Chapter 3: An Empirical Test of Gender-Based Differences in E-Mentoring

With the progression of the technological age, organizational functions that have traditionally occurred utilizing face-to-face communications are now occurring through computer mediums, thus creating new obstacles for organizations to overcome (Drew & Bensley, 2001; Rowley, 1999). For example, organizations are increasingly allowing employees to work from home (Stinson, 2000), and employing teams whose members are physically distributed. It has been argued that these changes have dramatically changed the way that managers interact with their employees (Drew & Bensley, 2001). Unfortunately, research on the impact of computer-mediated communication has not kept up with its use in organizations. For instance, Ensher, Heun, and Blanchard (2003) noted that the practice of online mentoring has grown exponentially in recent years. However, poor research designs and other methodological flaws are rampant in the little research that has been conducted to test such programs. Thus, many questions regarding best approaches and ethics of such programs remain unanswered (Ensher et al., 2003). The present study was designed to advance our knowledge in this regard. Specifically, we investigated the impact of mentor gender on E-mentoring communication and on protégé perceptions of that communication.