Mentorship quality and protégés' work-to-family positive spillover, career satisfaction and voice behavior in China

Abstract

Mentoring has long captured the attention of scholars due to its effects on personal lives and career and organizational success. This study investigates the impact of mentorship quality, as perceived by protégés, while lending consideration to the moderating role of interpersonal citizenship behavior (ICB). Results from a two-wave survey of 173 Chinese protégés indicate that mentorship quality positively influences work-to-family positive spillover (WFPS), career satisfaction and voice behavior. Moreover, career satisfaction fully mediates the association between mentorship quality and voice behavior. Furthermore, the mentorship quality–WFPS relationship is stronger when the receipt of ICB is high rather than low. The findings are discussed with respect to the theoretical contributions of and practical implications for human resource management.

Keywords:

• career satisfaction
• interpersonal citizenship behavior
• mentorship quality
• voice behavior
• work-to-family positive spillover

Acknowledgements

The study was supported by the fundamental research funds for the central universities, and the research funds of Renmin University of China (Project code: 10XNK134). The work by Jun Liu was supported by the Program for New Century Excellent Talents (NECT-09-824) at Chinese universities. The authors thank the Research Center for Corporate Innovation and Competitiveness, Renmin University of China, for providing the data.

Notes

^†Current address: School of International Business Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, P.R. China.

^‡Current address: School of Business, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R. China.