جایگزین های مشاوره سنتی در تقویت موفقیت شغلی

Researchers have called for an examination of the roles that alternatives to traditional mentoring play in individuals’ career success. This study tests how important, but less examined factors, such as employees’ direct leader, personal and work factors such as ability and the formality of the organization, and employees’ engagement in career management strategies relate to career outcomes. Mechanisms intervening in the relationship between mentoring alternatives and career success were examined, including the moderating effect of individual differences (e.g., proactive personality, career motivation, and career stage) and the mediating role of employees’ career self-efficacy. We discuss how our results continue the examination of alternative sources of mentoring and contribute to existing theory. Finally, we elaborate on the practical importance of our results for situations where alternatives to traditional mentoring are needed.

Overall, our results show that alternatives for traditional mentoring are positively related to career outcomes, suggesting that career success is achievable with characteristics in addition to, or other than, traditional mentoring. Our findings are promising for those without access to traditional mentors or those working in virtual or autonomous team environments where leaders are inaccessible or absent. Specific findings demonstrating support for our first hypothesis reveal that with additional contributions of 10–25% in explained variance, personal and work factors play an important role in career success. Career management also added to the prediction of career outcomes (4–9% of incremental variance), consistent with our second hypothesis. Individuals can take initiative to manage their own careers by seeking mentoring (e.g., even peer mentoring), maintaining career flexibility, and building strong networks to achieve positive career success without, or in addition to, the help provided by leaders (e.g., supervisory mentoring, social exchanges). This may be easier for those with proactive personalities or high levels of career motivation, as demonstrated by support of our fourth hypothesis. This is encouraging, as career management strategies are, to a great extent, within the control of the individual, representing important alternatives to traditional mentoring, independent of someone else or the organization. The results also demonstrate that individuals report career success related to financial accomplishment when the organization provides clear procedures, consistency in the form of routine tasks, and organizational inflexibility. The analyses show that although individuals may believe that the organizational structure in the form of leadership and other work factors enables them to achieve various types of career success (e.g., financial, job related, interpersonal), in reality the direct link to rate of promotions and salary was unsupported. The study suggests that maintaining career flexibility was related to more outcomes than other career management strategies. The findings challenge the common assumption that seeking mentoring or building networks should have priority in career management. It may be that individuals perceive greater accomplishments and success with career flexibility than with seeking mentoring and networking, because career flexibility is within their control. 5.1. Moderating effects 5.1.1. Career motivation The moderating effect for career motivation revealed that the perceived organizational formalization was positively related to financial success for individuals high in career motivation, but was a negative predictor of financial success for those at average or low levels of career motivation, consistent with Hypothesis 3. It may be that those who are high in career motivation do indeed experience greater success; high career motivation may translate into higher performance levels (Day & Allen, 2004), which formalized organizations reward. For all other interactions tested with career motivation as the moderator, results did not support the hypothesis that predictor–outcome relations would vary across levels of career motivation. The tests of these interactions are perhaps underpowered due to a restriction in range on the career motivation variable. Replications of this research should use a sample with a higher proportion of individuals with low career motivation. Alternatively, results may accurately reflect reality; personal and work factors, leadership (including supervisory mentoring), and career management variables may predict career success equally well for people, irrespective of career motivation. 5.1.2. Proactive personality A consistent moderating effect was found for proactive personality on the relationships between seeking mentoring and career success related to hierarchical accomplishments, career success related to financial accomplishments, organizational career satisfaction, and personal career satisfaction, supporting Hypothesis 4. This pattern showed that for those with a proactive personality, seeking mentoring was a positive predictor of career success indices, whereas seeking mentoring was unrelated to success (except organizational career satisfaction) for those with low or average levels of proactive personality. For those with proactive personalities, seeking mentoring likely reflects their action-oriented tendencies (e.g., Crant, 2000). Though proactive personality interacted with LMX, organizational inflexibility, and career flexibility, none displayed the consistency of seeking mentoring. Similar interaction patterns were displayed for organizational inflexibility, lack of reward control, and organizational formalization. For those with high proactive personalities, organizational structures allowing them to benefit from their actions were positively related to their career success. Also, routine tasks and building networks interacted with proactive personality to predict salary; highly proactive individuals who actively networked obtained higher salaries than less proactive people. In contrast, for those low in proactive personality, seeking mentoring was less effective. Perhaps potential mentors (other than the supervisor or direct leader) are uninterested in assisting those who do not actively manage their own careers. For low proactive personality individuals, developing a high quality LMX relationship may be more effective, as LMX was strongly related to career satisfaction for those with low proactive personalities. 5.1.3. Career stages The relation between supervisor mentoring and career success did not significantly vary across career stage, failing to support Hypothesis 6. Recent updates to Super’s theory (Savickas, 2002, Savickas, 2005 and Super, 1990) suggest that the stage model, though still consistent with Western society’s grand narrative for a career, proposes a norm that no longer fits the experience of an expanding segment of the workforce. Alternatives to traditional mentoring appear helpful regardless of one’s career stage concerns. 5.2. Mediator effects Career self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship of ability, experience, training and knowledge with perceived career success related to interpersonal relationships, consistent with Hypothesis 5. That is, feeling competent in one’s ability to manage interpersonal relationships at work was associated with higher perceived success in this arena. Career self-efficacy did not, however, mediate the relationship between ability and career success related to the job. Individuals may recognize that many factors contribute to career success on the job, including factors beyond their control. 5.3. Limitations and future directions Study limitations include cross-sectional data that disallows causal inferences. Quasi-experimental and longitudinal designs are needed to investigate causation and compare traditional mentoring and alternatives. We captured mentoring as reflected in reports of supervisor behavior and employees’ self-reported career management strategies; however, we did not measure other types of mentoring. Future research can expand our model by more directly comparing formal and informal mentoring. Finally, the generalizability of our results is limited to similar samples. Despite these limitations, our study has notable strengths: we obtained human capital data and some career success outcomes from an organizational database; controlled for relevant covariates that could impact our relationships (Day and Allen, 2004 and Wayne et al., 1999); and integrated multiple research streams by focusing on the influence of the direct leader, personal and work factors, and career management strategies used by the participants. The lack of moderating effects for career stages is more evidence suggesting that the progressive, linear movement from one career stage to another may not reflect the current norm. This interpretation is consistent with recent reformulations of Super’s theory, but should be replicated using samples drawn from different populations, as well as using the Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI; Super et al., 1988), a career stages measure often used by career counselors. Our study shows support for mechanisms through which organizations can make mentoring alternatives available and encourage employees to play a role in managing their own career success. Career counselors may use this information to inform their work with clients for whom mentoring is not available or who can supplement mentoring relationships with the alternatives examined in this study. Individuals can achieve additional career success with mentoring alternatives, which is especially important for those without access to traditional mentors. This means that individuals who may not have a mentor can enjoy some of the benefits of mentoring.