Abstract
This study aimed to examine the impact of the autonomous aspects (APM) of
mentors’ prosocial motivation (PM) for the mentoring function distinguishing
between formal and informal mentors. The survey was conducted on regular
employees between ages 24 to 55, with mentoring experience. First, a new scale
was developed to capture the entire mentoring function, including the process.
Participants were then divided into two groups: formal mentors (n=159) and
informal mentors (n=180). A path analysis with structural analysis of covariance
between the APM and mentoring function was conducted for each group. The
results show that there are differences in the impact of formal and informal
mentor APMs on the mentoring function. Theoretical implications suggest that
we were able to incorporate a mentor-protégé interaction perspective and that
process into the mentoring function scale and to verify the differential impact
of APMs on formal and informal mentoring.
