earticle

영어

What makes individual differences in the influences of mentoring functions on individual career success? As the role of social capital in organizational and individual outcomes has been underlined, scholars have shown growing interests in this question. Drawing upon mentoring theory and goal orientation research, this study aims to answer above question focusing on informal mentoring relationships in a Chinese manufacturing company. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, this study explores whether career functions reported by a protégé as provided by his or her mentor positively relates to the level of career success perceived by this protégé. Second, the study also examined whether this protégé’s performance goal orientation moderates this relationship between career functions and perceived career success. In terms of performance goal orientation, this study dealt with its two dimensions such as prove orientation and avoidance orientation. Prove orientation refers to the desire to prove one’s ability and to gain favorable judgments about it, while avoidance orientation refers to the desire to avoid the disproving of one’s ability and to avoid negative judgments about it. Data was collected through a survey with 202 employees in a Chinese company. The analysis results provided evidences for proposed hypotheses. Findings are summarized as follows. First, career functions received by a protégé showed a positive relationship with the perceived career success of this protégé. In addition, a protégé’s prove orientation negatively moderated, whereas avoidance orientation positively moderated the above relationship. The results revealing a positive impact of career functions on perceived career success indicate that informal mentoring relationship serves as an important career developmental tool in a Chinese organization.They also highlight the role of performance goal orientation in affecting this relationship. Specifically, employees with lower level of prove orientation and ones with higher level of avoidance orientation enjoyed stronger positive effects from career functions offered by their mentor to promote their career success. This study contributes theoretically to mentoring theory and motivation theory by extending the realm of research to consider the role of two dimensions of performance goal orientation. Results also provide practical implications related to human resource development in Chinese organizations, which help managers and employees who wish to flourish through mentoring relationship.