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Human Relations
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Understanding team-level career mentoring by leaders and its effects on individual team-source learning: The effects of intra-group processes

Ethlyn A. Williams

Barry Kaye College of Business at Florida Atlantic University, ewilliam{at}fau.edu

Terri A. Scandura

Professor of Management at the University of Miami, scandura{at}miami.edu

Mark Gavin

Carson Professor of Business Administration in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University, mark.gavin{at}okstate.edu

Team-level career mentoring by supervisors is conceptualized as mentoring that provides career support for all team members. A new model of mentoring and individual team-source learning is presented. Data from 192 individuals in 37 intact work groups in the banking industry were used to examine how intra-group processes might influence the team mentoring process. Team-level leader-member exchange, peer mentoring, and proactive member behavior were examined for their influence on team-level career mentoring by supervisors. Our results suggest that aspects of the team context (represented by mean leader-member exchange and mean peer mentoring) influenced team-level career mentoring. Team-level career mentoring (TCM) had a positive effect on individual team-source learning and had mediating effects on the relationships between the team contextual factors and individual team-source learning. The implications of this research for studying supervisory team-level career mentoring are discussed.

Key Words: career • context • leader • learning • mentor • personnel training/development

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This version was published on November 1, 2009

Human Relations, Vol. 62, No. 11, 1635-1666 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726709346375


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