Content uploaded by Agnes Bäker
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Agnes Bäker on Feb 24, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
1
Successful Mentors in Academia: Are they Teachers, Spon-
sors and/or Collaborators?
Agnes Bäkera, Julia Muschallikb and Kerstin Pullb
a Corresponding author. University of Zurich, Plattenstr. 14, CH-8032 Switzerland. +41 44
634 05 35, agnes.baeker@business.uzh.ch. ORCID: 0000-0002-2580-3278.
b University of Tuebingen, Nauklerstr. 47, 72074 Tuebingen. +49 7071 29 78186,
kerstin.pull@uni-tuebingen.de.
ABSTRACT
Mentors in academia may act as teachers, sponsors and/or collaborators. However,
so far there was no evidence on which role mentors should enact to best promote
their mentees’ careers. This paper focusses on mentors in academia who are not
the academic advisor. We provide first evidence on the relationship between the
perceived role of mentors as teachers, sponsors and/or collaborators and mentees’
subsequent academic career success. Specifically, we find that mentees who per-
ceive their mentors as sponsors who extend their social networks are most success-
ful – in particular if they perceive their mentors also as teachers. Further, we find
that collaborating with mentors who are not their academic advisors on joint re-
search projects has negative implications for mentees’ subsequent career success.
Keywords: Academia; mentoring roles; career success; human capital; social capital
1. Introduction
Mentoring is a ubiquitous phenomenon in academia. In mentoring programs, a mentor and
mentee are matched by a third party (e.g. Wanberg, Welsh, and Hezlett 2003), with the aim that
the mentor, a more experienced researcher, supports the mentee, a less experienced upcoming
researcher, in his or her professional development (Kram 1983; Olian et al. 1988).
Whereas there is first evidence on the positive effects of mentoring programs in academia sug-
gesting that they actually promote the career success of participants (see e.g. Gardiner et al.
2007; Blau et al. 2010; Muschallik and Pull 2016), little is known on the mechanisms that drive
the success of mentoring in academia. This is where our paper sets off: We analyze whether it
matters for mentees’ academic success how mentees perceive their mentors’ role. Specifically,
we ask whether mentees perceive their mentors as teachers, sponsors, and/or collaborators (see
Long and McGinnis 1985 for the typology of mentoring roles) and whether this affects mentees’
2
subsequent academic career success. By investigating the comparative effects of the different
roles that mentors are perceived to act in, we contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms
that drive mentoring success.
In our analysis, other than large parts of the literature (e.g. Long and McGinnis 1985; Paglis,
Green, and Bauer 2005; Hilmer and Hilmer 2007; Ooms et al. 2018), we focus on the perceived
role of an additional mentor who is not the academic advisor – as is typically the case in aca-
demic mentoring programs. Further and as Muschallik and Pull (2016), we do not confine our-
selves to the analysis of formal mentoring programs, but also include informal mentoring rela-
tions, i.e. mentoring relationships where mentor and mentee are not brought together and
matched by a third party, but where the mentoring relationship rather evolves informally over
time (see also Lyons, Scroggins, and Rule 1990).
With respect to measuring the success of a mentoring relationship, the existing literature often
focuses on ‘soft’ and ‘intermediate’ outcome variables such as, for instance, relationship satis-
faction (see e.g. Lyons, Scroggins, and Rule 1990, Poteat, Shockley, and Allen 2009; Lindén,
Ohlin and Brodin 2013). Comparatively few studies aim at assessing mentoring effects in aca-
demia with respect to a ‘hard’ outcome variable and, for instance, analyze mentees’ publication
output as the dependent variable (Lyons, Scroggins, and Rule 1990; Gardiner et al. 2007; Blau
et al. 2010; Muschallik and Pull 2016) or mentees’ success in climbing up the career ladder
(Ooms et al. 2018). Similar to Ooms et al. (2018) we use mentees’ appointment success in terms
of time to a tenured position as professor as a central measure of academic career success.
By analyzing the effect of mentoring on time to tenure, our analysis also speaks to the literature
on the determinants of young researchers’ appointment success. Here, we are only aware of one
study that includes mentoring as a potential determinant (Bäker et al. 2016). While Bäker et al.
(2016) do not find appointment success and mentoring to be linked, they do not dig deeper into
the subject and do not investigate the potential mechanisms that might drive mentoring success,
but rather only include a dummy variable for whether the young researchers had a mentor or
not. Investigating the comparative effect of different mentoring roles for young researchers’
appointment success will thus also contribute to our understanding of the factors that drive the
selection and self-selection processes in academia. Thus, our study contributes to our under-
standing of one very central question when it comes to the functioning of the academic system
from an HR or personnel economics view (see Pull and Backes-Gellner 2015).
3
2. Theory
‘It is the primary function of the mentor to act as guide in the rite of passage from novice to
professional’ (Lyons et al. 1990: 278). This definition indicates that mentees are novices, which
in academia refers to PhD students and possibly non-tenured, post-doctoral researchers. Re-
searchers at these career stages normally have an academic advisor (e.g. the graduate supervi-
sor, program advisor), who might serve on their dissertation committee (Lyons et al. 1990).
Often, this advisor is also acting as a mentor (Lyons et al. 1990). However, a junior researcher
might also have one (or several) mentor(s) in addition to his or her academic advisor and even
after obtaining the PhD, i.e. as a non-tenured, post-doctoral researcher. The purpose of a mentor
is to support the mentee in his or her professional development (Kram 1983; Olian et al. 1988).
However, there is no consensus on what tasks a mentor should engage in to support the mentee’s
development (e.g. Pearson and Brew 2002). Long and McGinnis (1985) define three different
roles that an academic mentor might take: An academic mentor might act as a teacher, a sponsor
and/or a collaborator.
2.1 Academic Mentors as Teachers
As a teacher, an academic mentor provides the mentee with skills and knowledge that might
matter for scientific work and for succeeding in the scientific community. For instance, besides
scientific knowledge, the mentor might also share technical and methodological knowledge
about scientific writing and the publication process. Further, the mentor might provide the
mentee with tacit knowledge about implicit norms and values within the scientific community
(Long, and McGinnis 1985, Lyons, Scroggins, and Rule 1990; Cawyer et al. 2002, Lankau and
Scandura 2002, Schrodt et al. 2003). Building on human capital theory (Becker 1993), the thus
provided relevant skills and knowledge will enhance the mentee’s publication performance
(Rodgers and Maranto 1989), and thereby the mentee’s academic career success. Thus, we con-
jecture:
H1 An academic mentor who acts as teacher enhances the mentee’s academic career success.
2.2 Academic Mentors as Sponsors
Further, the academic mentor might also act as a so-called sponsor. That is, the academic mentor
might serve as a ‘broker’ between the mentee and the scientific community and facilitate the
mentee’s integration by enhancing his or her visibility (e.g., Smith 2007, Johnston and McCor-
4
mack 1997) and providing opportunities for exchange with the community, e.g., through ar-
ranging lab visits at related chairs (Pearson and Brew 2002). Thus, the academic mentor might
strengthen the mentee’s social capital, with social capital being defined as the social ties and
networks an individual has access to (Coleman 1990). Given that social capital relates to later
research performance (Kyvik and Teigen 1996; Prpić 1996; Bäker 2015), the more social capital
is created during the mentoring process, the more ‘attractive’ upcoming researchers will be for
a hiring faculty. Therefore, upcoming researchers with high social capital should receive a ten-
ured position as professor in a shorter time span, and thus have a higher academic career suc-
cess. We propose:
H2 An academic mentor who acts as sponsor enhances the mentee’s academic career suc-
cess.
2.3 Academic Mentors as Collaborators
Lastly, the academic mentor might also act as a collaborator actively integrating and involving
the mentee in own research projects. Thus, the upcoming researcher might acquire human cap-
ital ‘on the job’ by working together on joint projects with the more experienced mentor (Long
and McGinnis 1985, Ortiz–Walters 2009). In addition to human capital, by working together
with the mentor and, possibly, working together with other colleagues in this project, the mentee
might increase his or her social capital. Given that both human capital and social capital relate
positively to academic career success (Kyvik and Teigen 1996; Prpić 1996; Rodgers and Ma-
ranto 1989), we postulate:
H3: An academic mentor who acts as collaborator enhances the mentee’s academic career
success.
3. Methods
3.1 Sample
Our dataset contains 80 researchers in business and economics from Austria, Germany and the
German-speaking part of Switzerland that reported they had an academic mentor (formal or
informal mentoring relationship) in addition to their academic advisor before getting a tenured
position as full professor. As a short description of the German-speaking academic system, it is
important to note that the academic career consist of three phases: (I) doctoral student, (II) post-
doctoral student, Habilitand
1
or junior professor, and (III) full tenured professor
2
. Researchers
5
in phase I or II typically have a scientific advisor who is a full professor. They might have an
additional mentor.
Our data set is compiled from three sources: (1) an online research-monitoring portal initialized
by the German Economic Association covering all researchers in business and economics in
German-speaking academia, (2) a self-conducted online survey of all researchers on the re-
search-monitoring platform in 2011, and (3) the CVs of those 80 survey participants who indi-
cated that they either had participated in a formal academic mentoring program or had an infor-
mal mentor.
(1) The research-monitoring platform entails information on researchers’ demographics such
as age and gender, the researchers’ field of research (business administration or economics),
the year and affiliation of obtaining the PhD degree and, if applicable, the year and affiliation
of the appointment to a tenured professorship. Given the timing of the survey (data source 2),
we only consider demographic and career data from the platform up to 2010.
(2) In the year 2011, we conducted an online survey of all researchers on the research-monitor-
ing platform to collect the information on mentoring and on further control variables that were
not provided by the research-monitoring platform. In a first part of the survey, the researchers
indicated whether they participated in a formal mentoring program or, if not, whether they had
an informal mentor besides their academic advisor. In a second part, those who either partici-
pated in an academic mentoring program or who said they had an informal mentor were also
asked about their mentors’ roles. This resulted in 80 observations of researchers (out of 418
survey respondents), who indicated to have (had) a mentor. These 80 observations include re-
searchers who had achieved a tenured position as professor by 2010 (i.e. researchers in phase
III, see above), and post-doctoral researchers who were still waiting for a tenured position in
2010 (i.e. researchers in phase II, see above). Within the survey, we also elicited information
on researchers’ international mobility and on whether or not the researchers have children. Both
of these variables were used as controls (see below).
(3) To obtain information on researchers’ national mobility and the duration of PhD, which we
used as control variables (see below), we further hand-collected data from the CVs of those 80
researchers who responded to our survey and who said they had a mentor. Specifically, we
collected data on changes of affiliation to institutions within the same country that took place
before getting a tenured position, thus deriving an indication of national mobility. To measure
the duration of PhD, we collected data on the year of obtaining the diploma or master degree.
This data in combination with the information on the year of obtaining the PhD provided in the
6
research-monitoring portal (data source 1) allowed us to calculate the duration of the PhD.
3.2 Variables
3.2.1 Dependent variable: academic career success
Our outcome variable is academic career success as measured by time to tenure. A researcher’s
time to tenure is given by the years between obtaining the PhD (end of phase (I), see above)
and gaining a tenured position as a full professor (start of phase (III), see above). The shorter it
takes to be appointed to a tenured position as a full professor, the more successful the researcher
is in his or her career (Schulze et al. 2008; Bäker et al. 2016).
3.2.2 Explanatory variables: perceived mentoring roles
All researchers in our dataset had a mentor before being awarded tenure. Our explanatory var-
iables are the mentoring role(s) that the respondents perceived their mentor to act in. To measure
the different mentoring roles, we use the so-called ‘mentoring scales’ (e.g., Dreher and Ash
1990 or Noe 1988). The mentees stated on a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 7 (with 1= ‘strongly
disagree’ and 7= ‘strongly agree’) to what extent they had perceived their mentors in the fol-
lowing roles: (1) ‘My mentor helps me to learn job-related skills’ (teacher); (2) ‘My mentor
introduces me to other people in the field’ (sponsor); and (3) ‘My mentor worked with me on
joint projects’ (collaborator). We z-standardized all three items to allow for an easy interpreta-
tion and to correct for a potential social desirability bias.
3.2.3 Control variables
Muschallik and Pull (2016) find that researchers that took part in a formal mentoring program
are more successful than researchers with informal mentors when it comes to their publication
output. Therefore, we control for whether the mentor under consideration was assigned within
a formal program (formal mentoring = ‘1’) or not (formal mentoring = ‘0’).
Further, we control gender with male = ‘1’ indicating that the researcher is a man. As potential
gender differences might be attributed to family obligations (Long et al. 1993; Joecks et al.
2013), we further control for having children before the first tenured appointment (or the cen-
soring in 2010) occurs and create the dummy variable children with the value ‘1’ if children
were already present and ‘0’ if not. Additionally, we include the field of research (business
administration vs. economics) with the dummy variable business taking the value ‘1’ if the
respective researcher belongs to the field of business administration and ‘0’ if the researcher
belongs to the field of economics. Further, to capture generation effects, year of birth is included
7
in the analysis.
Given that several studies show that national and international mobility might also affect a re-
searcher’s academic career success (see, e.g., Schulze et al. 2008; Röbken 2009; Bäker 2015;
Bäker et al. 2016), we control for international mobility and national mobility. Regarding in-
ternational mobility, the variable is coded as ‘1’ if the respective researcher stayed abroad at
least four months for research purposes before receiving tenure (or the censoring occurs), and
‘0’ if not. The variable national mobility takes the value ‘1’ if the respective researcher changed
his or her affiliation within the same country at least once before being appointed to a tenured
position as professor and is given the value ‘0’ if not.
To control for a researcher’s ability, we further include the variable duration PhD. This variable
measures the time span between the year the researcher obtained his or her diploma or master
degree and the year of obtaining the PhD degree. Since Williamson and Cable (2003) show that
the reputation of a faculty might positively influence researchers’ academic career success (see
also Backes-Gellner and Schlinghoff 2010), we lastly also consider the reputation of the insti-
tution where the researcher obtained his or her PhD degree. The dummy variable reputation
PhD is coded as ‘1’ if the institution is among the top ten institutions within Germany, Austria
or German-speaking Switzerland according to the Handelsblatt faculty ranking
3
, and ‘0’ other-
wise.
3.2 Models
Given that our dependent variable is the time it takes a researcher to get a tenured position as
full professor (time to tenure), we estimate Cox proportional hazard models (Cox 1972, see also
Schulze et al. 2008; Bäker et al. 2016 for a similar approach). Applying these models to our
study, we calculate the hazard rate of being appointed to a tenured position as full professor
within the next marginal period – conditional on not being tenured yet. As this method requires,
our sample consists of tenured and within the time period not yet tenured researchers. Hazard
ratios pertaining to covariates that are larger than ‘1’ indicate a positive relation with the like-
lihood of receiving tenure, hazard ratios that are smaller than ‘1’ indicate a negative relation.
4. Results
4.1 Descriptive statistics
Our sample consists of 50 researchers who had obtained a tenured position as professor until
8
the year 2010, and 30 researchers that were not (yet) tenured by 2010. Table 1 gives an overview
of the mean values, standard deviations, minimal and maximal values of the variables in our
analysis. The average time elapsed between obtaining the PhD and 2010/getting a tenured po-
sition as professor is seven years in the sample.
-----------------------------------
Table 1 about here
-----------------------------------
Concerning the different mentoring roles, teacher, that is learning job-related skills from the
mentor, is perceived as the strongest role (mean value = 5.55). The other two mentoring roles,
sponsor and collaborator, reached, on average, the same relevance (mean value = 5.03).
Sixteen percent of our sample took part in a formal mentoring program. Three quarters of our
sample are male and about half of the researchers had children before getting tenure (or the
censoring in 2010). The sample contains slightly more business researchers (56 percent) than
economics researchers. Average year of birth is 1970. Forty-six percent of the researchers in
our sample spent at least four months abroad before being appointed to a tenured position as
professor, and 68 percent changed affiliation within the country at least once before getting a
tenured position. The average time elapsed between the master or diploma degree and the PhD
is almost five years (Duration PhD). Lastly, 29 percent of our sample obtained their PhD from
a highly reputed institution.
Table 2 shows the pairwise correlations. Regarding the dependent variable time to tenure and
the central explanatory variables, there is a negative and statistically significant correlation with
the perceived role of sponsor (r = -.27**). This might be a first hint that mentors who create
social capital for the mentee help decrease the overall time to tenure, i.e. increase mentees’
likelihood of receiving tenure. Interestingly, the perceived roles as a teacher and collaborator
are not statistically significantly related to researchers’ time to tenure in the correlation analysis.
-----------------------------------
Table 2 about here
-----------------------------------
4.2 Perceived mentoring roles and subsequent mentee career success
Table 3 reports the results of the step-wise Cox proportional hazard regressions. In model (1)
only the control variables formal mentoring, male, children, business, year of birth
4
, interna-
tional and national mobility, the duration of the PhD and the reputation of PhD granting insti-
tution are included. In model (2) we add the perceived mentoring roles. Model (3) additionally
contains a full set of interaction terms between the different mentoring roles (two-way and
9
three-way interactions). Table 3 also contains the AIC (Akaike-Information-Criterion) and the
BIC (Bayesian-Information-Criterion) as goodness-of-fit measures. In general, models with
smaller AIC or BIC have a better goodness-of-fit. However, both measures ‘punish’ models
with more parameters, hence, it is not surprising to see that Model (1) has smaller AIC and BIC
than Model (3). The significance of the mentoring role variables justifies their inclusion, as
does the comparison of, e.g., the AIC measures, which suggests that Model (2) is 0.968 times
as probable as Model (1) to minimize the information loss, while Model (3) is still 0.293 times
as probable as Model (1) to minimize the information loss.
-----------------------------------
Table 3 about here
-----------------------------------
Our hypotheses predict a positive and significant effect of the perceived mentoring roles
teacher, sponsor and collaborator on the likelihood of receiving tenure, as our measure of ac-
ademic career success.
The results show no statistically significant effect of the perceived mentoring role of a teacher
on the likelihood of receiving tenure, contrary to Hypothesis 1. If the mentee perceives the
mentor as a sponsor, we find a statistically significant and positive relation with the likelihood
of getting tenure (see Model 2), in support of Hypothesis 2. Mentees who had a one standard
deviation higher perception of their mentor helping to expand their social network had a by 33
percent higher likelihood of receiving tenure in the next given time period. Whereas this finding
suggests that the positive effect of mentoring relations is driven by the sponsor role rather than
the role of the teacher, Model 3 shows that the positive sponsoring effect in fact depends on the
mentor being perceived as a teacher at the same time. This provides some support also for
Hypothesis 1. Mentees who perceive their mentor to be both an above average teacher as well
as an above average sponsor have a higher likelihood of getting tenure. Thus, mentors that are
perceived as teachers seem to be of relevance for mentees’ likelihood of getting tenure only
when their mentees also perceive them as sponsors. This finding is in line with Bozeman and
Corley (2004) and Liberman and Wolf (1997) who argue that it is the combination of human
and social capital that is crucial for career success, and that the creation of human and social
capital complement each other (see also Coleman 1988).
Regarding the mentoring role of the collaborator, interestingly, we find a statistically signifi-
cant but negative relationship with the likelihood of receiving tenure in the next given time
period, thus rejecting Hypothesis 3. Collaborating with a mentor who is not the mentee’s aca-
demic advisor, seems to even extend the time to tenure, that is, to decrease the likelihood of
10
getting tenure in the next given time period – independently of whether the mentor is also seen
as a teacher or sponsor. Mentees who perceive their mentors to act one standard deviation more
as a collaborator, have a 36 percent (Model 2) to 47 percent (Model 3) lower likelihood of
receiving tenure in the next marginal time frame. This indicates that if the mentor (who is not
the academic advisor) collaborates with the mentee on a research project, this is apparently not
helpful to mentees’ career advancement.
5. Discussion and Conclusion
This paper provides first evidence on what type of mentors are most helpful to academic career
success. Specifically, we analyze whether mentors who are perceived by their mentees as teach-
ers, sponsors and/or collaborators (see Long and McGinnis 1985 for the typology of mentoring
roles) increase the likelihood of the mentee being appointed to a tenured position as professor.
We find that mentees who perceive their mentors as sponsors who help extend their social net-
work are more likely to be appointed to a tenured position in due time – in particular if the
mentor is at the same time also perceived as a teacher. That is, mentees especially profit from
mentors that serve as a ‘broker’ between the mentees and the scientific community and facilitate
their mentees’ integration in the scientific community. Further, they also profit from mentors
who act as teachers and provide their mentee with the relevant skills they need to succeed in
the appointment process. Interestingly, the perceived role of the teacher is only helpful when
the mentor is at the same time also perceived in the sponsoring role.
With respect to the role of mentors as collaborators, we find that mentees who actively collab-
orate with their mentors on joint research projects are less likely to be appointed to a tenured
position as full professor. Potentially, by collaborating with the mentee, the mentor takes a step
back from actively mentoring and moves towards a regular collaboration role where – poten-
tially – the allocation of labor is chosen according to the comparative advantages of the collab-
orators and where collaboration does not leave much room for active guidance. Further, it needs
to be kept in mind that we study mentors who are not the academic advisors. Potentially then,
the collaboration projects with mentors who are not the academic advisors add to the ones the
mentee collaborates in with their academic advisors – which might effectively prolong the
mentee’s qualification phase and lead to a later appointment. However, since this is rather spec-
ulative, further research is needed to better understand how a mentor’s role as a collaborator
affects the selection process in academia and whether the effect differs between mentors who
are their mentees’ academic advisors and those who are not.
11
Our results contribute to three different strands of literature. First of all, our results speak to the
literature on academic mentoring. While there is first evidence on the positive effects of aca-
demic mentoring (see, e.g. Muschallik and Pull, 2016), our study adds to our understanding of
the mechanisms that drive mentoring success in academia by comparatively assessing the ef-
fects of the different roles academic mentors are perceived to act in. According to our findings,
for mentors who are not the academic advisor, the sponsoring role appears to be the most im-
portant driver of mentoring success. Interestingly, we find the teaching role to be only valuable
when it adds to the sponsoring role, and we find the collaborating role to be even counter-
productive. Importantly and unlike much of the literature on academic mentoring, we measure
mentoring success by the most central variable a young researcher might think of: a researcher’s
success in being appointed to a full professorship. By focusing on such a ‘hard’ outcome vari-
able our study further contributes to the literature on academic mentoring that – so far – often
concentrated on more ‘soft’ and ‘intermediate’ outcome variables such as, for instance, satis-
faction with the mentoring relationship. Thus, we contribute to the literature on academic men-
toring by focusing on a hard outcome variable and by investigating the comparative effect of
different mentoring roles.
Secondly, our study also speaks to the literature on the determinants of young researchers’ ca-
reer success and thus adds to our understanding of the underlying selection and self-selection
processes in academia. Existing studies on young researchers’ career success either have not
included mentoring as an explanatory variable (see, e.g., Schulze et al. 2008) or only included
a dummy variable for whether or not a young researcher had an academic mentor besides his
or her academic advisor (Bäker et al. 2016). Contributing to this literature, we find that – for
the sub-group of mentees – it does make a difference for the career success of young researchers
whether they perceive their mentors in a sponsoring, a teaching and/or a collaborating role.
Given that researchers typically do not report in their CVs whether they have an additional
academic mentor who is not their academic advisor (especially when mentoring is informal),
appointment committees will not make their appointment decision contingent on whether a
young researcher has an academic mentor besides the academic advisor. That is, having an
additional mentor besides the academic advisor will not be a selection criterion in the appoint-
ment process, and, of course, the roles that mentors are perceived to act in will not be a selection
criterion. Rather, our finding that an additional mentor who acts in a sponsoring (and potentially
an additional teaching) role positively influences mentees’ probability to be appointed to a ten-
ured position, hints at sponsoring (and additionally teaching) mentors being especially success-
ful in making their mentees an attractive hire. Apparently, they manage to positively influence
12
those criteria that are known to positively affect appointment decisions: be it that their mentees
have better publication records, better networks or are otherwise better prepared for the ap-
pointment process. With respect to self-selection, our results are compatible with the view that
young researchers who have an additional mentor besides their academic advisor are more
likely to stay in academia and do so full-heartedly if they perceive their mentors in a sponsoring
– and additionally a teaching – role. However, as is typical in the literature on young research-
ers’ academic career success, our study does not allow to disentangle selection and self-selec-
tion.
Thirdly and on a more general level, our study also speaks to the literature on the (comparative)
importance of human and social capital. By showing that for the academic career of their
mentees, mentors’ sponsoring role is particularly helpful we find a clear indication for the com-
parative importance of social capital. Our finding that especially the combination of the role of
the sponsor and the role of teacher increases mentees’ probability to be appointed in due time
is in line with the literature on complementarities between human and social capital (Bozeman
and Corley 2004, Liberman and Wolf 1997). Given that we find mentors who are perceived as
sponsors to positively affect the likelihood of being appointed to a tenured professorship, but
this is not true for mentors who are perceived as teachers in and of itself (that is, if not supported
by a sponsoring role), we tentatively conclude that it is better for career success if the additional
mentor is a strong sponsor and a weak teacher, than if it is the other way around. Phrased dif-
ferently, when it comes to additional mentors who are not the academic advisor, mentees seem
to profit more from the additional social capital they provide than from the additional human
capital.
While this finding ties in with the literature that finds social capital to be more important than
human capital (see, e.g., Bäker 2015 on the determinants of researchers’ publication output),
we are cautious to derive such a general conclusion here. Instead, it might well be the case that
human and social capital are equally important for young researchers’ appointment success, but
that the young researchers in our sample profited more from an additional mentor who acted as
a sponsor because they already had acquired substantial human capital during their academic
career such that their need for an additional mentor who provided them with social capital was
comparatively larger. While mentors who actively collaborate with the mentees on joint pro-
jects might, in general, provide their mentees with both, human and social capital, our results
do not support the view that collaboration projects between mentors and mentees stand out in
terms of providing mentees with human and social capital. Further research, however, might
dig deeper into this.
13
Apart from implications for further research, our findings also have practical implications, for
mentors and mentees, for the organizers of formal academic mentoring programs and, also, for
the training of young academics in general.
According to our findings, mentors can optimize their mentoring engagement when they act as
both, sponsors and teachers, but possibly not collaborate on joint research projects. If mentors’
resources are limited, which they are likely to be, they should place a greater emphasis on spon-
soring their mentee into the scientific community than on actively teaching them skills and
knowledge. Whenever possible, mentors should try to act in a sponsoring and a teaching role,
thus providing their mentee with social and human capital.
Regarding practical advice for mentees, our insights advise upcoming researchers to seek a
mentoring relationship with senior researchers who are likely to fit the role that is most helpful
for their careers, i.e., that of a sponsor (and – potentially – additionally a teacher), and rather
not that of a collaborator. While young researchers might think that an additional mentor might
be especially helpful if he or she acts in the role of a collaborator, our evidence suggests that
this is not the case. Rather, actively collaborating with a mentor who is not the academic advisor
might in fact adversely affect the likelihood of being appointed in due time.
Likewise, organizers of academic mentoring programs who match and instruct mentors and
mentees might especially seek to recruit mentors who are well embedded in the scientific com-
munity and who can act in a sponsoring role. Further, they might explicitly advise mentees and
mentors alike that the program does not focus on collaboration but rather primarily on sponsor-
ing (and, secondly, teaching).
Lastly, our findings have implications for the training of young academics in general. Specifi-
cally, our results hint at the hidden potential of fostering social capital during the early academic
career. Whereas early career researchers might be well aware of the importance of acquiring
the relevant human capital to succeed in academia, they might not be equally aware of the
importance of acquiring social capital and if they are, they might not know how to build up a
network that helps them in their academic career. This (comparative) lack of networking and
networking skills might explain why we find that having a sponsoring mentor who compensates
for this lack positively relates to mentees’ career success. At the same time, it highlights the
potential benefits of explicitly incorporating the generation of social capital into early career
academic training – be it by providing young researchers with sponsoring mentors or by other-
wise enhancing their embeddedness within the scientific community, for example by subsidiz-
ing young researchers’ conference participation or the like.
14
Notes
1
A Habilitand works on his or her “Habilitation”, a degree similar to a second, advanced PhD
that allows the researcher to teach independently.
2
Only very rarely, the positions of full professor (W-2 Professor or W-3 Professor, see e.g.
Ooms et al. 2018) are temporary contracts, i.e. not (yet) tenured.
3
The Handelsblatt ranking from 2011 for economists and 2009 for business administration is
used.
4
For further robustness checks instead of year of birth time dummies were used for ten-year
periods
starting in the 1970s and taking the value ‘1’ if the respective researcher was awarded
tenure in the respective period. The reference group is “researcher who were awarded tenure
after 2000 and until
2010”. The results remain robust, apart from the collaborator variable losing
significance in Model 2.
15
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the German Federal Ministry of
Education and Research (program: ‘Wissenschaftsökonomie’, grant number: 01PW11008).
The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research had no impact on study design, col-
lection, analysis or interpretation of the data or the writing of the manuscript.
References
Bäker, Agnes. 2015. “Non-tenured post-doctoral researchers’ job mobility and research output:
An analysis of the role of research discipline, department size, and coauthors.” Research Policy
44 (3): 634-50.
Bäker, Agnes, Susanne Breuninger, Julia Muschallik, Kerstin Pull, and Uschi Backes-Gellner.
2016. “Time to Go? (Inter)National Mobility and Appointment Success of Young Academics.”
Schmalenbach Business Review 17 (3-4): 401-21.
Backes-Gellner, Uschi, and Axel Schlinghoff. 2010. ”Career incentives and publish or perish
in German and US universities.” European Education 42 (3): 26-52.
Becker, Gary S. 1993. Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis with special refer-
ence to education (3rd ed.). London: The University of Chicago Press.
Blau, Francine D., Janet M. Currie, Rachel T. A. Croson, and Donna K. Ginther. 2010. “Can
mentoring help female assistant professors? Interim results from a randomized trial.” American
Economic Review, Paper & Proceedings 100 (2): 348-52.
Bozeman, Barry, and Elizabeth Corley. 2004. “Scientists’ collaboration strategies: Implications
for scientific and technical human capital.” Research Policy 33 (4): 599–616.
Cawyer, Carol S., Cheri Simonds, and Shannon Davis. 2002. “Mentoring to facilitate sociali-
zation: The case of the new faculty member.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in
Education 15 (2): 225-42.
Coleman, James S. 1988. “Social capital in the creation of human capital.” The American Jour-
nal of Sociology, Supplement: Organizations and Institutions: Sociological and Economic Ap-
proaches to the Analysis of Social Structure 94: 95-120.
Coleman, James S. 1990. Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Cox, David R. 1972. “Regression models and life-tables.” Journal of the Royal Statistical So-
ciety, Series B (Methodological) 34 (2): 187-220.
Dreher, George F., and Ronald A. Ash. 1990. “A comparative study of mentoring among men
and women in managerial, professional, and technical positions.” Journal of Applied Psychol-
ogy 75 (5): 539-46.
Fiedler, Marina, and Isabell Welpe. 2008. “Appointment Preferences of Management Profes-
sors.” Schmalenbach Business Review 60(1): 4-31.
Gardiner, Maria, Marika Tiggemann, Hugh Kearns, and Kelly Marshall. 2007. “Show me the
16
money! An empirical analysis of mentoring outcomes for women in academia.” Higher Edu-
cation Research & Development 26 (4): 425-42.
Hilmer, Christiana, and Michael Hilmer. 2007. “Women helping women, men helping women?
Same- gender mentoring, initial job placements, and early career publishing success for eco-
nomics PhDs.” American Economic Review 97 (2): 422-26.
Joecks, Jasmin, Kerstin Pull, and Uschi Backes-Gellner. 2013. “Childbearing in academia: In
how far is it related to research productivity?” Journal of Business Economics 84 (4): 517-30.
Johnston, Sue, and Coralie McCormack. 1997. “Developing research potential through a struc-
tured mentoring program: Issues arising.” Higher Education 33 (3): 251-64.
Kram, Kathy E. 1983. “Phases of relationship.” Academy of Management Journal 26 (4): 608-
25.
Kyvik, Svein, and Mari Teigen. 1996. “Child care, research collaboration, and gender differ-
ences in scientific productivity.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 21 (1): 54-71.
Lankau, Melenie J., and Terri A. Scandura. 2002. “An investigation of personal learning in
mentoring relationships: Content, antecedents, and consequences.” Academy of Management
Journal 45 (4): 779-90.
Liberman, Sofia, and Kurt B. Wolf. 1997. “The flow of knowledge: Scientific contacts in formal
meetings.” Social Networks 19 (3): 271-83.
Lindén, Jitka, Mats Ohlin, and Eva M. Brodin. 2013. “Mentorship, supervision and learning
experience in PhD education.” Studies in Higher Education 38 (5): 639-62.
Long, J. Scott, Paul D. Allison, and Robert McGinnis. 1993. “Rank advancement in academic
careers: Sex differences and the effects of productivity.” American Sociological Review 58 (5):
703-22.
Long, J. Scott, and Robert McGinnis. 1985. “The effects of the mentor on the academic career.”
Scientometrics 7 (3-6): 255-80.
Lyons, William, Don Scroggins, and Patra B. Rule. 1990. “The mentor in graduate education.”
Studies in Higher Education 15 (3): 277-85.
Muschallik, Julia, and Kerstin Pull. 2016. “Mentoring in higher education: does it enhance
mentees’ research productivity?” Education Economics 24 (2): 210-23.
Noe, Raymond A. 1988. “An investigation of the determinants of successful assigned mentor-
ing relationships.” Personnel Psychology 41 (3): 457-79.
Olian, Judy D., Stephen J. Carroll, Christina M. Giannantonio, and Dena B. Feren. 1988. “What
do proteges look for in a mentor? Results of three experimental studies.” Journal of Vocational
Behavior 33 (1): 15-37.
Ooms, Ward, Claudia Werker, and Christian Hopp. 2018. “Moving up the ladder: heterogeneity
influencing academic careers through research orientation, gender, and mentors.” Studies in
Higher Education 1-22.
Ortiz-Walters, Rowena. 2009. “Mentorship collaborations: A longitudinal examination of the
association with job performance and gender.” Journal of Business & Economic Studies 15 (1):
26-47.
Paglis, Laura L., Stephen G. Green, and Talya N. Bauer. 2005. “Does advisor mentoring add
value? A longitudinal study of mentoring and doctoral student outcomes.” Research in Higher
Education 47 (4): 451-76.
17
Pearson, Margot, and Angela Brew. 2002. “Research training and supervision development.”
Studies in Higher Education 27 (2): 135-50.
Poteat, Laura F., Kristen M. Shockley, and Tammy D. Allen. 2009. “Mentor-protégé commit-
ment fit and relationship satisfaction in academic mentoring.” Journal of Vocational Behavior
74 (3): 332-37.
Prpić, Katarina. 1996. “Scientific fields and eminent scientists’ productivity patterns and fac-
tors.” Scientometrics 37 (3): 445-71.
Pull, Kerstin, and Uschi Backes-Gellner. 2015. “(Self-)Selection, Incentives and Resources – a
Personnel Economics Perspective on Academia and Higher Education.” In Entwicklung, Stand
und Perspektiven der Wirtschaftswissenschaft, edited by H. J. Ramser, and M. Stadler, 263-
280. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Röbken, Heinke. 2009. “Career paths of German business administration academics.” Zeit-
schrift für Personalforschung 23 (3): 219-36.
Rodgers, Robert C., and Cheryl L. Maranto. 1989. “Causal models of publishing productivity
in psychology.” Journal of Applied Psychology 74 (4): 636-49.
Schrodt, Paul, Carol S. Cawyer, and Renee Sanders. 2003. “An examination of academic men-
toring behaviors and new faculty members’ satisfaction with socialization and tenure and pro-
motion processes.” Communication Education 52 (1): 17- 29.
Schulze, Günther G., Susanne Warning, and Christian Wiermann. 2008. “What and how long
does it take to get tenure? The case of economics and business administration in Austria, Ger-
many and Switzerland.” German Economic Review 9 (4): 473-505.
Smith, Buffy. 2007. “Accessing social capital through the academic mentoring process.” Equity
& Excellence in Education 40 (1): 36-46.
Wanberg, Connie R., Elizabeth T. Welsh, and Sarah A. Hezlett. 2003. “Mentoring research: A
review and dynamic process model.” Research in Personnel and Human Resource Manage-
ment 22: 39-124.
Williamson, Ian O., and Daniel M. Cable. 2003. “Predicting early career research productivity:
The case of management faculty.” Journal of Organizational Behavior 24 (1): 25-44.
18
Tables
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics
Mean
S.D.
Min
Max
Time to tenure
6.99
3.07
1
16
Teacher
5.55
1.74
1
7
Sponsor
5.03
1.77
1
7
Collaborator
5.03
2.17
1
7
Formal mentoring
0.16
0.37
0
1
Male
0.76
0.43
0
1
Children
0.53
0.50
0
1
Business
0.56
0.50
0
1
Year of birth
1970
8.28
1941
1980
International mobility
0.46
0.50
0
1
National mobility
0.68
0.47
0
1
Duration PhD
4.76
1.62
2
10
Reputation PhD
0.29
0.46
0
1
19
Table 2.
Correlation analysis
Variables
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
(1)
Time to tenure
1.00
(2)
Teacher
-0.10
1.00
(3)
Sponsor
-0.27**
0.20*
1.00
(4)
Collaborator
-0.07
0.42***
0.35***
1.00
(5)
Formal mentoring
-0.15
0.02
0.05
-0.04
1.00
(6)
Male
0.27**
-0.04
0.03
-0.01
-0.23**
1.00
(7)
Children
0.22*
-0.07
-0.14
-0.07
-0.06
0.18
1.00
(8)
Business
-0.08
-0.07
-0.12
-0.13
-0.02
0.04
0.17
1.00
(9)
Year of birth
-0.62***
0.31***
0.23**
0.40***
0.13
-0.22**
-0.22*
-0.04
1.00
(10)
International mobility
0.05
0.20*
-0.06
0.14
-0.00**
0.05
0.03
-0.24**
0.17
1.00
(11)
National mobility
0.16
0.05
-0.08
0.08
-0.42***
0.05
-0.07
-0.18
0.05
-0.05
1.00
(12)
Duration PhD
0.05
0.15
0.19*
0.19*
-0.08
-0.23**
-0.05
-0.27**
-0.00
0.04
-0.02
1.00
(13)
Reputation PhD
0.18
0.01
0.09
0.01
0.02
0.03
-0.00
-0.11
-0.07
-0.15
0.15
0.08
Notes: n = 80; tenured and right-censored data are included; *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.
20
Table 3. Results of step-wise Cox proportional hazard regression
Time to Tenure
Model (1)
Model (2)
Model (3)
Formal mentoring
1.304
1.302
1.291
(0.69)
(0.66)
(0.55)
Male
1.012
1.021
1.046
(0.04)
(0.06)
(0.10)
Children
0.821
0.931
0.830
(-0.66)
(-0.23)
(-0.52)
Business
2.211**
2.194**
1.964*
(2.23)
(2.03)
(1.65)
Year of birth
1.041**
1.066***
1.076***
(2.11)
(2.90)
(3.12)
International mobility
0.720
0.751
0.753
(-1.01)
(-0.87)
(-0.76)
National mobility
1.044
1.058
1.119
(0.11)
(0.14)
(0.22)
Duration PhD
0.928
0.922
0.932
(-0.81)
(-0.90)
(-0.67)
Reputation PhD
0.645
0.646
0.657
(-1.21)
(-1.36)
(-1.26)
Teacher
1.095
1.291
(0.49)
(0.96)
Sponsor
1.335*
1.235
(1.72)
(1.15)
Collaborator
0.640**
0.529***
(-2.43)
(-2.73)
Teacher x sponsor
1.578***
(2.72)
Teacher x collaborator
1.076
(0.44)
Sponsor x collaborator
0.932
(-0.33)
Teacher x sponsor x collaborator
1.152
(1.36)
AIC
322.983
323.048
325.436
BIC
344.421
351.632
363.549
Observations
80
80
80
Notes: Hazard ratios estimated; z-values in parentheses; *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.
