jones has been at CaryCorp for under one year. Shawn seems to beon the `̀ fast-track.’ ’ Since joining the company 10 months ago, Shawn has beenplaced on some very important projects. A lot of that is probably due to all thefriends made at the company. Everyone has really taken Shawn `̀ under wings’ ’ soto speak and Shawn appears to have several role models. Shawn is often seenhaving lunch with coworkers and consulting with them on the projects they areworking on. Since most of the other employees Shawn interacts with have beenwith CaryCorp for 25 years and have gained a great deal of respect and powerwithin the company they are therefore able to be good advocates for Shawn. Theypromote Shawn’s abilities to upper management whenever possible. Further theyprovide a great deal of encouragement, counseling, education, and protection forShawn.

Grooming Mentoring:

Shawn Jones has been at CaryCorp for under one year. Shawn seems to beon the `̀ fast-track.’ ’ Since joining the company 10 months ago, Shawn has beenplaced on some very important projects. A lot of that is probably due to TerryHarper. Terry has really taken Shawn `̀ under wings’ ’ so to speak and appears tobe Shawn’s role model.The two are often seen having lunch together and consultingwith one another on the projects they are working on.Terry has been with CaryCorpfor 25 years and has gained a great deal of respect and power within the companyand is therefore able to be a good advocate for Shawn. Terry promotes Shawn’ sabilities to upper management whenever possible. Further Terry provides a greatdeal of encouragement, counseling, education, and protection for Shawn.

Mentoring Fairness 219

Fairness

Each participant then assessed the fairness of the situation they read

about in either condition on a three-item scale that ranges from 1 (not atall fair) to 7 (completely fair) . A sample item includes `̀ Imagine you work

at this organization. How fair do you think this situation is? ’ ’ The average

fairness rating was 4.66 (SD 5 1.57). The alpha for this scale was .89.

RESULTS

Table I contains the correlation matrix for all hypothe sized variable s.

Hypothesis 1a and 1b stated that individuals whose psychosocial and voca-

tional needs are met will rate informal mentoring relationships as more

fair than those whose needs are not being met and would report having given

more mentoring to others. Hypothesis 2a and 2b stated that individuals whohave been involved in a mentoring relationship will rate informal mentoring

relationships as more fair than those who have not been in mentoring

relationships and that more mentoring would be reported as given. Hypoth-

esis 2c states that fairness ratings will be related to mentoring given. Hypoth-

esis 3a and 3b predicted that men would rate mentoring as more fair thanwomen and report having given more mentoring to others. Hypothe sis 4

predicts that respondents would rate networking-mentoring as more fair

than traditional one-on-one grooming-me ntoring. Hypothe sis 5a and 5b

dealt with the interactions among gender and the predictors on fairness

and mentoring given. At the correlational level, Hypothe ses 1, 2, 3 and 4

were all supported.To further test Hypothe ses 1, 2, 3, and 4, and 5, regression analyses

were conducted by regressing Gender, Condition, Mentoring Received,

and Met Needs on participant ratings of Mentoring Fairness in the ® rst

regression (summarized in Table II). The second regression used Mentoring

Given as the dependent variable . As Table II depicts, the regression showed

that Fairness ratings (F (4, 119) 5 2.96, p , . 05)) were related to MentoringReceived (b 5 .18, p , .05) such that those with more received in the past

felt that mentoring was more fair than those who had received less and

Met Needs (b 5 .23, p 5 05). Additionally, the three interactions with

gender were signi® cant such that women saw network mentoring as more

fair than men did but they did not differ in terms of the perceived fairnessof grooming mentoring. Further, women who had received more mentoring

and who reported having their mentoring needs met found mentoring more

fair than women who did not or men in general. Therefore, Hypothese s

1a and 2a are supported with both the correlational and regression analyses

220 Bauer

Table II. Summary of Regression Analysis Predicting Perceptions ofMentoring Fairnessa

Perceptions of Mentoring Fairness b R2 F

Main EffectsGender 2 .58Condition 2 .07Mentoring Received .18c

Met Needs .23c

Interactions with GenderGender 3 Condition .28d

Gender 3 Mentoring Received .33c

Gender 3 Met Needs .97b

Overall Equation: .11 2.96d

aN 5 124; Gender is coded `̀ 1’ ’ for females and ``0’ ’ for males. Conditionis coded `̀ 1’ ’ for network mentoring and `̀ 0’ ’ for grooming one-on-one mentoring.

bp , .10.cp , .05.dp , .01, one tailed.

but Hypothe ses 3a and 4a were not. Further all three interactions with

gender were signi® cant supporting H5a. Figures 1± 3 depict these interac-

tions. The R2 for the regression is .11.Table III contains a summary of the results from regressing the main

effects, interactions with gender, and Fairness Perceptions on Mentoring

Fig. 1. The interaction of gender and mentoring type on mentoring fairness.

Mentoring Fairness 221

Fig. 2. The interaction of gender and mentoring received on mentoring fairness.

Fig. 3. The interaction of gender and mentoring needs being met on mentoring fairness.

222 Bauer

Table III. Summary of Regression Analysis Predicting Perceptions ofMentoring Givena

Reported Mentoring Given b R2 F

Main EffectsGender 2 .61Condition 2 .06Mentoring Received .53c

Met Needs .06Interactions with Gender

Gender 3 Condition .00Gender 3 Mentoring Received .03Gender 3 Met Needs .66

Fairness PerceptionsPerceived Fairness .16b

Overall Equation: .333 7.00c

aN 5 124; Gender is coded ``1’ ’ for females and `̀ 0’ ’ for males. Conditionis coded `̀ 1’ ’ for network mentoring and `̀ 0’ ’ for grooming one-on-one mentoring.

bp , .05.cp , .01.

Given ratings (F (5, 118) 5 7.00, p , . 01)). Mentoring Received (b 5 .53,

p 5 01) and Perceived Mentoring Fairness (b 5 .16, p 5 05) were both

signi® cantly related to Mentoring Given. Therefore, Hypothe sis 2b and 2c

were supported while the others were not. The R2 for the regression is .33.

DISCUSSION

The gender interactions were interesting as no main effects for genderwere noted. Women who had been mentored and who reported fewer

mentoring needs that were unmet saw mentoring as more fair than women

who did not. Previous studies have shown that women report having less

access to mentoring relationships (Ragins & Cotton, 1991) . It may be that

self-interest theory plays a role here. Women who had been mentored felt

it was fair because they had been recipients in the past. With all the potentialproblems with male-female mentoring relationships being potentially mis-

construed by co-workers and causing problems at work, women who have

not experienced much mentoring may see it as unfair. Future research on

gender and mentoring is needed to further understand why some women

see mentoring as more fair than others or than some men.Networking mentoring relationships have been discussed in the litera-

ture as a way for individuals to avoid some of the problems associated with

intense male-female mentoring relationships and a similar interaction was

observed with the type of mentoring described in a scenario. No research

Mentoring Fairness 223

to date has been conducted to see if mentoring relationships in the work-

place could similarly lead to feelings of unfairness. Therefore, little is known

about what can be done if those feelings do exist. The networking-mentoring

model may offer some assistance in alleviating potential feelings of resent-ment and injustice- especially for woman. In this study, network-mentoring

was perceived as equally fair to the traditional grooming-me ntoring model

as a main effect but interactions were observed. Again, future research is

needed to truly understand these relationships in additional contexts.

This seems like important information for organizations and organiza-

tional members to have. While more and more companies are advocatingand employing mentoring as a key training strategy, they should be aware

of the potential dangers associated with mentoring. Individuals should be

aware that while there are dozens of potentially positive outcomes that

individuals (both mentors and prote ge s) may gain through mentoring there

is another side. Perceptions of mentoring `̀ unfairne ss’ ’ are just one type

of potential drawbacks to mentoring. For example , prote ge s may feel co-erced by mentors, mentors may be ill-equipped or trained to help prote ge s,

and prote ge s may become too dependent upon their mentors (Kram, 1985;

Scandura, 1998). Organizations and potential prote ge s and mentors should

take care to evaluate both the potential pros and cons of such relationships

at work before the problems occur. Knowledge of what can go wrong isoften the ® rst step to preventing problems from occurring in the ® rst place.

This research indicates that past experiences with mentoring are key to

understanding perceived mentoring fairness.

In regard to mentoring needs and experiences, both experiences and

needs were related to ratings of fairness. Future research is needed to see

if these ® ndings replicate with other samples. In addition, it would behelpful to have future research address the impact of comparability of

experiences on ratings of fairness and met needs. It may be that this sample

had similar experience and needs and that this led to the present ® ndings.

In other contexts other ® ndings may emerge. This could be another fruitful

avenue for future research.

As in any study, there are potential study limitations that should betaken into account when evaluating the results of this study. First, this study

employed a student sample. While all participants were currently working

in organizations and they were working in different organizations, the

scenarios they read have less ® delity than a ® eld study of actual mentoring

relationships and observers would have. The scenarios were designed toelicit reactions to situations void of personal context but due to this, the

results may differ from those potentially found if the study had been con-

ducted within a ® eld context.

Also, it is unclear in this study how the network mentoring scenario

224 Bauer

was interpreted. It may be that participants assumed that the networking

situation involved help from equal-status employees whereas in the groom-

ing situation was from a higher status employee. As pointed out by an

anonymous reviewer, if this were the case, the effects observed here maybe due to the perceived status of the source of the mentoring received.

Future research which addresses this is also needed to rule out this poten-

tial explanation.

Based on these ® ndings, additional research on the potential drawbacks

of mentoring seems warranted. Many other issues have been raised in the

literature but remain unstudied (e.g., Scandura, 1998). The more we learnabout both mentoring pros and cons, the better prepared we should be to

balance them in organizational life. This is important as many organizations

see mentoring as a key training and coaching tool.

This initial investigation of perceived mentoring fairness revealed an

effect. Future studies might also look at additional issues of fairness and

perhaps be designed as ® eld studies rather than experimental lab designs.Looking at the impact of organizational culture as well as the policies and

procedures that organizations employ may also prove to be a fruitful line

of research in regards to perceived mentoring fairness. And ® nally, while

a signi® cant difference for gender was found today, over time this trend

should begin to change . As more women are in positions to mentor otherwomen, gender differences should dissipate as these ® ndings are grounded

in self-interest theory and self-interests may become more individual based

and less gender group based.

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