اثرات مشاوره بر روی تعهد فروشنده

This paper examines the impact of having a mentor on mentoree affective, continuance and normative commitment to the organization and occupation. Hypotheses are developed comparing salespeople with and without mentors, and mentorees with mentors inside and outside of the organization. Data was collected from a national sample of salespeople. The results indicate that having a mentor is positively associated with mentoree affective and normative organizational commitment, and affective, continuance and normative occupational commitment. Results also indicate that organizational mentors, as opposed to external mentors, are more strongly associated with mentoree affective and normative organizational commitment. Finally, organizational mentors do not have a greater impact on the facets of mentoree occupational commitment than mentors outside of the organization.

Organizations spend billions of dollars annually to reduce employee turnover and increase performance (Galvin, 2001). Firms can reduce turnover while increasing performance by increasing employee organizational commitment (Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002) and occupational commitment (Lee, Carswell, & Allen, 2000). Research suggests that the development of mentoring relationships is one method of increasing organizational commitment (e.g., Brashear, Bellenger, Boles, & Barksdale, 2006) and occupational commitment (e.g., Colarelli & Bishop, 1990). Given this, it is not surprising that more than 70% of Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs (Bridgeford, 2007), despite the intensive resource investments required. This study seeks to expand the understanding of the effects of mentoring relationships on salesperson commitment. By better understanding the effects of mentoring relationships on organizational commitment and occupational commitment, sales managers can develop and maintain sales forces that are more effective and longer-tenured; increasing performance and reducing turnover and its associated costs. This study offers three noteworthy contributions. First, this study is focused within the sales context. Given that salespersons operate in a boundary spanning role with greater ambiguity, less oversight, more discretionary influence (Aldrich and Herker, 1977 and Singh, 1998) and are subject to influence from a wider range of sources than most professions (Singh & Rhoads, 1991), salespeople provide an important and unique setting to examine the impact of mentoring. Due to sparse research examining the outcomes of mentoring on mentorees within the sales context (e.g., Brashear et al., 2006), this study is particularly relevant to organizations seeking beneficial outcomes resulting from increased salesperson commitment. Second, this study not only examines the effects of mentoring on salesperson commitment, but also the differential effect of the source of the mentoring relationship. Existing mentoring research often fails to examine the source of the mentoring relationship (e.g. Colarelli and Bishop, 1990 and Donaldson et al., 2000). Studies which do examine the source of the mentoring relationship often do so by comparing formal to informal mentoring relationships. This approach has considerable limitations given the ambiguous and wide-ranging definitions of formal and informal mentoring relationships (Haggard, Dougherty, Turban, & Wilbanks, 2011). To yield increased clarity of the effects of mentoring and the source of mentoring on commitment, this study categorizes the source of the mentoring relationship as within the organization or external to the organization. Third, this study examines organizational and occupational commitment using a multi-faceted approach. Given a growing body of research suggesting that antecedents and outcomes are unique to each of the commitment facets (Meyer et al., 2002 and Organ and Ryan, 1995), focus is placed on the effects of mentoring and the mentor source on each facet. Hence, organizations can seek specific outcomes by implementing mentoring programs or emphasizing a mentor source associated with that particular facet.

The present study addresses the impact of mentoring and mentor types on both organizational and occupational commitment. Findings show that mentors play a significant role in increasing mentoree affective and normative organizational commitment and all three facets of occupational commitment. The present study also finds that organizational mentors play a greater role in increasing affective and normative organizational commitment than do external mentors. However, it is suggested that professional sales organizations could provide a valuable mentoring service for salespeople without organizational mentors in lieu of not having a mentor.