Relatively little is known in existing research about how cooperative education (co-op) students experience mentoring. The parameters within which co-op students are employed are different from those of full-time professionals. Co-op students are temporary employees, and they are typically younger and have less professional experience than full-time employees. Co-op students also may complete each of their three work terms at a different company site. These unique characteristics of co-op students and co-op employment could prevent the direct application of known mentoring practices to the co-op setting. Further research on the intricacies of mentoring as it is experienced by co-op students could yield a set of mentoring best practices to be used by co-op employers and university co-op administrators. The purpose of this study was to compare organizational commitment, mentoring satisfaction, and mentoring function levels of co-op students according to mentoring type (formal and informal) and work term number. Participants were undergraduate engineering students at a large public land-grant university in the Southeast United States. The research design was causal-comparative; an online survey composed of existing instruments was used to capture student perceptions of mentoring experiences during recently completed work terms. Mentoring activity was found to be high, with 92.8% of students reporting involvement in a mentoring relationship. Students who were mentored showed higher organizational commitment than students who were not mentored. Students who reported higher levels of organizational commitment also reported an intention to stay with the company after graduation if offered a full-time position, but student satisfaction with mentoring did not share a relationship with intention to stay. Students were also equally satisfied with their mentors regardless of mentoring type (formal or informal). Student perceptions of psychosocial support increased as the number of work terms completed increased, and students in formally arranged mentoring relationships reported higher levels of psychosocial support than students in informal mentoring relationships. The type of mentoring was not related to any differences in mentoring outcomes. The researcher concluded that companies that want to convert co-op students into full-time employees should ensure that these students receive positive mentoring experiences during their co-op work terms.

The program of research reported here provides a contemporary view of mentoring relationships. In particular, it presents a definition that reflects mentoring experiences in modern organisations, identifies mentoring functions and benefits as perceived by mentees and mentors, and examines the relationships between those constructs and gender. Forty-eight mentees and mentors from a range of organisations, representing all possible gender combinations of mentee-mentor, were interviewed about their mentoring experiences. Content analysis of the interview data identified 42 categories of mentoring functions and 29 categories of benefits perceived by mentees and mentors. The emergent categories of mentoring functions and benefits were used to construct measurement instruments. The instruments were then completed by 500 mentees and mentors, again representing all four gender combinations of mentee-mentor, from a range of organisations. Principal components analyses revealed seven mentoring functions identified by mentees and eight by mentors. Those functions were Personal and Emotional Guidance, Coaching/Learning Facilitation (identified as two separate functions by mentors), Advocacy, Role Modelling, Career Development Facilitation, Strategies and Systems Advice, and Friendship. The study extended empirical research by identifying a range of distinct mentoring functions rather than the broad category approach adopted in previous research. The principal components solutions generated separately for mentees and mentors were similar, indicating convergent views between the providers and recipients of these functions. Several of the mentoring functions that emerged were similar to those identified by Kram (1980) and the emergence of new functions was interpreted in light of changes in organisations over the past 20 years and the recruitment of representative samples, in this study, that reflected those changes. Principal components analyses also revealed four mentoring benefits identified by mentees and five by mentors. Benefits for mentees were Professional Enhancement, Interpersonal Relationship, Professional Induction/ Immersion, and Professional Reward. By identifying the benefits that mentees themselves perceive as being attributable to their mentoring relationships, the current study extended empirical research on mentee benefits beyond, objective, traditionally measured outcome variables. Benefits for mentors were Professional Enhancement, Organisational and Peer Recognition, Interpersonal Relationship, Meaningfulness and Fulfillment, and Productivity. The range of benefits that emerged reflects the importance mentees and mentors place on the psychological and interpersonal experiences of their mentoring relationships. The relationships between mentoring functions and benefits and gender were examined for both mentees and mentors. Results indicate that gender effects are limited to only some mentoring functions and benefits. Examination of the relationships between distinct mentoring functions and benefits indicated that specific mentoring functions are related to particular benefits for both mentees and mentors. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.

This study's purpose was to investigate the importance of mentoring functions and behaviors for lifelong career development as perceived by protégés. The population included individuals in middle to late adulthood (age 40 years and older) who reported they had been a protégé in at least one mentoring association perceived as beneficial to their lifelong career development; and were either employed or had been employed as a middle manager, senior manager, C-level executive, business owner, or member of a profession. The sample was obtained using a chain-sample method; 67 Ambassadors completed an online survey and each invited 10 contacts to complete the survey. The final number of respondents was 503; of these, 456 reported being a protégé. Data were collected using the Perceptions of Workplace Mentoring Behaviors (PWMB) scale, a modification of Noe's (1988) Mentoring Functions Scale. The online survey included the PWMB scale items plus questions designed to engage the respondent's autobiographical memory and questions regarding respondent and mentoring association characteristics. The PWMB scale included seven new items, posited by the expert panel, enhancing the teaching aspect of mentoring. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted comparing four tenable models for the PWMB scale. The 8-factor model, which was essentially the protégé's view of Kram's (1985) mentoring functions model and included the seven newly developed items, exhibited the best fit of the four possible models. Results indicated that protégés perceived three factors from the Psychosocial category (Role Model, Acceptance-and-Confirmation, and Relationship Fundamentals) as most important to their lifelong career development. Effective Development Opportunities was perceived as the most important factor from the Career category. Professional Issue Counseling from the Psychosocial category was perceived as the least important factor. Significant differences were found for five of six independent variables (protégé gender, mentor gender, dyad, protégé's mentor group, and birth decade) at the item level and for four of six independent variables (protégé gender, dyad, protégé's mentor group, and decade of birth) at the factor level. Implications included designing mentoring programs that provide opportunities for mentors and protégés to develop relationships rather than directly assigning protégés to mentors.

師徒關係是組織中重要的人際關係，而師父是師徒功能的提供者，故探討影響師父是否提供師徒功能的因素有其理論與實務上的的意涵。然而，現有文獻大多從徒弟特質或環境因素來探討促進師父提供師徒功能之因素，而忽略了師父本人的動機因素。有鑑於此，本研究將反向思考，探討降低師父提供師徒功能之因素。本研究首先探討師父工作不安全感與師徒功能之負向關係。並進一步探討師父的組織競爭氣候知覺與師徒關係類型是否調節前述之負向關係。本研究以便利抽樣之方法進行資料收集，共獲得170份有效問卷。根據迴歸分析結果顯示，師父工作不安全感與師徒功能有負向關係，但僅有師父的組織競爭氣候知覺調節前述之負向關係。當師父的組織競爭氣候知覺高時，前述負向關係的強度更強。但師徒關係類型（正式或非正式）則不對於上述關係具有調節效果。本論文也針對研究結果的理論與管理意涵進行討論。 / Mentors are the providers for mentoring support to protégés. However, the available studies focus on factors relevant to protégés or contexts and overlooked the role of mentors. Given that mentor plays an indispensable role in mentoring relationships, understanding the mentor-related factors that contribute to mentors’ provision of mentoring support has theoretical and practical implications. To this end, the current study examined the factors that prevent mentors from providing mentoring support to their protégés. Specifically, I argue that mentors’ job insecurity will be negatively related mentoring support provided. Furthermore, mentors’ intra-organizational competitiveness climate perception and mentorship formality will moderate the above negative relationship. Using a convenience sampling strategy, data from 170 mentoring pairs were collected. Results of hierarchical regression analysis indicated that job insecurity was negatively related with mentoring functions. Furthermore, intra-organizational competitiveness climate perception moderated the negative relationship between job insecurity and mentor functions such that the negative relationship was stronger for mentors who have high intra-organizational competitiveness climate perception. Finally, mentorship formality failed to moderate the above relationship. Theoretical and practical implications of this research were discussed.