Formal mentoring programs are becoming more popular as organizations attempt to reap the benefits that have long been associated with informal mentoring. The present study adds to the small number of mentor-centric studies and offers a unique longitudinal examination of formal mentoring programs. Findings suggest that as formal mentoring relationships develop over time, mentors begin to use their time more efficiently and the negative effects of cross-gender differences dissipate. Furthermore, whereas mentor reports of psychosocial support and role modeling appear to relate to mentor program satisfaction and protégé reports of mentor effectiveness, reports of vocational support appear to have no impact on these variables. Study limitations are discussed, and implications for future research and for practice are suggested.

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This research explores how salespeople make decisions and what factors influence these decisions. Research in psychology suggests that, in making decisions, people use both intuition and deliberation, often relying on some degree of both processes. This study examines the impact of emotion, intuition, and deliberation on a salesperson's adaptability and resulting performance. Intuition is found to play a significant moderating role in the relationships between both deliberation and regulation of emotions on adaptive selling. However, as anticipated, the role of this moderation variable differs for each of these relationships. Findings suggest that intuition provides an important input to deliberative and emotive thought processes, and plays an important role in salesperson adaptiveness. Implications for salesperson mentoring and training programs are explored.

In this conceptual document, I present a critical model of mentoring that suggests that mentee professional identity influences how role modeling occurs and, as a consequence, shapes mentoring learning outcomes. The model suggests that the role modeling function of mentoring might not always be beneficial and that the degree to which a mentee has a well-defined professional identity will affect when role modeling supports personal learning, specifically, the outcome of personal adaptability. Although reliance on traditional, exchange-based modeling and emulation are helpful as mentees work to establish their professional identities, it is expected to produce less favorable and potentially detrimental learning outcomes as mentees begin to develop more well-established self-identities. Accordingly, this article contributes to the extant discussion on mentoring to suggest that mentoring relationships characterized by mutuality produce a path that better suits the learning needs of those mentees whose professional identities are better defined. The model is delimited according to phases of the mentoring relationship and asserts that this proposed effect is likely to become salient in the cultivation phase. I derive from these assertions a series of testable propositions that set the stage for future research and outline steps that mentor models may consider to meet their mentees’ learning needs through authentic mentoring practices.