Exploring Mentoring Functions Within the Sport Management Academy: Perspectives of Mentors and Protégés

Abstract

Mentoring has typically been studied in business environments, with fewer studies focusing on academic contexts and even fewer in the field of sport management. This study examined the mentoring relationships, and specifically the mentoring functions that occurred among sport management doctoral dissertation advisors (mentors) and their doctoral students (protégés). Semistructured telephone interviews were conducted with 13 individuals. Participants collectively described examples of all of Kram’s (1988) mentoring functions, with coaching, counseling, and exposure and visibility cited most frequently. Fewer instances of protection and direct sponsorship were mentioned, although there was evidence of considerable indirect sponsorship. Protégés provided more examples of role modeling as compared with their mentors, and the entire process of completing a doctoral degree can be viewed as a challenging assignment. A discussion of these findings within the context of the relevant previous academic literature and suggestions for future research are also provided.

Examining the Role of Friendship in Mentoring Relationships between Graduate Students and Faculty Advisors

“…Despite the empirical evidence from Clark et al (2000), Cronan-Hillix et al (1986), Kram (1988, Young et al (2004), and our own previous work (Beres & Dixon, 2014), it is not possible to pinpoint exactly when friendship develops in these mentoring relationships (assuming that it does indeed exist). Some students noted the simultaneous occurrence of friendship and mentoring (Clark et al, 2000;Young et al, 2004), while others described their current relationship with their former mentor as a friendship, but did not explicitly share when this process unfolded (Beres & Dixon, 2014).…”

“…The most frequently used conceptualization of mentoring functions is Kram's (1988) framework, which is comprised of nine functions divided into two primary groupings: career functions and psychosocial functions. Research has shown that, collectively, academic faculty advisors provided all of Kram's (1988) mentoring functions to their graduate student protégés (e.g., Beres & Dixon, 2014;Clark, Harden, & Johnson, 2000). Despite numerous claims to the presence of "friendship" in these graduate student-faculty advisor mentoring relationships (Gardiner, 1998(Gardiner, , 2008Young, Alvermann, Kaste, Henderson, & Many, 2004), others question if friendship is even possible within this context (Johnson, 2008).…”

“…Similarly, mentors were asked questions phrased to elicit descriptions of the actions they took on behalf of their protégés. For a more detailed description of the methods employed and the results found in this earlier study, please refer to Beres and Dixon (2014).…”

“…Some students noted the simultaneous occurrence of friendship and mentoring (Clark et al, 2000;Young et al, 2004), while others described their current relationship with their former mentor as a friendship, but did not explicitly share when this process unfolded (Beres & Dixon, 2014). Kram's (1983Kram's ( , 1988 seminal study may offer some potential clues into this temporal development, but additional research is needed.…”

“…Using matched pairs of mentors and protégés, we previously sought to determine what mentoring functions select doctoral dissertation advisors provided for their doctoral students within the field of sport management (Beres & Dixon, 2014). We used a descriptive case study approach (Yin, 2009), bounded by academic discipline (sport management), geographical region (North America), employment status (limited to those employed as faculty members in North American post-secondary institutions), and contact information (valid university contact information obtained through public records).…”