Linking Mentoring to Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of Protégés’ Task Performance and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

There is currently a limited amount of research that explores how mentoring others can prove advantageous for mentors. Based on the job demands–resources model, we propose that individuals who act as mentors should be more willing to engage in behaviors that are beneficial to an organization and that mentoring others could improve their well-being. Moreover, we explore the bidirectional influences between the mentor and protégé by considering how the well-being outcomes and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of mentors are shaped by the protégé’s job attitudes and behaviors. Two waves of data were collected from 352 employees (176 mentoring dyads) in Taiwan. Support was found for the positive effect of mentoring others on the exhibition of OCB as well as for lower burnout. Additionally, protégés’ job satisfaction and performance moderated the direct and indirect effects of mentoring others on OCB. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.