Mentoring and Same Gender as a Predictor of Individuals’ Psychosocial Behaviour:Case Study of a Malaysian University

Most human resource development literature depicts formal and informal mentoring as the main components of a mentoring programme, and most findings of extant research have shown that the effects of mentoring programmes on individuals’ psychosocial behaviour are indirectly affected by same gender mentoring. However, the nature of this relationship is less emphasized in most mentoring models and as such, this article contends that if a mentoring programme is properly implemented, there is potential for enhancing individuals’ psychosocial behaviour. Results from stepwise regression analysis from 153 usable questionnaires gathered from a collection of former employees of a public university in Sarawak showed two important findings. First, there is a high significant relationship between same gender and formal mentoring in relation to individuals’ psychosocial behaviour and second, there is a significant correlation with individuals’ psychosocial behaviour in terms of the relationship between same gender and informal mentoring. These results reveal the effects of same gender as the mediating variable in the mentoring model of the organizational sample.