Mentoring and Turnover Intentions in the Military: Mediating Role of Multidimensional Commitment and Moderating Role of Gender within Mentor-Protégé Dyads

Abstract

The present study examines the relationships among mentoring (M), organizational commitment (OC), intention to leave (IL), and relational demography (DS) in a sample of Company Grade Officers (CGOs) at a single Air Force base in Los Angeles, Calif. This study proposes a mediational model in which the effect of M, the predictor variable, on IL, the criterion variable, is mediated by OC. This was partly confirmed. The quality level of mentoring was found to be negatively associated with protege intention to leave. However, the quality level of mentoring was found to be positively associated with protege affective commitment but not with protege normative or continuance commitment. Protege affective commitment was, as hypothesized, negatively associated with protege intention to leave. Additionally, the study proposed that M plays a stronger predicting role in the relationship between M and IL in the presence of mentor-protege dyads that are similar in terms of gender. This hypothesis was also confirmed.