Exploring the benefits of mentoring activities for the mentor

François Grima (1) , Pascal Paille (2) , Jorge Humberto Mejia-Morelos (3) , Lionel Prud'Homme

1 IRG - Institut de Recherche en Gestion
2 grefid
3 ITAM - Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México

Purpose – Mentoring is more and more studied by researchers on account of its professional and personal impact on mentees. This contribution has two main objectives. First, to empirically validate the benefits for the mentor and to test links between mentoring activities and benefits through a multidimensional analysis. Second, to incorporate two variables structuring the relationship into the analysis: the formal vs informal nature of the mentoring relationship and the gender composition of the dyad. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 161 French managers have been surveyed. Findings – The results show that mentors value the personal dimension of the relationship more than the professional dimension. Moreover, informal mentoring favours the perception of a rewarding experience by the mentor, whereas formal mentoring is synonymous with improved professional performance. This research calls into question the advantage of same-sex dyads, suggesting that heterogeneity favours improved performance. Originality/value – The originality of the paper was to focus on the homogeneity of the mentor-protégé dyad in terms of gender.

Mots clés: mentoring; mentor

Domaines: Gestion et management

François Grima, Pascal Paille, Jorge Humberto Mejia-Morelos, Lionel Prud'Homme. Exploring the benefits of mentoring activities for the mentor. Career Development International, 2014, 19 (4), pp.469-490. ⟨10.1108/CDI-05-2012-0056⟩. ⟨hal-01174080⟩