External career mentoring and mentor turnover intentions: Role of mentor work engagement, satisfaction with protégé, and meeting frequency

Abstract

Purpose

Although studies have improved understanding of the relation between external career mentoring and mentor work outcomes, an important question remains regarding whether this mentoring function influences mentor turnover intentions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of career mentoring outside the workplace on mentor turnover intentions.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 101 working business professionals in the southeastern USA at two points in time who provided career mentoring to business student protégés in an eight-month university sponsored mentoring program.

Findings

As hypothesized, moderated mediation analysis indicated that amount of external career mentoring negatively related to mentor turnover intentions and that the indirect effect of external career mentoring on mentor turnover intentions via mentor work engagement was stronger when both mentor protégé satisfaction and meeting frequency were high vs low. A two-way interaction revealed that mentors reporting higher protégé satisfaction had lower turnover intentions when meeting frequency was high vs low.

Originality/value

The findings help clarify the external career mentoring and mentor turnover intentions relation and have valuable theoretical implications for research on the benefits external mentoring can provide mentors. They also have practical implications for using external mentoring to enhance mentor work engagement and reduce mentor turnover intentions.

Citation

Renn, R.W., Steinbauer, R. and Huning, T.M. (2019), "External career mentoring and mentor turnover intentions: Role of mentor work engagement, satisfaction with protégé, and meeting frequency", Evidence-based HRM, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 342-356. https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-02-2019-0012