Examining the antecedents and consequences of mentoring relationships

Although there is a large body of research on mentoring and career success, very little is known about the antecedents and outcomes of the mentoring process. Thus, the goal of this empirical paper was to advance our knowledge of precursors to mentoring received and how mentoring received leads to career success. In particular, we addressed calls in the literature to study the effects of personality and learning in the mentoring process by proposing a model that examines the relationships among personality, mentoring, organizational learning, and career success. We surveyed a sample of 330 employees from a diverse set of occupations and found support for our theoretical model. Results indicated that individuals who scored high on proactive personality and extroversion received more mentoring. Mentoring received was subsequently related with organizational learning, which was positively associated with the numbers of promotions and subjective career success, but not with total income. We also found the two personality variables to have a direct effect on organizational learning above and beyond the effect of mentoring received. Our study provides both theoretical and practical implications for researchers interested in the mentoring process and firms with developmental programs. The present study also contributes to the career literature by examining the process through which personality variables influence career success in the context of mentoring.