Empirical investigation of a moderating and mediating variable in between mentoring and job performance: A structural model

摘要

Human resources are valuable intangible assets in the organisation. Their needs and desires are diverse, and difficult to understand. Due to increasing size of the industry and the complexity associated with its operations and human element, many organisations have been implementing mentoring programmes. Mentoring helps in increasing the morale of the employees and motivates them to achieve organisational goals. Through mentoring, organisations see their employees more personally and obtain knowledge about their personal as well as work related needs. It is just like a thread that integrates individual and organisational-based goals. Organisations can attain manifold benefits from mentoring their employees (Allen, Eby, Poteet, Lentz, & Lima, 2004; Ismail et al., 2009; Ismail & Ridzwan, 2012; Washington, 2011). These gains are further strengthened through the presence of a mentoring culture and a mentoring structure in the organisation (Jyoti & Sharma, 2015a). There are certain employee characteristics, like self-efficacy (Pan, Sun, & Chow, 2011) and mentor's willingness, that can also boost mentoring outcomes (Ismail & Ridzwan, 2012). Various types of mentoring programmes exist in organisations, like formal and informal mentoring programmes. Formal mentoring programmes are deliberate action plans implemented by the organisation. In this programme, organisation appoints mentors, who guide, protect, coach, and counsel mentees/employees, whereas in the informal mentoring relations develop on their own (Hansman, 2000), i.e., a person approaches a favoured person (mentor) and that person agrees to form a mentoring relationship. It develops through mutual interaction or attraction (Hu, Wang, Wang, Chen, & Jiang, 2016). Ragins and Cotton (1999) explored formal as well as informal mentoring relationships and revealed that protégés with informal mentors receive greater benefits than protégés with formal mentors. Protégés with informal mentors experience more career development and psychosocial functions than protégés with formal mentors. They also found that protégés with informal mentors are more satisfied with their mentors than protégés with formal mentors. Ragins, Cotton, and Miller (2000) also examined mentoring in both formal and informal environment. They compared career and job attitudes among individuals with formal mentors and informal mentors and found that satisfaction with a mentoring relationship had a stronger impact on attitudes, irrespective of the type of relationship, i.e., formal or informal.