Does culture influence mentoring perspectives? A comparative study of India and the U.S

Culture has been shown to influence a variety of perspectives and behaviors. And culture often varies, on average, between countries. As accounting firms and many other service-providing firms shift more outsourcing work to other countries, and especially to India, it is crucial to understand how culture might influence their work practices. One such practice is mentoring, which is critically important in the accounting profession. In this study, we examine two related associations. First, we compare the mentoring perceptions of survey respondents (who proxy for business professionals) in two culturally different countries: India and the US. After identifying significant differences between the two groups, we expand our analysis to consider the association between espoused national culture and mentoring perspectives. This study uses a large sample of survey respondents – graduate business students from the US (n = 422) and from India (n = 442) – to evaluate these relationships. Utilizing regression analyses, we find that career development and role modeling seem less important in India than in the US, whereas social support seems more important in India. These effects seem to be driven primarily by the espoused national culture dimensions of power distance for career development, collectivism for social support, and uncertainty avoidance for role modeling. Our findings have practical implications for multinational companies, including large US-based public accounting firms.