Can Proteges be Successfully Socialized Without Socialized Mentors?: A Close Look at Mentorship Formality

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Chun-Chi Yang, Changya Hu, Lisa E. Baranik and Chia-Yu LinClose Look at Mentorship Formality

Can Protégés be Successfully Socialized Without Socialized Mentors?: A

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Article

Can Proteges beSuccessfully SocializedWithout SocializedMentors?: A Close Lookat Mentorship Formality

Chun-Chi Yang1, Changya Hu2, Lisa E. Baranik3, andChia-Yu Lin1

AbstractUsing social cognitive career theory as a theoretical foundation, we examined therelationship between mentor and protege organizational socialization as well as themediating role of career, psychosocial, and role-modeling support received byproteges. We also examined the moderating role of mentorship formality in therelationship between mentor socialization and the receipt of career, psychosocial,and role-modeling support. Using survey data collected from 209 ongoing mentoringdyads from five banks in Taiwan, regression results indicated that mentor socializa-tion was positively related to career functions and role modeling that protegesreceived, as well as protege socialization. Career support partially mediated the rela-tionship between mentor socialization and protege socialization. Mentorshipformality moderated the relationship between mentor socialization and psychoso-cial support, suggesting that the positive relationship between mentor socializationand psychosocial functions only bears out in informal mentoring relationships. Weoffer a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

1 Department of Business Administration, Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan2 Department of Business Administration, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan3 Department of Psychology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Changya Hu, Department of Business Administration, National Chengchi University, No. 64, Sec. 2,

ZhiNan Rd., Taipei City, 11605, Taiwan.

Email: [email protected]

Journal of Career Development40(5) 408-423

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Keywordsmentoring functions, socialization, formal mentoring, informal mentoring, socialcognitive career theory

Given the rapidly changing economic environment and increasing trend toward pro-

tean careers, organizational socialization is a key issue for both companies and

employees. Organizational socialization, or onboarding, is critical to individuals’

adjustment to their work contexts (Bauer, Bodner, Erdogan, Truxillo, & Tucker,

2007; Fisher, 1986; Saks, Uggerslev, & Fassina, 2007; Schein, 1968; Van Maanen

& Schein, 1979), and adjustment initiatives have increased (Bauer et al., 2007; Saks

et al., 2007). One effective method of socializing employees is through workplace

developmental relationships, such as mentoring (Chao, 1997; Chao, Walz, &

Gardner, 1992; Feldman & Bolino, 1999; Gibson, 2004; Murphy & Ensher, 2001;

Ostroff & Kozlowski, 1993; Saks et al., 2007; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979).

Although some studies have attempted to link mentoring with protege socializa-

tion (Feldman & Bolino, 1999; Thomas & Lankau, 2009), none of the available stud-

ies have considered the role of the mentor’s own organizational socialization.

Because mentor socialization reflects the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that

mentors may pass on to proteges, mentor socialization may impact the effectiveness

of the mentoring relationship. Furthermore, mentoring formality may moderate the

relationship between mentors’ organizational socialization and mentoring support

due to the initiation, attraction, and trust differences in formal and informal mentor-

ing relationships (Allen, Day, & Lentz, 2005; Chao et al., 1992).

In the current study, we adopted the perspective of social cognitive career theory

(SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 2002) to investigate the mediating role of mentor-

ing functions between mentor socialization and protege socialization. We examined

whether mentorship formality moderates the relationship between mentor socializa-

tion and mentoring functions. Employees in the banking industry in Taiwan were

surveyed, which allowed us to examine mentoring relationships in non-Western con-

texts, an area that has been neglected in mentoring scholarship.

Organizational Socialization: An SCCT Perspective

Organizational socialization refers to learning organizational values, norms,

knowledge, and skills (Ashforth, Sluss, & Harrison, 2007; Bauer et al., 2007;

Chao, O’Leary-Kelly, Wolf, Klein, & Gardner, 1994; Saks & Ashforth, 1997;

Schein, 1968; Van Maanen & Schein, 1979), which leads to better adjustment, job

attitudes, and job performance (Bauer et al., 2007). Organizational socialization is

a lifelong process for both proteges and mentors who are continually adapting their

roles within frequently changing, dynamic organizations (Chao et al., 1994;

Thomas & Lankau, 2009). A highly socialized employee demonstrates understand-

ing of the organization’s performance proficiency, people, politics, language,

Yang et al. 409



goals, values, and organizational history (Chao et al., 1994; Feldman, 1981; Fisher,

1986; Schein, 1968).

Rooted in social learning theory (Bandura, 1986), SCCT (Lent et al., 2002) stres-

ses that learning experiences are critical to an individual’s career development by

facilitating vocational interest development, career choices, and career-related per-

formance. One important situational factor of career development is contextual

affordances, which refer to environmental resources (Lent et al., 2002). We propose

that mentors’ level of socialization represents a critical type of contextual affor-

dance. Because individuals’ learning experiences are shaped by observing and

imitating others (Bandura, 1986), mentors’ socialization provides valuable resources

(e.g., job-related knowledge) and opportunities for proteges to learn about the orga-

nization through processes such as role modeling (Ostroff & Kozlowski, 1993). Con-

sistent with SCCT, employees with mentors are more likely to report higher

self-efficacy (Day & Allen, 2004) and may have a clearer understanding about the

consequences of their work-related behaviors (i.e., outcome expectancies).

Socialized mentors may be perceived as role models, as these mentors are veter-

ans with higher performance, less stress, and high levels of adjustment (Ashforth

et al., 2007; Saks et al., 2007). Proteges may also perceive the degree of their

mentors’ organizational socialization as an available resource for their own sociali-

zation. In this regard, highly socialized mentors are more likely to act as key orga-

nizational agents who can accurately convey performance expectations,

organizational goals and values, information about people and politics, and language

used in the organization. Because the protege is more likely to trust and respect a

socialized mentor, and because the socialized mentor has a lot of knowledge to

transmit, we expect that socialized mentors reinforce proteges’ career interests and

choices, which leads to better performance (Lent et al., 2002; Richie et al., 1997). In

other words, we propose that socialized mentors are key figures who help to guide

the proteges’ perceptions of the work environment which, in turn, is reflected in the

proteges’ own organizational socialization. From the SCCT perspective, proteges

with socialized mentors will have higher self-efficacy and a higher set of expecta-

tions, which relates to interests, choice goals, choice actions, and performance that

aligns with the organization. These focused choice behaviors will be reflected in

protege socialization. As such, we propose:

Hypothesis 1: Mentor socialization will be positively related to protege

socialization.

Mentoring Functions as the Mediators

Mentor socialization may also relate to protege socialization through mentors’ pro-

vision of mentoring functions. Kram’s (1983) seminal research specified that

career functions support the proteges’ task domains and include mentors’ provi-

sion of sponsorship, exposure, and visibility, providing opportunities to develop

410 Journal of Career Development 40(5)



job-related knowledge and skills, coaching and protection of proteges. Psychoso-

cial functions support the social–psychological domain and include mentors’ pro-

vision of role modeling, counseling, friendship, and acceptance and confirmation.

Recent mentoring literature recognizes role modeling as a third type of function, in

which proteges take on an active role in mentorships (Castro & Scandura, 2004;

Hu, Pellegrini, & Scandura, 2011). Cross-cultural studies suggest that mentoring

is best understood by the three functions. For example, Taiwanese respondents per-

ceive that there are three distinct mentoring functions and respond to the answering

anchors in a similar way to U.S. samples (Hu et al., 2011).

We argue that, from the SCCT perspective, both the mentor’s provision of

career and psychosocial functions and the protege’s active role in seeing the men-

tor as a role model mediate the relationship between mentor socialization and pro-

tege socialization, as the mentoring functions represent an important learning

experience for the protege. First, highly socialized mentors have more information

to share with their proteges via mentoring functions. Second, highly socialized

mentors will have more psychosocial resources, such as high job satisfaction,

internal work motivation, and job involvement (Bauer et al., 2007; Feldman,

1981; Saks et al., 2007), meaning that highly socialized mentors feel less stressed

and more satisfied (Ashforth et al., 2007; Saks & Ashforth, 1997) and therefore

have more interpersonal resources to provide meaningful learning experiences for

their proteges. Finally, mentors with high organizational socialization are influen-

tial in the organization, which leads them to have more political savvy, power and

strong professional networks to provide to their proteges. As such, we propose the

following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Career, psychosocial, and role-modeling mentoring functions

that proteges receive mediate the relationship between mentor socialization

and protege socialization.

Mentorship Formality as the Moderator

Formal mentoring relationships involve some organizational assistance such as

assigning mentors, whereas informal relationships develop spontaneously (Ragins

& Cotton, 1999). We argue that the degree of formality of a mentoring relationship

may moderate the relationship between mentor socialization and mentoring func-

tions for several reasons. First, mentors and proteges experience higher levels of

interpersonal comfort and attraction in informal mentoring relationships (Kram,

1983; Ragins & Cotton, 1999). Second, proteges may feel more comfortable proac-

tively requesting assistance from their informal mentors, which may be interpreted

as initiative. Mentors often perceive such behaviors as being favorable and thus are

more willing to provide mentoring functions in the future (Hu, Thomas, & Lance,

2008). Furthermore, because informal mentoring relationships tend to emerge when

both parties are interested, proteges’ role modeling, admiration, and recognition can

Yang et al. 411



enhance their mentors’ self-esteem, thereby facilitating more frequent interactions

(Chao et al., 1992; Kram, 1983).

We also explore the importance of mentoring relationships in Chinese societies.

Guanxi refers to close relationships that are characterized by high exchange rates

and are critical to career success in Chinese organizations (Tsui, Farh, & Xin,

2000). In this regard, especially in Chinese organizations, it is possible that the

exchange quality between the mentor and the protege may be quite different between

formal and informal mentorships. Formal mentors may feel reluctant to provide

mentoring support since the formal mentorships are less likely to become close

relationships and may reserve valuable resources for their informal proteges. In other

words, highly socialized formal mentors may not necessarily provide a great deal of

mentoring functions to proteges, even though they are capable of doing so. There-

fore, we expect that the positive relationship between mentor socialization and

mentoring functions will be weaker in formal mentorships than in informal mentor-

ships. As such, we propose:

Hypothesis 3: Mentorship formality moderates the relationship between

mentor socialization and mentor functions, such that the relationship between

mentor socialization and mentor functions is stronger for informal mentoring

relationships than formal relationships.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Executive MBA and continuing education students of the business administration

department in a private university located in Northern Taiwan were contacted to

provide lists of three to five potential participants who worked in the banking indus-

try. We contacted potential protege participants, briefed them on the purpose of our

study, and invited them to participate in our research. Paired questionnaires contain-

ing protege and mentor surveys were distributed to proteges who agreed to join our

research and would distribute the survey to their mentors. For proteges who were

involved in more than one mentoring relationship, we asked them to answer the

question based on the most recent mentoring relationship and to distribute the survey

to their most recent mentor. To prevent potential response biases, in the cover letter,

we emphasized that each participant should complete the surveys separately and

mail their completed surveys directly to the researchers. All the questionnaires

were completed anonymously and matching codes were used to pair returned

questionnaires.

Of the 379 questionnaire packages distributed, 251 proteges and 240 mentors

returned the completed forms, resulting in a final sample of 209. A total of 143 men-

torships (68%) were formal and the average length of the mentoring relationship was

1.43 years (SD ¼ 1.32). Sixty-six percent of the mentors and 65% of the proteges




were female. The average age of the mentors was 36.21 (SD ¼ 6.79), and 30.84 (SD

¼ 6.12) for the proteges. The average tenure for the mentors and the proteges was

7.36 (SD ¼ 5.24) and 1.42 (SD ¼ .57) years, respectively.

Measures

Because traditional Chinese was the native language for all respondents, all items

were translated from English into traditional Chinese from established scales using

Brislin’s (1980) back-translation approach. All items were measured on a 5-point

Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), except for

demographic variables and mentorship formality. Cronbach’s a values for all scales

used in the present study are listed in Table 1.

Mentoring functions. Protege participants answered the 9-item Mentoring Func-

tions Questionnaire (MFQ9; Castro & Scandura, 2004). In past research, the coeffi-

cients a for the overall scale, career support, psychosocial, and role modeling were

.89, .83, .83, and .81 in the United States and .91, .87, .87, and .84 in Taiwan

(Hu et al., 2011). The MFQ9 has been shown to be conceptually equivalent across

the United States and Taiwan (Hu et al., 2011). For instance, confirmatory factor

analyses supported full configural and metric invariance as well as partial scalar

invariance across the two groups.

Organizational socialization. Both mentor and protege participants responded to

the organizational socialization scale (Chao et al., 1994). This scale has 34 items

and measures six subdimensions of organizational socialization. Following pre-

vious studies in organizational socialization (e.g., Thomas & Lankau, 2009),

overall organizational socialization was used to present the level of organiza-

tional socialization. The coefficients a in our study (Table 1) were similar to the

values (.88) reported by Thomas and Lankau (2009). We identified one study that

used the 34-item organizational socialization scale on a sample from Taiwan.

Lin and Lee (2010) reported a value of .96 for the reliability coefficient of

their sample.

Formality of the mentorship. The formality of the mentoring relationship was mea-

sured by one item ‘‘Is the mentorship assigned or paired by the organization?’’ This

operationalization is similar to previous studies (e.g., Ragins & Cotton, 1999).

Demographic and control variables. Previous research suggests that employees’

organizational tenure positively correlates with socialization; the longer an individ-

ual worked for an organization, the more likely the individual is socialized into the

organization (Chao et al., 1994; Thomas & Lankau, 2009). Furthermore, gender and

the length of the working relationship between mentor and the protege also have sig-

nificant relationships with protege socialization (Thomas & Lankau, 2009). Thus,

we controlled for the following variables in our analyses: the length of the

Yang et al. 413



Tab

le1.

Coef

ficie

nts

a,M

eans,

Stan

dar

dD

evia

tions,

and

Corr

elat

ions

ofth

eSt

udy

Var

iable

s(N¼

209).

Mea

nSD

12

34

56

78

910

11

1.M

ento

rse

xa

1.6

5.4

82.M

ento

rte

nure

a4.4

41.6

5–.0

63.Pro

tege

sex

a1.6

5.4

8.2

1**

–.0

14.Pro

tege

tenure

a3.9

01.0

9–.1

0.2

0**

–.0

85.Le

ngt

hofm

ento

rship

1.4

31.3

2–.0

5–.0

2.1

3.3

8**

6.M

ento

rship

form

alitya

1.3

2.4

7–.1

1–.0

4–.0

6.0

2.0

77.M

ento

rso

cial

izat

ion

3.7

5.3

9.0

2.2

0**

–.1

0–.0

3–.0

2–.0

4(.91)

8.C

aree

rm

ento

ring

3.7

3.6

1–.1

0–.0

9–.1

9**

–.1

1–.1

1.0

2.2

3**

(.86)

9.Psy

choso

cial

men

tori

ng

3.6

1.7

0–.0

1–.0

6.0

4.0

4.0

4.0

0.0

5.4

4**

(.79)

10.R

ole

model

ing

3.8

7.5

9–.0

6.0

4.0

0–.0

5–.1

2–.1

0.1

5*

.41

**.4

5**

(.79)

11.Pro

tege

soci

aliz

atio

n3.6

3.3

4–.0

6.0

5–.0

2.0

9.0

0.0

2.3

0**

.33

*.3

0**

.24

**(.87)

a Sex:1¼

mal

e,2¼

fem

ale.

Men

tors

hip

form

ality:

1¼

form

al,2¼

info

rmal

.Len

gth

oft

he

men

tors

hip

isca

lcula

ted

inm

onth

s.M

ento

rte

nure

inth

ecu

rren

torg

aniz

atio

n(in

year

s):1:le

ssth

an2

month

s,2:2

tole

ssth

an4,3:4

tole

ssth

an6,4:6

tole

ssth

an10,5:10

tole

ssth

an15,6:eq

ual

or

more

than

15.Pro

tege

tenure

inth

ecu

rren

torg

aniz

atio

n(in

month

s):1

:les

sth

an1

month

,2:1

tole

ssth

an6,3

:6to

less

than

12,4

:12

tole

ssth

an24,5

:equal

or

more

than

24.N

um

ber

sin

par

enth

eses

pre

sent

the

coef

ficie

nta

valu

esofth

eva

riab

les.

*p<

.05.**

p<

.01.

414 at TULANE UNIV on September 28, 2014jcd.sagepub.comDownloaded from


mentorship, the mentor’s organizational tenure and sex, and the protege’s organiza-

tional tenure and sex.

Results

Before testing the hypotheses, we examined construct validity using Anderson and

Gerbing’s (1988) confirmatory factor analysis approach on a five-factor model

(mentor socialization, the three mentoring functions, and protege socialization).

Organizational socialization was modeled with 6-item parcels, which were average

scores of the six subdimensions. The model had a significant chi-square value

(w2(179) ¼ 371.01, p < .01) and practical fit indices were acceptable (NNFI ¼ .92,

comparative fit index [CFI]¼ .93, PNFI¼ .75, SRMR¼ .08, root mean square error

of approximation [RMSEA] ¼ .07). The scales used were representative of the

corresponding latent constructs since all the factor loadings were significant and

constructs were distinguished from each other since none of the confidence intervals

included an absolute value of 1. We also compared the five-factor model with a one-

factor model (w2(198) ¼ 1,500.54, p < .01; NNFI ¼ .62, CFI ¼ .66, PNFI ¼ .56,

SRMR ¼ .15, RMSEA ¼ .19) and found that the one-factor model fit substantially

worse than the five-factor model (w2(19) ¼ 1,129.53, p < .01).

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations for the study

variables. Hierarchical regression analyses were used for hypothesis testing.

Hypothesis 1, which stated that mentor socialization is positively related to protege

socialization, was supported (Table 2; b¼ .30, p < .01; DR2¼ .09, p < .01). We used

Baron and Kenny’s (1986) three-step procedure to test Hypothesis 2, which stated

that career, psychosocial, and role modeling mediate the relationship between men-

tor socialization and protege socialization. Step 1 was supported in our test of

Hypothesis 1. Step 2 examines whether the antecedent related significantly to

mediators and was partially supported (career: b ¼ .25, p < .01, DR2 ¼ .07, p <

.01; psychosocial: b ¼ .07, p ¼ .52, DR2 ¼ .00, p > .05; role modeling: b ¼ .15,

p < .05, DR2¼ .02, p < .05). Step 3 examined whether the relationship between men-

tor socialization and protege socialization dropped when controlling for significant

relationships between the mediators and protege socialization. We entered the set of

predictors (DR2 ¼ .20, p < .01) including mentor socialization (b ¼ .25, p < .01),

career functions (b ¼ .19, p < .05), psychosocial functions (b ¼ .18, p < .05) and

role modeling (b ¼ .05, p ¼ .50). Only career functions partially mediated the rela-

tionship between mentor socialization and protege socialization (Sobel test ¼ 1.99,

p < .05), showing that Hypothesis 2 was partially supported.

We tested Hypothesis 3 with three sets of regression analyses, to examine

whether mentoring formality moderated the relationship between mentor socializa-

tion and mentor function. To test Hypothesis 3, the three types of mentoring relation-

ships were used as outcome variables. We entered the product term of mentorship

formality and mentor socialization in the regression after the set of control variables,

mentorship formality, and mentor socialization were included in the regression

Yang et al. 415



equation. Hypothesis 3 received partial support since mentorship formality

moderated the relationship between mentor socialization to psychosocial functions

(b ¼ .15, p < .05; DR2 ¼ .02, p < .05), not career functions (b ¼ .06, p ¼ .30;

DR ¼ 00, p > .05) or role modeling (b ¼ .02, p ¼ .85; DR2 ¼ .00, p > .00). Under

formal mentorship, mentor socialization negatively related to psychosocial mentor-

ing functions, whereas the relationship was positive in informal mentorship relation-

ships (Figure 1).

Discussion

Using SCCT (Lent et al., 2002) as a theoretical foundation, we found that mentor

socialization positively relates to protege socialization. Furthermore, mentor socia-

lization relates to career functions and role modeling but not psychosocial functions.

Table 2. Results of Regressing Career, Psychosocial, and Role Modeling on MentorSocialization and Protege Socialization on Career, Psychosocial, and Role Modeling (N¼ 209).

PredictorsCareer(Step 2)

Psychosocial(Step 2)

Role modeling(Step 2)

Protegesocialization

b b b bControls

Mentor sexa –.08 –.02 –.09 –.06Mentor organizational tenure –.14 –.07 .04 .03Protege sexa –.14* .03 .03 –.03Protege organizational tenure –.01 .04 –.02 .10Length of mentorship –.09 .02 –.12 –.04Mentorship formality (MForm) a .01 .00 –.10 .01

F 2.09 .26 1.11 .48R2 (Adj R2) .05(.03) .01(.00) .03(.00) .01(.00)DR2 (DAdj R2)Predictor (Steps 1 & 2)

Mentor socialization (MSoc) .25** .07 .15* .30**

F 3.73** .38 1.62 3.41**

R2 (Adj R2) .12(.08)** .01(.00) .05(.02) .10(.07)**

DR2 (DAdj R2) .07(.05)** .00(.00) .02(.02)* .09(.07)**

Predictor and Mediators (Step 3)Mentor socialization (MSoc) .25**

Career .19*

Psychosocial .18*

Role modeling .05F 5.39**

R2 (Adj R2) .21(.17)**

DR2 (DAdj R2) .20(.17)**

a Sex: 1 ¼ male, 2 ¼ female. Mentorship formality: 1 ¼ formal, 2 ¼ informal. Length of the mentorship iscalculated in months. Standardized regression coefficients are reported.*p < .05. **p < .01.




Although both career and psychosocial mentoring functions (not role modeling),

positively relate to protege socialization, only career functions partially mediate the

relationship between mentor and protege socialization. Finally, mentor socialization

positively relates to psychosocial mentoring functions in informal mentorships,

whereas a negative relationship exists in formal mentorships.

Theoretical Implications

Our findings highlight the critical role of mentors in protege socialization, as mentor

socialization not only directly relates to protege socialization but is also passed to

proteges through the provision of career mentoring functions. Although previous

research has shown that mentoring can facilitate protege socialization (Allen,

McManus, & Russell, 1999; Chao, 1997; Chao et al., 1992; Feldman & Bolino,

1999; Mullen, 2009; Ostroff & Kozlowski, 1993; Thomas & Lankau, 2009), this

is the first study to show that the resources that mentors accumulate as they become

more socialized allow them to provide more, high-quality career functions, which in

turn facilitates protege socialization. This study supports SCCT by showing that

mentors’ levels of socialization represent a form of contextual affordances that relate

3.72

3.503.54

3.68

4.00

5.00

2.00

3.00

HighLow

Formal

Informal

Mentor Socialization

Psyc

hoso

cial

func

tions

Figure 1. The moderating effect of mentorship formality on the relationship between mentorsocialization and psychosocial mentoring functions.

Yang et al. 417



to proteges’ organizational socialization through learning experiences, such as

career functions provided by the mentor.

Second, the findings of this study demonstrate that mentor socialization and the

provision of psychosocial mentoring have a positive relationship when the mentor-

ing relationship is informal, whereas a negative relationship occurs when the

relationship is formal. As expected, informal mentors who have more resources as

a result of being socialized are able to provide more, high-quality psychosocial func-

tions to their proteges. The negative relationship between mentor socialization and

provision of psychosocial functions when the relationship is formal was unexpected.

One possible explanation for the negative relationship is that mentors may reserve

valuable resources for their informal proteges. Alternatively, mentors in formal

relationships may have felt pressured by the organization to participate and may

view the mentoring relationship as a burden. One last explanation is that highly

socialized mentors may have acclimated to the mentality shared in the organization

and, as a result, may have trouble relating to their proteges’ perspectives and chal-

lenges. Formal mentorships lack the high degree of mutual attraction, interpersonal

comfort, and identification that informal relationships have (Allen et al., 2005; Chao

et al., 1992; Wanberg, Welsh, & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2007) and so it may be more

difficult for socialized, formal mentors to provide psychosocial functions because

their socialization makes it harder for them to identify with their proteges.

Finally, and unexpectedly, although mentor socialization positively relates to role

modeling, no relationship was found between role modeling and protege socializa-

tion. This finding was inconsistent with studies highlighting observation of role

models as an important means for socialization (e.g., Gibson, 2004; Murphy &

Ensher, 2001; Ostroff & Kozlowski, 1993). We argue that two of the three role mod-

eling items used in this study (‘‘I admire my mentor’s ability to motivate others’’ and

‘‘I respect my mentor’s ability to teach others’’) may reflect a passive type of

mentoring that focuses on the extent to which the protege admires and respects the

mentor’s professional status (Hu et al., 2011). As such, it is possible that the measure

fails to capture the active or behavioral part of proteges’ role-modeling behavior.

Given that our study was conducted outside of the United States, our findings

provide insight on the role of cultural contexts in career development and protege

socialization. Consistent with the perspective of SCCT, mentors are key contextual

affordances and provide important learning experiences for proteges. However, the

finding that formal mentors may not help proteges’ socialization, and may in fact

hurt socialization, potentially highlights the unique nature of interpersonal relation-

ships in a Chinese context. Given that guanxi emphasizes the importance of having

the right connections and valuable information in a professional relationship, formal

mentors may feel that sharing key information with formal proteges may put their

informal proteges at a disadvantage. Unlike in the United States, where researchers

find that career functions relate stronger than psychosocial functions to protege

socialization (Allen et al., 1999), we found that to Taiwanese respondents, the career

and psychosocial functions have a similar relationship to protege socialization.




These findings support the concept of guanxi, as the personal component of mentor-

ing appears to be just as influential as the career component.

Practical Implications

Vocational counselors and coaches should know that mentors are important agents

who can facilitate the socialization of junior employees. Selecting the right mentor

can result in career benefits, and counselors and coaches should encourage their cli-

ents to seek out mentors by participating in work-related opportunities to socialize.

We suggest that counselors encourage their clients to seek out informal mentors who

are highly socialized, as these relationships will yield the maximum number of ben-

efits to their proteges. Individuals who are participating in formal mentoring

programs should know that formal mentoring programs can provide many benefits,

but that there may be barriers to connecting to mentors due to limits on the mentors’

resources. There is a lot of variability in the effectiveness in formal mentoring rela-

tionships. Proteges should seek to work with mentors who they trust and feel com-

fortable with and recognize that not all mentoring relationships will be equally

successful.

Formal mentors should be trained on the importance of organizational socializa-

tion and effective ways to develop their proteges. Organizations should also select

mentors with an adequate level of socialization, who can provide proteges with

correct and desired knowledge concerning the organization, and mentors who also

have the potential to identify with their proteges (Eby et al., in press). Organizations

with formal mentoring programs can also promote a climate of networking so that

proteges can have opportunities to develop informal mentorships. For example,

organizations can assign projects that include both senior and junior employees.

Limitations and Future Research Directions

The cross-sectional design of this study leads to the limitation of casual inferences.

Although the proposed relationships are derived theoretically, the possibility that

proteges with high socialization may hold a positive bias toward their mentors and

perceive that they receive more mentoring functions cannot be ruled out. However,

this relationship is inconsistent with the rationale in the available mentoring research

(Chao et al., 1992; Feldman, Folks, & Turnley, 1998; Mullen, 2009; Ostroff &

Kozlowski, 1993; Thomas & Lankau, 2009) and the arguments derived from SCCT

(Lent et al., 2002). Second, although multisource, paired data were used, a second

possible limitation is that proteges reported both the mediator and outcomes vari-

ables. Although results of confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the studied

constructs were distinct from each other, the influence of common method variance

cannot completely be ruled out. We argue that both the theoretical perspectives and

previous empirical studies indicate that mentoring functions provided by mentors as

the antecedents of protege socialization rather than the other opposite direction

Yang et al. 419



(Thomas & Lankau, 2009). A third limitation is the possibility that only the proteges

who were willing to distribute the survey to their mentors were included in our study,

which may cause a potential bias, given the possibility that only satisfying mentoring

relationships were included. We argue that this potential bias would have led to the

range restriction, which would have our coefficients been attenuated estimates of the

actual relationships. Finally, it is important to point out that there are different

approaches to testing mediation. We used the Baron and Kenny (1986) method,

which can be insensitive to complete mediation and conservative. Because we

demonstrated a direct relationship between our predictor and criterion, we identified

the Baron and Kenny method as the most appropriate for our data.

The findings of this study also indicate several important directions for future

research. First, given the developmental nature of mentorships, the amount of men-

toring functions received varies across mentoring phases (Chao, 1997) and relates

differently to socialization contexts. Future studies should examine whether the rela-

tionship between mentoring functions and socialization varies across mentoring

phases. Second, future research should examine how specific mentoring functions

(e.g., coaching) relate to protege socialization since research shows that specific

mentoring functions can be differentially related to outcomes (Baranik, Roling, &

Eby, 2010). A third research direction is to examine the role of individual character-

istics of the mentoring pairs, or person inputs in SCCT. Previous studies have shown

that proactive newcomers are more likely to engage in socialization activities, such

as information seeking and relationship building (Wanberg & Kammeyer-Mueller,

2000). Therefore, it is possible that mentoring may be more beneficial to the socia-

lization of less proactive proteges.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,

authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or

publication of this article.

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Author Biographies

Chun-Chi Yang is an associate professor in the Business Administration Department and the

director of Human Resources at Fu-Jen Catholic University. She earned her PhD from the

Department of Business Administration at the National Taiwan University and was a visiting

scholar at York University in Toronto. Her current research addresses organizational learning

at individual, team, and firm levels, specifically in the areas of mentoring, career orientation,

networking, and human resource management. She is an active consultant and has served as a

board director of many companies. She likes to play badminton and yoga.

Changya Hu is a professor in the Department of Business Administration at National Cheng-

chi University in Taiwan. She received her doctoral degree in industrial and organizational

psychology from the University of Georgia. Her research areas include mentoring, abusive

supervision, work stress, and measurement equivalence/invariance. Changya enjoys traveling

and watching movies.

Lisa E. Baranik received her PhD from the Industrial-Organizational Psychology program at

the University of Georgia in 2009. She is currently an assistant professor at East Carolina Uni-

versity and teaches human measurement, occupational health psychology, industrial-

organizational psychology and research methods in the Psychology Department. Her research

interests include mentoring, positive psychology, and occupational health psychology. Lisa

enjoys gardening, running, and spending time with her friends and family.

Chia-Yu Lin received his MBA degree from the University of Fu Jen in management in 2009.

His academic advisor was Dr. Chun-Chi Yang. His primary research interest is how to match

corporate training programs with individual employees to increase training effectiveness. His

leisure activities include biking and basketball.

Yang et al. 423

Documents

Can Proteges be Successfully Socialized Without Socialized Mentors?: A Close Look at Mentorship Formality