Results of the study

Mentoring for Women in Europe

1. Mentoring - a strategy for the professional support of women

2. The mentoring programmes evaluated

3. The effects for the mentees, the mentors and the organisations

4. Summary of the empirical results for the mentees, the mentors and the organisations

5. Parameters and criteria for the successful implementation of mentoring programmes

6. Mentoring as the cure for all ills?

7. Tables

8. Bibliography

Foreword

The topic of professional support for women has gone somewhat out of fashion in recent years, although nobody could seriously claim that there is no longer a need for measures to further equal opportunities in the European countries. The consideration of mentoring and the evaluation of existing mentoring programmes for women can therefore give an important impetus to the current debate concerning the benefits and purpose of an active equal opportunities policy. Thus it makes sense to cast a critical eye on the structures and practice of current equal opportunities policies, in order to learn from experience and contribute to the further development of such policies. The evaluation that has been carried out of various mentoring programmes for the professional support of women provides those who are interested in taking practical measures with the opportunity to profit from the experiences of others and to integrate these experiences in their own equal opportunities policy.

For enabling this work to be carried out, we are grateful to the German Federal Ministry for Family, Senior Citizens', Women's and Youth Affairs and the European Commission, both of which financed the project.

The full results of the evaluation of various mentoring programmes are documented in a comprehensive report. This abridged version contains a summary of the most essential findings and conclusions of the evaluation, and a detailed bibliography on the topic of mentoring. It is designed to make the relevant information accessible to all those who plan to work with mentoring in practice in the future, as well as those who already do so.

The successful evaluation of the mentoring programmes was also made possible thanks to the harmonious cooperation with those responsible for the various mentoring projects. All of our partners in the projects have given us constructive and committed support throughout the different phases of the evaluation, and have thus made an essential contribution to the success of the study. We would also like to thank the organisations involved and their representatives for their readiness to respond to our critical questioning, without which it would not have been possible to examine the programmes.

It is very gratifying to see that the diverse ideas and suggestions for mentoring programmes for women which we have made in the last two years have been registered with interest by companies and organisations not only in Germany, but also in other European countries. We are especially pleased that the information is being taken up and the implementation of programmes discussed in those countries in which mentoring for women was totally unknown two years ago. With this short summary, we hope to facilitate the structuring of mentoring programmes, to stimulate a constructive discussion of the topic, and to contribute to the intensified propagation of the concept of mentoring altogether. This abridged version of the report is also available in German and English on the Project's web-site.

Project "Mentoring for Women in Europe"

Irene Hofman-Lun
Simone Schönfeld
Nadja Tschirner

Deutsches Jugendinstitut e.V.
Nockherstraße 2

81541 München

Internet::www.dji.de/4_mentoringfrauen

email:hofman@dji.de

1. Mentoring - a strategy for the professional support of women

1.1 The socio-political background behind the establishment of mentoring programmes

Women in management positions are a rarity in all European countries. Although the equality of men and women is more or less firmly anchored in law, discriminatory structures continue to persist in the employment market and recruitment policy. Despite the high degree of professional qualification many women have, as well as the quantitative increase in the proportion of women in employment, it is those positions that involve responsibility, managerial tasks, and the corresponding salary, that still largely remain closed to women. In the end, the higher level of education and the increase in the number of working women have not led to women being more strongly represented in executive positions. Hence there must evidently be other, more weighty factors than the formal qualifications that give rise to women being disadvantaged. Traditional role-expectations, the cultural hegemony of the uninterrupted male full-time career, and also discriminatory mechanisms within the organisations themselves (e.g. policy on recruitment and staff training) all prevent women from achieving equality in the working world. The under-representation of women in top management is also reflected in the training and professional development seminars for management staff.

Numerous studies have examined the various reasons why women are so under-represented in management positions, or do not even apply for such positions in the first place. Empirical studies in diverse branches and areas of employment have shown that the low proportion of female applicants for positions involving managerial tasks can be traced back to several different causes. Besides the pervasive male-focused criteria for the recruitment and evaluation of personnel, other causes include the time-structures involved in management, which make it appear to be impossible to combine having a family and pursuing a career. Even if women were prepared to take on time-intensive tasks and duties despite their double or three-fold burden, the statistically differing working-time budgets for the different sexes are anticipated by the personnel managers and, as a statistical discrimination in their personnel policy, lead tendentially to the barring of women from such activities. Furthermore, there are indirect and not easily identifiable mechanisms in place in any organisation, which should not be underestimated. These include informal networks among the male staff, with the help of which men are already recognised as potential management material even before the official recruitment procedure begins, and are then supported accordingly. Being encouraged to apply for a certain post or to gain the qualifications necessary is part and parcel of this, along with the participation in discussions about future developments, which only rarely take place in official settings. Women are not formally excluded from such processes, but frequently they are simply overlooked, as these discussions take place informally amongst men.

In contrast to studies that examine the underlying causes responsible for the small number of women in management positions, this evaluation here examines the concept of mentoring as a strategy whose aim is to increase the number of women in management positions in the long-term. While classical management development programmes, which are generally open to both women and men, tend to maintain the status quo, the objective of most mentoring programmes for women is to change women's access to management altogether. With male staff being involved as well, mentoring programmes thus attempt to facilitate the access women have to internal corporate information, to increase their self-confidence and assertiveness, and to provide them with support in their career planning.

 

1.2 The concept of mentoring

The concept of mentoring has a long tradition, originating as it does in Ancient Greece. The roots of mentoring can be found in the relationship between Telemachus, Odysseus's son, and Mentor, a Greek scholar. Since this first mentoring relationship the concept has changed in many respects, but the basic underlying idea has remained the same.

The key element of mentoring is the one-to-one relationship between mentor and mentee. Within the framework of this relationship, the younger person is given support and advice. The mentors are generally experienced individuals, who commit themselves to supporting their younger partners for a specific period of time, aid them when it comes to making important decisions, and accompany them a little way on the paths of their careers. Since mentoring has so many fields of application, various definitions of the mentoring relationship and the roles of mentees and mentors have emerged. Our study focuses on the field of professional support, and the guiding definition of a mentoring relationship in this field has been formulated by Kram (1988):

The mentors help the mentees by calling on their personal knowledge and their experience of professional and career development. In doing so, the mentors attempt to provide the mentees with access to important internal networks and with insights into the established structures of the company, and also to enhance the mentee's profile within the company or organisation. An important point is that mentoring is an accompanying process, in which the mentor supports the career of the mentee outside the bounds of the normal superior-subordinate relationship. In this respect, mentoring relationships are sheltered relationships, in which learning and experimentation can thrive and potential skills and new competence can be developed. The exchange between the participants can therefore scarcely be regarded as the one-sided providing of assistance on the part of the mentor. The literature (Kram,1988; Arhén,1992) also confirms that the relationship can rather be regarded as a reciprocal exchange on both sides. What form the relationship will assume is generally a matter for the participants to decide on themselves; but both partners can mutually learn from each other and develop new perspectives, and thus profit from the process individually. The relationship between mentee and mentor is therefore determined by both parties, and cannot really be compared to any other kind of relationship.

Mentoring programmes can be differentiated according to various factors. Kram (1988) uses a four-field matrix, distinguishing between informal and formal, internal and external mentoring programmes.

 

1.3 Informal and formal mentoring

Informal and formal mentoring relationships differ from each other on the one hand in the way in which the contact comes about and on the other hand in the course the relationship follows or the context in which it takes place. With informal mentoring relationships, the contact between the mentee and mentor is established informally by the participants, whereas in formal relationships it is generally instigated by a third party. Mixed-sex mentoring relationships (with a female mentee and a male mentor) in particular can give rise to conflicts, resulting above all in the woman's successes being put down to other reasons than her actual skills and performance, should she go on to achieve success in her professional career. For this reason the formalisation of mentoring relationships can play an important part in protecting the relationship from any element of sexuality, thereby also knocking the bottom out of any potential rumours.

Formal mentoring relationships are structured as functional partnerships with a limited duration. Most mentoring programmes last for between 9 and 15 months. Whether or not the relationship is continued on an informal basis after the formal programme has ended is then generally up to the mentees and mentors. The fixed time-limit of programmes is designed to ensure that other employees also have the opportunity to participate in such a programme. In addition, the organisations responsible for programmes also hope that the time-limit will encourage more people to participate as mentors.

Besides the division into formal and informal mentoring programmes, in her conception Kram (1988) also distinguishes between internal mentoring programmes within an organisation and those organised externally.

 

1.4 Internal and external mentoring programmes

As well as programmes that are implemented internally in a company or administrative organisation, there are also external mentoring programmes, in which the mentee and mentor are employed by different companies or organisations. Although with the internal programmes the mentees and mentors come from the same company, they are not involved in an immediate working relationship with each other within the company. The conceptional framework of internal and external mentoring programmes is certainly different in some respects; but the basic underlying principle is the same in both cases. Furthermore, it is essentially the objectives of each individual programme that determine which particular elements will be involved in different programmes.

The common-core elements of mentoring programmes are above all the selection procedure and the matching of the pairs of mentees and mentors. In addition, there are programmes which offer information events, accompanying seminars on specialist topics or on personal development, and meetings to further the exchange of ideas within the groups of mentees and mentors or between the two groups.

 

1.5 Mentoring programmes for women

Mentoring programmes can be established for various different target groups. In companies, most mentoring programmes are aimed at furthering the development of young management staff and the passing on of knowledge from the older generation to the younger one. In such cases, the mentoring concept is neutral with regard to gender.

In the USA mentoring programmes specifically to further the cause of women, socially disadvantaged young people and other under-privileged groups have been going on for years. In some European countries, too, the potential of mentoring programmes for women has been discovered, as a means of breaking down old, rigid structures and opening up new, more flexible paths, in order to utilise the skills and qualifications of all employees and to facilitate the access of women to management positions in the long-term. The aim is to develop an instrument with the help of which women are able to break through the much-quoted "glass ceiling", a symbol for the structural barriers that hinder women from attaining their fair and equal share when it comes to senior management positions.

 

1.6 The research project "Mentoring for Women in Europe"

The project "Mentoring for Women in Europe", which forms part of the Fourth Action Programme for Equal Opportunities, aims to evaluate the strategy of mentoring and encourage its spread in various European countries. The first goal is that the experiences of European countries that have already carried out mentoring programmes should be made available in those countries that still have no experience with the concept. The second is to gain insights into how mentoring programmes can successfully be established, using the findings from the evaluation of three different mentoring programmes in three different countries Germany, Finland and Sweden. The main focus of the study, however, was not to examine the differences between programmes that are specific to the countries in question; our chief interest was to provide a description of a range of differing mentoring programmes, and it was only possible to achieve this by taking the various experiences from different countries into consideration.

 

1.7 Mentoring as a strategy for putting equal opportunities for women and men into practice: The starting point of the study

Mentoring for women is an innovative strategy which has been introduced in several organisations, with the objective being to put equal opportunities into practice. According to Krell (1997, p. 15), in order to make this possible it is necessary to change the nature of organisations so that all employees are able to achieve the level of professional development corresponding to their qualifications and interests. It is therefore not a case of women being supported in the sense that they are actually or supposedly given preferential treatment; in the end what is involved is the breakthrough of the achievement principle, in that conditions are created under which everybody concerned can achieve as much as they are capable or desirous of achieving. Mentoring programmes as a strategy for the professional support of women therefore have as their aim to bring to the fore and utilise the existing skills and competence of female staff especially, and to enable women in the company or organisation to be deployed as befits their skills.

As such, they are one tool by means of which an equal opportunities policy can be implemented; with their help, the long-term aim of achieving equal opportunities in the organisations and in society at large can be translated into action.

Because it is necessary to change the personnel policy of whole organisations, however, and because the decision-makers are of course predominantly male, there is always a need to pay some attention to the "support of men" ,too, and to organisation development altogether (cf. Krell, 1997, p. 16).

This is precisely the approach that mentoring programmes advocate. By actively involving various different groups of people on various different levels of a company in the programme, mentoring provides a golden opportunity to instigate positive changes within both the company and the socio-political environment. On this basis it is possible to create win-win situations in organisations, which Rudolph and Grüning (1994) postulate as the basic principle for the successful implementation of any equal opportunities policy measures. The motto "There should be no losers" might seem to be a paradox, since equal opportunities measures are designed to put an end to the unequal distribution of resources. Mentoring can, however, be an effective starting point in this direction: the programmes are indeed aimed at women first and foremost, but men are nevertheless involved in the process, especially in the role of mentors, and various groups profit as a result of the implementation of or participation in a mentoring programme. Other studies, too, have pointed towards the fact that when it comes to implementing equal opportunities measures, a participatory strategy is recommendable (Jüngling 1997, p. 54), i.e. a strategy in which the middle and lower management levels as well as skilled personnel all play a decisive part in the planning and implementation of innovations and reforms. All the same, there is often quite considerable resistance to any systematic programmes - and this includes mentoring programmes - whose objective is to increase the proportion of women in management positions and so which necessarily attempt to bring about changes in the existing power-structures in organisations. As complex instruments of organisation and personnel development, such measures call for comprehensive restructuring and an openness towards new learning processes on the part of everybody involved in a company or organisation.

This abridged version of the report provides a summary of the results. In the summary, the key findings are presented separately for the different target groups of the evaluation: the mentees, mentors and organisations. First of all, the programmes that were evaluated are introduced briefly, and the findings concerning the general degree of satisfaction among the participants is presented. Then the results from each of the three programmes are summarised in turn, and finally a more general survey is given of the essential findings of the evaluation.

 

2. The mentoring programmes evaluated

2.1 The Swedish mentoring programme

The Swedish programme that was evaluated was an internal mentoring programme carried out in a provincial assembly. 35 mentees and 35 mentors participated in the programme. This was the second mentoring programme for women that the organisation had implemented, with the support of the top management of the organisation. The following points were cited as the programmes main objectives by those responsible for its implementation:

Hence, in contrast to many other programmes, the focus was not exclusively on the promotion of the women to management positions.

How was the programme basically judged by the participants?

The Swedish mentees and mentors were very satisfied with the programme, regarding their expectations as being met by more than 85% (see Tables 1 and 2). The mentoring relationship was also evaluated as positive in almost all respects by the Swedish participants. The relationships were cooperative partnerships, and as such can be described as well-functioning, lasting mentoring relationships, in which both sides brought their own impetus to bear in the form the relationships adopted. The mentees' and mentors' expectations of the programme were very similar to each other as well. Both mentees and mentors expected to experience a personal development above all. On the other hand, professional promotion did not play a major role for the Swedish mentees. The Swedish mentors also had clear expectations that they too would profit personally from the mentoring relationship. From this the assumption can be made that there was a greater readiness to learn on the part of the Swedish mentors than was the case for instance with the mentors in the German mentoring programme.

2.2 The German mentoring programme

The German programme evaluated was carried out in a large company in the communications industry. 25 mentees and 25 mentors took part in the programme, which was planned and implemented as part of a broader "Culture Change Offensive". In contrast to the Swedish mentoring programme, there was only limited internal company support for this programme. After this initial pilot project was completed, the strategy of mentoring was not in fact integrated into the general personnel development programme as had originally been planned. The programme followed several objectives. Firstly, the unexploited resources of women should be utilized for the company; secondly, the women in the company were to be supported directly; and lastly, more women should be enabled to take up management positions. In this programme, the objectives focused on women in the company in general and the female mentees in particular.

How, then, do the participants in the German mentoring programme view the programme?

They are mostly quite satisfied with the programme, whereby their expectations were not fulfilled to the same degree as those of the participants in the Swedish programme, however (see Table 2). Considerably more of the German participants regard their expectations as remaining unfulfilled. The mentoring relationship as such, however, was evaluated by both mentees and mentors just as positively as it was by the Swedish participants. The way in which the relationship was experienced thus does not reveal any programme-specific differences, so it would seem that the personal chemistry between the mentoring pairs is the decisive factor in the evaluation of the relationship. One difference that can be mentioned is that on average the German mentoring pairs tended to have less frequent conversations than the pairs in the other programmes (see Table 3). Another is that the German mentors regarded the mentees as being clearly less equal in the relationship.

The German participants also clearly differ from the Swedish ones as far as the nature of their expectations of the programme was concerned. The German mentees solely express expectations of professional promotion, and their own personal development plays no part here, in their view. This is decidedly different from the views of the Swedish mentees, who expressed expectations of personal development above all else. The majority of German mentors express no expectations for themselves personally, but see themselves in the role of teachers in their relationship with the mentees. Since the mentees did not expect any support in their personal development from the mentors, these two role-conceptions actually seem to harmonise well with each other; indeed, the German mentoring pairs appear to have got on better with each other than the Swedish pairs did.

 

2.3 The Finnish mentoring programme

While the German and Swedish programmes were internal mentoring programmes in organisations, the Finnish mentoring programme is an external programme, which was conceived and carried out by an international women's organisation. The organisation has been carrying out external mentoring programmes for women continuously since 1993. In contrast to the internal programmes, three cycles of the mentoring programme formed the focus of the evaluation. The target group of the mentoring programme was made up of women working in all economic branches in Finland who already had a certain amount of responsibility in their positions and who wanted to change things in their professional life. The age-limit for potential mentees was 50. The objective of the programme is the professional support of women. The aim is to support them in finding and articulating their own aims, in order for them to be able to ultimately achieve them. They should also receive support when it comes to promotion to higher positions in their professions.

So how do the Finnish participants view the mentoring programme?

Like the Swedish and German participants, the participants in the Finnish programme evaluate their mentoring relationships very positively (see Table 2). The mentoring pairs generally got on very well with each other and the relationships were seen as cooperative partnerships. Although in this programme the mentees and mentors came from different organisations, there was evidently no difficulty in arranging meetings together. The expectations of the vast majority of participants were thus fulfilled. If we consider the expectations of the mentees and mentors at the start of the programme, an interesting difference from those of the Swedish and German participants can be noticed: The Finnish mentees express expectations with regard to both personal and professional development. In this respect, the Finnish mentees are the only group of the three programmes that focuses on both areas in equal measure. The expectations of the Finnish and the Swedish mentors are very similar: Both groups express expectations involving their own development as well as that of the mentees.

3. The effects for the mentees, the mentors and the organisations

What consequences for the mentees, the mentors and the organisations concerned can be ascertained as result of their participating in or implementing a mentoring programme? As was described in Section 1.7, the fundamental question underlying the whole study is whether or not it is possible for a win-win situation to be successfully established in the organisations in question, i.e. a situation in which everybody involved in the programme profits from this. In this section, we will look at the consequences for the mentees, the mentors and the organisations in turn.

 

3.1 Consequences for the mentees

The following statement was used as a yardstick to gauge the possible consequences for the mentees:

"As a result of participating in a mentoring programme, the mentees profit with regard to their professional and personal development."

The aim here was to look at different elements of development, and besides the percentage of participants in mentoring programmes who actually were promoted into management positions, the general degree of satisfaction with the programmes was also ascertained.

With regard to the purpose and functions of mentoring programmes, in the Anglo-American literature (Kram, 1986) a distinction is drawn between career-based functions on the one hand, and psycho-social functions on the other. Career-based functions comprise all of the aspects which play a part in improving the professional position of the mentee as a result of the mentoring process. These include the opportunity for the mentee to receive critical and constructive feedback, support in career-planning, and access to internal networks within the company. Furthermore, both the highlighting of the mentee's profile within the organisation and the enhancement of the mentee's professional prospects are essentially career-based functions. The impetus that the mentees receive for their own personal development is one of the key psycho-social functions. Among other things, mentoring programmes should enable the mentees to recognise and further develop their own competence and skills and increase their self-confidence - both of which are crucial preconditions for professional development and the taking on of managerial responsibility. Evaluations that only take the career-based functions of mentoring programmes into consideration, however, disregard all of the other effects which in the long term can contribute considerably to increasing the career motivation and job satisfaction of younger female employees.

The following questions were used as a test for the thesis stated at the beginning of this section:

The findings from the Swedish mentoring programme

Only in a few exceptional cases were mentees in the Swedish programme actually subsequently promoted to higher positions. With other factors that can be regarded as gauges of the mentees' professional development, there are just some indications pointing towards the areas of their careers in which the Swedish mentees have reaped benefits. For instance, half the mentees reported that they are able to cope with a greater work-load than before (see Table 4), and 43% said they are more closely involved in decision-making processes. All in all, however, the career-based effects for the Swedish mentees have to be rated as fairly negligible. Only about one third of the mentees report concrete effects on their careers as such (see Table 5). Although the mentees hesitate to claim consequences for their own personal careers, they are nevertheless convinced of the potential career-enhancing effects of the programme in general. This is demonstrated by the generally high level of agreement with statements such as "A mentoring programme for women imparts management skills to the mentees" or "A mentoring programme helps the mentee to become better-known in the company". Besides the career-enhancing effects, the other chief function of mentoring programmes is to enhance the personal development of the mentees; and it is here that the Swedish mentees see the main effect of the programme to be: The Swedish mentees expressed a high level of agreement with statements above all describing the strengthening of their own personalities.

It can thus be concluded that the Swedish mentees perceive considerably higher psycho-social effects for themselves than career-based ones. In this respect their personal development is certainly influenced by various different factors. For one thing, the Swedish mentees entered the programme with the explicit expectation of experiencing personal development as a result. What is more, in the Swedish programme there were accompanying seminars dealing directly with the personal development of the participants. These influencing factors will certainly have contributed to the fact that the Swedish mentees were able to experience personal development to such an extent.

The findings from the German mentoring programme

Like the Swedish mentees, the German mentees were also hardly able to discern concrete consequences for their careers (see Table 5). The careers of only a very small number of mentees profited directly as a result of participating in the programme. The direct effects for the mentees personally were also negligible. The German mentees, like the Swedes, rate the general effects of mentoring programmes higher than they do the personal ones. One example that can be mentioned here is the positive evaluation concerning the development of professional perspectives for the mentees. Furthermore, the fact that a contact person is available to provide support when it comes to solving potential problems is also rated positively. Other career-based effects, such as the enhanced profile of the mentee within the organisation, were not perceived, just as with the Swedish mentees. So what about the psycho-social consequences for the German mentees? These the German mentees rate as negatively as they do the career-based effects. It thus seems that the German mentees perceive neither career-based nor psycho-social consequences for themselves from the programme. One explanation for this is surely that the focus of the German mentees was very clearly on the professional development, and that aspects of personal development were only of secondary importance in the conversations. This also explains the high degree of disappointment for the German mentees: They were not able to achieve their aims regarding their professional development in such a short time. It would therefore be interesting to observe the German mentees over a longer period of time in order to see if any long-term consequences can be identified.

The findings from the Finnish mentoring programme

With the Finnish mentees, too, no clear positive changes can be registered as far as professional development and career advancement are concerned. However, in comparison to the mentees in the other countries, the Finnish mentees are the group that rate the consequences for their own careers the most positively. More than one third of the Finnish mentees perceive positive career-based effects. This evaluation is confirmed by the Finnish mentors as well, who report to almost 90% that mentees develop management competence as a result of participating in a mentoring programme. When it comes to the psycho-social effects, the rating of the Finnish mentees lies between those of the Germans and the Swedes. For the Finnish mentees is can thus be said that both career-based and psycho-social consequences have occurred to a moderate extent. Their orientation towards both areas, the personal and the professional, has evidently reaped benefits for the Finnish mentees; they are the only group that can claim a development in both areas.

 

3.2 Consequences for the mentors

To describe the consequences for the mentors, the following thesis was postulated:

"The mentors profit personally as a result of participating in a mentoring programme."

From the point of view of establishing a win-win situation within organisations, the statement above does not represent one of the explicit objectives of the mentoring programmes examined; however, it is crucially important in the context of policy when it comes to pushing through equal opportunities programmes in organisations. The question whether mentoring is conceptually a measure that is able to lead to a win-win situation provides the starting point for the thesis stated above. The concrete question is whether there is a learning effect for the mentors as a consequence of participating in a mentoring programme. The extent to which mentors are brought into contact with the whole area of equal opportunities through participating in a programme is one of the questions which need to be answered.

The key questions that examine the truth of the second thesis can be posed as follows:

1. Do mentors learn from participating in a mentoring programmes

2. What professional developments can arise for mentors as a result of their participation in a programme?

3. Do mentors undergo personal development as a result of participating in a mentoring programme?

The findings from the Swedish mentoring programme

First of all it can be stated that the Swedish mentors certainly acknowledge a learning effect for themselves. If this is considered in the light of the expectations that they expressed, namely to undergo personal development themselves, then we can say that these expectations were fulfilled. If, however, we try to pin down concrete areas of personal development for the mentors, this is only possible to a very limited extent. They do indeed attest to the general positive consequences; for example, potential effects such as "The mentoring relationship gives male mentors insight into the working situation of women", or "A mentoring programme gives mentors the opportunity to reflect on the direction of their own careers" were generally highly accepted (see Table 6). Yet learning effects for the mentors questioned can only be ascertained to a limited degree. 35% of the mentors claimed a high learning effect for themselves (see Table 7). In sum, we can thus state that although the mentors certainly do claim that they themselves have learnt something from the mentoring process, they can only sketchily name the concrete learning effects in question. All the same, the mentors are generally satisfied with their participation, which is also reflected by the fact that the vast majority of them would be prepared to act as mentors again in the future (see Table 8).

The findings from the German mentoring programme

In contrast to the Swedish mentors, the German mentors do not perceive any learning effect for themselves as a result of their relationship with the mentees. In this case, the differing conceptions of the mentor's role, which guides the orientation of the mentors, appears to have had a decisive influence on the form and the effects of the mentoring relationships. The German mentors had no expectations for themselves in the first place, and so accordingly they see no effects for themselves personally. Certain aspects describing general developments and changes, however, were in fact attested to by the mentors; for instance, they agreed that their contact to younger colleagues was certainly improved as a result of the mentoring relationship. In sum, however, only 10% of the mentors claim to have had a successful learning experience (see Table 7). This renders the German mentors the group with the lowest degree of learning success of all the groups in the three programmes.

The findings from the Finnish mentoring programme

Like the Swedish mentors, the Finnish mentors also clearly ascertained learning effects for themselves, again demonstrating that openness for one's own personal development can undoubtedly be regarded as the decisive factor influencing this development. In the Finnish mentoring programme, potential developments and changes, for instance concerning the improved insight into other working areas and contexts, cannot be ascertained. This is no surprise, in fact, considering that in such an external mentoring programme, the contact between mentees and mentors is not connected to their respective workplaces. When it comes to those effects connected with their own professional development, too, such as whether the mentor has received a new stimulus from the mentee, or whether they can perceive an improvement in their own management competence, the Finnish mentors, like the other two groups of mentors, are generally uncertain or respond in the negative. Around a quarter of the Finnish mentors, however, do admit to having become more open towards other points of view.

Nevertheless, the mentors do appear to have profited as result of participating in the mentoring programme; as many as 94% of the Finnish mentors said that they would be prepared to act as mentors again in the future.

 

3.3 Consequences for the Organisations

The attempt was also made to include the consequences for the organisations in the evaluation. The following underlying thesis focuses on the effects that mentoring programmes can have on the organisations involved:

"The organisations in which mentoring programmes are implemented profit as a result of their implementation."

The benefits that organisations can derive from personnel development programmes can be considered on different levels. Besides the personal effects for the participants themselves, and the resulting new qualifications that can be instrumentalised for the good of the organisation, actual changes within the organisation itself also play a decisive role here.

The effective deployment of human resources is an important objective for all organisations. The extent to which this succeeds overall cannot generally be ascertained. However, the concept of mentoring programmes does contain fundamental points that can help to address some problem areas in companies. For example, the communication between staff on different levels of the hierarchy that is inherent in the concept of mentoring can lead to an improvement in internal communication within the company as a whole. In order to examine the positive aspects for companies that can be achieved through the implementation of mentoring programmes, the following questions were used:

1. Do mentoring programmes improve communication between staff in an organisation?

2. Does participating in a mentoring programme increase the working motivation of staff?

3. Does participating in a mentoring programme increase the identification of staff with the organisation?

4. Do staff develop competence in communicating internal knowledge of the organisation to colleagues?

The findings from the Swedish mentoring programme

More than half the mentees in the Swedish programme confirm that participating in a mentoring programme can generally increase the employee's identification with the organisation (see Table 9). Increased efficiency at work is also perceived by the Swedish participants. Interestingly, both the Swedish mentees and mentors tend to be sceptical when it comes to the question of improved communication between staff on different levels of the hierarchy. The communication culture in Swedish companies, which is generally good anyway, could well be the reason for the fact that no particular development resulting from the mentoring programme itself could be determined. This interpretation is also supported by the fact that the Swedish mentees are the group with the most contact to other women in the organisation. Here the mentoring programme is thus not seen as having caused any fundamental changes.

The findings from the German mentoring programme

The findings here show that on the one hand the ability of the mentoring programme to increase the employees' identification with the company is viewed with greater scepticism by the German participants than by those of the other programmes (see Table 9). The lack of support from top management must have been the decisive factor leading to this very guarded response. This demonstrates that the employees of an organisation are certainly in a position to view the operations of the organisation in a critical light. On the other hand, however, the German participants see a mentoring programme as an unequivocally positive means to develop a better communication culture within a company, thus confirming that mentoring programmes can indeed fulfil their function of improving communication between employees on different levels of the hierarchy.

4. Summary of the empirical results for the mentees, the mentors and the organisations

4.1 The Swedish mentoring programme

Summarizing the Swedish programme, it can be said that all three groups examined Ð the mentees, the mentors and the organisation Ð profited from the programme. Admittedly, the effects on the career development of the mentees above all were smaller than we had originally expected; but then again, personal development is also a decisive factor for professional success. Only strong personalities will be able to achieve success in their professional careers. Apart from a high level of satisfaction with the mentoring relationship in general, clearly defined learning effects cannot be discerned for the mentors. Further studies are called for here, in order to close the current information gap and find out more about the processes involved in the exchange of ideas between mentees and mentors. As far as the organisation is concerned, there are basically two features that can be highlighted: Firstly, the organisation does benefit from the increased degree with which its employees identify with it, enabling it to carry out positive personnel development work in the long-term. Secondly, the organisation gains female employees who have improved their own skills and competence and are thus more highly qualified to serve its interests in the future. No negative reactions towards the mentees' and mentors' participation in the programme, or problems connected with the programme's implementation, emerged from the evaluation.

Hence three winning groups can be identified in the Swedish programme: the mentees, the mentors and the organisation all benefited. This is also borne out by the fact that those responsible for the programme and the top management of the organisation are already planning their next mentoring programme.


4.2 The German mentoring programme

The results of the German programme show clearly that it succeeded in forming mentoring relationships that developed positively on the personal level. Clear developments or effects for the mentees and mentors, however, can only be discerned for a few discrete points. An important cause for this was surely the one-sidedness of the objectives, concentrating on the professional development of the mentees in connection with the company's policy aim to establish more women in management positions. The mentees and mentors were therefore not able to exploit the mentoring relationship to such a full extent as for instance the Swedish pairs were. Aspects concerning the personal development of both the mentees and the mentors were evidently taken too little into consideration altogether. The findings for the organisation show clearly that the participants identify two deficits here: The organisation's commitment to furthering the position of women appears to be rather half-hearted, and the internal communication between different levels of the company hierarchy seems to be in need of some new impulses. On the basis of these findings, the organisation can only be recommended to implement another mentoring programme if it is prepared to take these problem areas into consideration.


4.3 The Finnish mentoring programme

The Finnish programme is the only programme that succeeded in developing the mentees' skills and competence in both areas - the personal and the professional. As with the two internal programmes, no definite learning effects for the mentors can be ascertained that go beyond the high degree of satisfaction in general with the programme and the mentoring relationship. Here the mentees' development in both areas is noteworthy, giving rise to the question of whether external mentoring programmes and mentoring relationships, which take place outside the mentee's normal working environment, do not actually lead to a more positive development on the part of the mentee. The motivation of the different groups of mentees is definitely another decisive factor behind the differing evaluations. While the Swedish mentees were chiefly selected to participate in the programme by their superiors, the initiative to participate in an external mentoring programme generally rests with the participants themselves. As a consequence, the Finnish mentees certainly had more clearly defined expectations for their professional development than the Swedish mentees did. This can be regarded as a clear indication that the selection procedure should also involve the initiative of the participants themselves.


4.4 Summary

If one summarises the effects for the mentees of all the programmes together, with certain reservations these can still be regarded as positive on the whole. For virtually all the mentees it is true that no career development in the sense of concrete promotion took place. While the Swedish and Finnish mentees attest to the development of psycho-social factors, this does not apply to the same extent for the German mentees. As far as the career-based factors are concerned, here only the Finnish mentees state that these have developed for them. The picture is more homogeneous for the mentors of the evaluated programmes. All the mentors agreed that mentoring comprises fundamentally positive aspects for mentors. It is difficult, however, to definitively pin down concrete areas of development for the mentors.

The effects for the organisations can also be regarded as positive on the whole. Problem areas, such as the low level of identification with the company on the part of the German participants, can in each case be put down to the circumstances specific to the programmes in question.

There are some questions that remain unanswered in connection with all of the programmes, and to find the answers further research is necessary. Above all, a more intensive analysis of the learning process can be mentioned here, in order to be able to evaluate the different mechanisms and influences at work in the mentoring relationship more effectively. In focusing more intensively on the mutual learning process, the development of the mentors should be considered to the same extent as that of the mentees. In all three programmes there was a high degree of concurrence between the expectations of the mentees and the mentors. This is surely the reason why the participants were basically satisfied with the mentoring programmes. Which conception of mentees' and mentors' roles provides the basis for the most effective mentoring relationships is a question that remains to be answered by future research.

5. Parameters and criteria for the successful implementation of mentoring programmes

Besides the fundamental component of every mentoring programme, the relationship between mentee and mentor, the concept has a multitude of possible variations, enabling each individual mentoring programme to cater for the needs of its target group as thoroughly as possible. In what follows, the criteria and parameters which should be considered in the planning and implementation of mentoring programmes are presented.

Parameters that obviously count for other types of programme as well are not cited separately here. These more general parameters and preconditions include: thorough planning, qualified personnel to implement the programme, consultation from outside if the company lacks the know-how internally, and the provision of sufficient financial and human resources to implement the programme effectively.

For the implementation of mentoring programmes the following ten criteria and parameters can be cited, each of which will be dealt with in turn in this section:

1.Clear objectives

2.The support of top management

3.Sufficient information about the objectives and conception of the programme

4.Consideration of the expectations of the mentees and mentors

5.A selection and matching procedure oriented towards the objectives of the programme

6.Accompanying seminars for the mentees

7.Training for the mentors

8.Sufficient opportunity for the exchange of ideas within the group of mentees and mentors

9.Integration of the mentoring programme in overall management development strategy

10.Realistic expectations and demands

 5.1 Clear objectives

As it emerged from the evaluation, various different aims can be pursued in the implementation of mentoring programmes. Whereas one organisation aims solely at increasing the number of women in management positions, others have the aim to improve the internal communication culture, to facilitate the exchange of ideas and experience between the generations and to provide general support for women in order to increase their motivation. Besides the explicit ones, implicit aims are also frequently pursued when mentoring programmes are carried out. In other words, apart from the clearly stated aims, other objectives also exist, which are reflected in the expectations of the organisers. If, for instance, the organisation aims to enhance the profile of the women in the company, within the framework of the mentoring programme measures must then be taken that will draw attention to the skills and competence of the women involved.

It is therefore important that the objectives of the programme are clearly stated and that the means with which these objectives can be achieved are established. Only then can the individual elements that go to make up the programme be determined and planned.

5.2 The support of top management

Internal mentoring programmes for women in particular support one group of employees while being closed to another, in this case the men. In order to avoid internal conflicts that could potentially result from this state of affairs, it is absolutely essential that the reasons why the implementation of such a programme is important and meaningful are explained in full to all the employees. This task should be undertaken by the top management. To be able to make a clear commitment to the support of female staff, however, a precondition for the top management is that they really do support the programme without reservation and have themselves recognised the necessity of such a programme for the company's personnel development altogether. It has thus emerged that to implement a mentoring programme successfully, it is crucial to secure the support of the top management.


5.3 Sufficient information about the objectives and conception of the programme

For most organisations and their employees, mentoring programmes for women are something quite new. Unlike with traditional management development programmes, frequently neither the employees nor the management actually know what to expect with a mentoring programme. In contrast to classical training seminars, mentoring programmes involve supporting individuals directly - but nevertheless, the implication is that through the mentoring relationship the mentees will have contact with other working areas within the organisation, and therefore it is of decisive importance that detailed information about the programme is provided for the whole of the organisation. That is to say, all groups - the employees, the management, the employees' committee etc. - should be informed about the aims, the target group, the selection criteria, the concept itself, and the way in which it is planned to implement the programme. Furthermore, what is expected of the mentees and the mentors in the programme should also be clearly stated. If one of the objectives of the programme is that the mentees should be enabled to gain access to new networks, the mentors need to be informed of the expectations the mentees will have of them to assist them in making new contacts and introducing them into their networks. While the programme is being implemented, too, the continuous and comprehensive flow of publicity, both internally and externally, should be a priority. Only if this is the case can it be ensured that the participants, with their skills and competence, have a visible profile, in order that they have the possibility of promotion to management positions in the long-term.


5.4 Consideration of the expectations of the mentees and mentors

The fulfilment of the mentees' and mentors' expectations are a key gauge for the evaluation of mentoring programmes. What is now taken for granted in training seminars, namely the taking into consideration of the participants' expectations, has still not become firmly established practice when it comes to mentoring programmes. Yet the evidence shows that on the one hand the expectations are influenced by the official objectives of the programme, and that on the other hand they play a decisive role in the participants' satisfaction with the programme. The primary aim of most mentoring programmes is indeed to increase the number of women in management positions, but nevertheless it should still be taken into account that under certain circumstances it will be necessary to break this aim down into several smaller components. As we have seen, mentoring programmes can achieve excellent results in terms of the psycho-social effects for the mentees. If, however, the participants are led to believe at the beginning of the programme that they are potential management material and their promotion to management positions is to be supported, but then they do not actually receive any real support form the company, the company's objectives will not appear to be credible. In order to exploit both the career-based and the psycho-social functions of mentoring programmes, it must be clearly signalised to the participants that apart from professional development, personal development is also called for as a basis for a career in management.


5.5 A selection and matching procedure oriented towards the objectives of the programme

The main focus of the mentoring programme is the mentoring relationship between the mentee and the mentor. For both parties it is generally a new experience to talk openly about problems and also personal matters with somebody they have only recently become acquainted with. Therefore, it is very important that the two parties basically get on with each other. Apart from this, however, other aspects also play a role in the mentoring relationship, such as the working areas the participants come from, for instance. The expectations that the mentees and mentors have of their participation in the programme should not be underestimated, either. Although the expectations need not coincide completely, they should at least fit together well or complement each other. Which selection procedure is chosen depends to a certain extent on the capacity and resources available, though. The choice of selection procedure should be oriented towards the objectives of the programme in the end. When the potential mentees are asked to take the initiative and apply to participate themselves, the programme will generally end up with highly motivated, and ambitious, participants. This is an important precondition, especially if the objective is to get more women into management positions.


5.6 Accompanying seminars for the mentees

Even though the mentoring relationship forms the core of a mentoring programme, seminars for the mentees are nonetheless an important additional component. While the mentees are generally on their own in the relationship with the mentor, in the seminars they have the opportunity to discuss their experiences with other mentees. In addition, the seminars can provide the same kind of input that is offered by other, mixed-sex, management development seminars, thus ensuring that the mentoring programme is integrated in the overall management development programme rather than being treated as a special case. What is more, in such seminars the mentees can discover something about the workings and structures of the organisation and learn strategies to enable them to cope with problems that arise and barriers that they might encounter. Before the mentoring programme, the mentees will generally not have had the opportunity to become involved with women's networks within the company, these being so rare anyway. In the past they may have viewed the difficulties they have had in getting ahead in their careers as being their own fault. Most of them would claim not to have been discriminated against. Structural discrimination is a concept that only few are aware of. The seminars accompanying mentoring programmes thus can and should be used as a means of strengthening women in their working environment, informing them about structures within the company, and enabling them to exchange ideas and experiences with other women from the same organisation. In the case of external mentoring programmes, seminars can play a part in facilitating networking among the mentees, informing them about the barriers that prevail in the working world, and supporting them by means of constructive feedback. Seminars on the situation of women in management, for instance, can help women to perceive the difficulties they have encountered as a structural problem rather than a personal failure, and to develop new strategies for dealing with this.


5.7 Training for the mentors

It has already been mentioned that many of the mentors will be taking part in a mentoring programme for the first time. They do not know what is expected of them and how they should handle their role. Whilst most programmes offer seminars for the mentees to enable them to acquire additional skills and competence, many programmes neglect the fact that it makes good sense to provide accompanying seminars for the mentors as well.

Of the mentoring programmes we evaluated, the Swedish and Finnish programmes both offered preparatory seminars for the mentors, to provide them with some insights into their forthcoming role. Every mentor has certain ideas about the mentor's role. Some see themselves in the role of teachers, while others are seeking the exchange of ideas; some perceive their task as offering leadership for the mentee and providing them with assistance and solutions, while others again aim to encourage the mentee's own initiative. In the end, it is up to the mentors themselves to fill their role as they see fit, but it is nonetheless important to make the various different ways in which their role can be filled quite clear to them, and to point out what might be a hindrance and what might be beneficial for the mentee's development.

Furthermore, in the Swedish and Finnish programmes it proved to be very useful for the mentors to become familiarised with the working situation of their female colleagues and the state of affairs for women in employment altogether. Male mentors especially are generally not very well acquainted with the situation in which the women in the company find themselves. The existence of gender-specific barriers is only rarely acknowledged by them. Mentoring programmes can therefore also be utilised to enable men to gain more insight into these problems. They can of course gain this insight through the personal contact with the mentee, but on the other hand, it has also proved to be useful and effective to provide additional seminars in which gender-specific topics are dealt with and discussed.


5.8 Sufficient opportunity for the exchange of ideas within the group of mentees and mentors

The mentees and mentors are two groups of people with differing expectations, ideas and problems. Whereas most programmes do provide the mentees with the opportunity to exchange their ideas and experiences among themselves, many programmes fail to recognise the fact that the mentors also need sufficient opportunity to do the same. When mentoring programmes are established as pilot schemes, taking on the role of mentor is a new, unknown challenge for most mentors-to-be. They generally do not know what to expect themselves, what is expected of them, how they should act towards and react with the mentees, or how they can deal with all the potential problems that could arise. On the one hand it is important that the organisers of the programme provide the mentors with competent support and advice. On the other hand, though, the mentors state explicitly that they have the need to converse with others who are in the same situation as they are themselves, i.e. other mentors. With other mentors they can exchange ideas about their role, the procedure they have adopted, the limitations they are under and the potential consequences of the programme; or they simply have the chance to meet with others who have made the same decision to concern themselves with the development of younger employees in the company or organisation. When this is the case, mentoring programmes can contribute to furthering the more general exchange of ideas among the management and across the boundaries of different departments in the company as well, thus leading to the long-term improvement of internal communication within the organisation.


5.9 Integration of the mentoring programme in overall management development strategy

In most mentoring programmes, the immediate superiors of the mentees do not play a role. For the long-term success of mentoring programmes, however, it may well be a good idea to consider involving the mentees' superiors to a greater extent, even if this only takes the form of sensitising the mentees to the need to keep their superiors better informed about the programme and the way in which it is proceeding. In the Swedish programme some of the mentoring pairs took the initiative to carry out three-way conversations involving the mentor, the mentee and the mentee's superior. By giving the mentee's superior the opportunity to get to know his/her colleague's mentor, potential misgivings on the part of the superior were overcome. After all, we have to bear in mind that the superior is well aware that the mentee discusses matters concerning her daily working life, and this might of course include difficulties the mentee may have with her superior. Especially with internal programmes it is therefore a good idea if potential distrust can be reduced as a result of more personal contact between the mentor and the mentee's immediate superior. It is also conceivable that after the programme has ended another three-way conversation could take place, in which the mentor could elucidate the strengths and abilities of the mentee from his or her own point of view and discuss the the extent to which he or she could discern a development on the part of the mentee. This could help to bring the skills and competence of the mentee to the fore. In the end mentoring programmes should be regarded as one element involved in career-development, but by no means as its end. To ensure the long-term success of the mentoring programme, it is therefore vital that when the programme finishes, the participants and the mentee's superior, perhaps with a representative from the personnel department, should spend some time thinking about what further steps are possible and appropriate for the mentee's future development within the company or organisation. Otherwise there is a real danger that the positive effects achieved up to that point will not bear further fruit in the future.


5.10 Realistic expectations and demands

Many mentoring programmes are initially planned as pilot schemes; after one cycle has been implemented, the programme is evaluated to see if it should be continued, and if so, in which form. Depending on their cultural background, however, the organisations implementing the programmes deal with their findings in different ways. While in Sweden, for instance, an evaluation provides the means to identify problems and mistakes, in order to be able to remedy them without calling into question the future of the programme as a whole, elsewhere there is a tendency for the organisations to put an end to the whole process when problems arise. Yet with mentoring programmes it is absolutely crucial that long-term planning is involved. The desired effects cannot be achieved as a result of a one-year piloting phase. Frequently pilot schemes are programmes that are not yet fully developed, and they require a certain amount of modification if they are to take full effect. Large companies such as Volvo and Saab in Sweden have been implementing mentoring programmes for several years now, and it has emerged that when such programmes are planned and fully embedded in company policy in the long-term, career-based effects can be achieved that could not be measured within the short-term framework of our evaluation.


6. Mentoring as the cure for all ills?

Mentoring programmes are slowly but surely becoming fashionable. Since so many other support concepts and development programmes have proved to have no effect, mentoring programmes are often regarded as the solution for all prevailing problems. It is important, however, to bear in mind that mentoring programmes can hardly help when it comes to modernising an entire corporate culture and solving all problems. Great demands are made on the programmes, and correspondingly, exceptional characters are sought to participate in them. The initial information about a programme often contains a whole catalogue of requirements for prospective mentees and mentors. If a programme is to be planned and implemented effectively and realistically, however, it would make sense to consider from the outset which requirements are indispensable and which are desirable but perhaps not essential. Moreover, the expectation should not be aroused that mentees will automatically find themselves in higher management positions after participating in a programme. If careful career-planning does not take place right at the beginning of a programme and deliberate steps are not taken during the programme to put these into practice, it is likely that no clear changes will be noticeable. However, if the impression is created at the outset that the programme is solely geared towards getting more women into management positions in a short time, it is only to be expected that the programme will not be regarded as a success Ð on the one hand by the top management, who were led to believe that this aim could realistically be achieved, and on the other hand by the mentees, who were misled into expecting rapid promotion in their careers. It is therefore important to bring the aims and objectives in line with the requirements and long-term planning, and not to sell the programme as being something it is not, namely a panacea to cure all ills.

7. Tables
 
Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
Table 4
Table 5
Table 6
Table 7
Table 8
Table 9
 
 8. Bibliography

Further reading on mentoring:

Arhén, Gunilla; 1992: Mentoring in Unternehmen. Patenschaften zur erfolgreichen Weiterentwicklung, Landsberg

Conway, Ch.; 1995: Mentoring Managers in Organisations. Sonderheft von Equal Opportunities International, No.3 / 4

Kram, Kathy E.; 1986: Mentoring in the Workplace, in: Hall, D.T. (Hrsg.), Career Development in organizations, San Francisco, S. 161-201

Kram, Kathy E., 1988: Mentoring at Work, Developmental Relationships in Organizational Life, Lanham

Mellow, 1998: Good practice Handbook on mentoring of girls and women in or towards technical jobs, Amsterdam/ Delft

Nerad, Maresi; 1996: "Mentoring" auf den zweiten Blick – einige provokative Thesen, in: Metz-Göckel, S./ Wetterer, A. (Hg.): Vorausdenken – Querdenken- Nachdenken, Texte für Ayla Neusel, Frankfurt am Main, S. 119 - 123

Schliesselberger, Eva / Strasser, Sabine; 1998: In den Fußstapfen der Pallas Athene? Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Mentoring von unterrepräsentierten Gruppen im universitären Feld. Materialien zur Förderung von Frauen in der Wissenschaft, Wien

Segermann-Peck, L.M.; 1991: Networking & Mentoring. A Women´s Guide. Judy Piatkus Ltd., London

 

Further reading on the professional support of women and on women in management:

Assig, Dorothea / Beck, Andrea; 1996: Frauen revolutionieren die Arbeitswelt. Das Handbuch zur Chancengerechtigkeit, München

Autenrieth, Christine; 1996: Wandel im Personalmanagement – Differenzierung und Integration im Interesse weiblicher Führungskräfte, Wiesbaden

Dienel, Christiane; 1996: Frauen in Führungspositionen in Europa, München

Domsch, Michel E./Hadler, Antje/Krüger, Detlev; 1994: Personalmanagement & Chancengleichheit. Betriebliche Maßnahmen zur Verbesserung beruflicher Chancen von Frauen in Hamburg, München/Mering

Ebner, Hermann, G.; 1997: Weiterbildung von Mitarbeiterinnen, in: Krell, G.: Chancengleichheit durch Personalpolitik, Wiesbaden, S. 129-144

Faber, Leopoldine; 1994: Konzepte der Personalentwicklung in Organisationen, in: Buch, Christine/Frech, Monika/Mayerhofer, Helene/Pachlinger, Ilse (Hg.), Bildungsfrauen – Frauenbildung, Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede von Frauen in Forschung und Praxis, Wien, S. 209-217

Goldmann, Monika/Meschkutat, Bärbel/Tenbensel, Bernd; 1993: Präventive Frauenförderung bei technisch-organisatorischen Veränderungen. Weiterbildung – Personaleinsatz – Arbeitsgestaltung, Opladen.

Höyng, Stephan/Puchert, Ralf; 1998: Die Verhinderung der beruflichen Gleichstellung. Männliche Verhaltensweisen und männerbündische Kultur, Bielefeld

Jüngling, Christiane; 1997: Strategien der Implementierung von Gleichstellungsmaßnahmen, in: Krell, G.: Chancengleichheit durch Personalpolitik, Wiesbaden 1997, S. 47-56

Krell, Gertraude / Osterloh, Margit (Hg.); 1993: Personalpolitik aus der Sicht von Frauen – Frauen aus der Sicht der Personalpolitik, München und Mering

Krell, Gertraude (Hg.); 1997: Chancengleichheit durch Personalpolitik, Wiesbaden/Mering

Lange, Ralf; 1998: Geschlechterverhältnisse im Management von Organisationen, München

Riegraf, Birgit; 1996: Geschlecht und Mikropolitik. Das Beispiel betrieblicher Gleichstellung. Opladen

Rudolph, Hedwig/Grüning, Marlies; 1994: Frauenförderung: Kampf- oder Konsensstrategie?, in: Beckmann, Petra/Engelbrech, Gerhard (Hrsg.), Arbeitsmarkt für Frauen 2000 – Ein Schritt vor oder ein Schritt zurück? Kompendium zur Erwerbstätigkeit von Frauen, Beiträge zur Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung 179, Nürnberg, S. 773-796

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