Impact of national and organisational culture on mentoring environment in Indian context

Abstract

The need to familiarise and sensitise employees towards organisation culture and their job context is addressed by HR professionals through various approaches. Among these, mentoring intervention has acquired a prominent place. However, in instituting mentoring programmes, organisations often neglect broader cultural issues both national and organisational. This is all the more true in Indian organisations wherein lesser emphasis is given on local social milieu and its impact on employees in terms of their attitude towards mentoring. Case study approach has been adopted to substantiate the conceptual tenets of the proposed model. It is argued that mentoring is a culturally sensitive process and organisations have to be sensitive to the social context while implementing any mentoring initiative. This paper provides an original perspective on factors responsible for success of mentoring initiative.