How organisations can affect employees’ intention to manage enterprise-specific knowledge through informal mentoring: a vignette study

Abstract

<jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>The purpose of this study is to examine the role of organisational conditions and workplace characteristics in midcareer and senior employees’ intention to volitionally provide career support to junior organisational members, their protégés.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title> <jats:p>Hypotheses are tested using multilevel linear modelling on a heterogeneous sample of Dutch employees ages 29 to 69 who participated in a vignette study in the autumn of 2017.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title> <jats:p>In line with the hypotheses, the findings of this study show that volitional (informal) mentoring is positively related to an organisation’s endorsement of intrinsic values (e.g. learning opportunities) and negatively to the presence of hindrance demands (e.g. time pressure).</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title> <jats:p>Practitioners could facilitate co-mentor consultation, employ autonomy-supportive direct supervisors and fulfil psychological contract obligations by providing job security and learning opportunities. Organisations could also lower time pressures through job carving.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title> <jats:p>This study extends extant mentoring research by combining insights from perceived organisational support (POS) and self-determination theory (SDT) to examine the role organisational conditions and workplace characteristics play in aiding or hindering volitional mentoring. It enriches extant knowledge management studies on the link between organisational aspects and (intended) knowledge sharing behaviour by showing that similar organisational motivators predict volitional mentoring, thereby launching a call to study knowledge management through volitional mentoring using a SDT- and POS-based lens. A methodological novelty is the reliance on a vignette study.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Differences in the perception of corporate culture as a motivational tool in the SME sector

“…Another study reflected upon whether corporate structures influence the motivation of employees. The results show that a wrongly established organizational structure or poor leadership considerably affect the motivation of senior workers, causing them problems which significantly influence their performance [9]. Other important motivational factors include training courses dealt with in a study exploring educational influences and training employees on their work motivation.…”

Improving knowledge retention in the cross-border mergers of the telecommunications industry of Lesotho

“…In an organisation undergoing mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and off course which is at the risk of losing knowledge (Durst and Zieba, 2019;Martins and Martins, 2011;Milton, 2010;Sumbal et al, 2020) knowledge may be successfully retained through several strategies including communities of practice (CoPs), storytelling, job rotation, job shadowing and exit interviews (Levallet and Chan, 2019;Malinski, 2002). Asogwa (2012) and Roobol and Koster (2020) argue that this may be somewhat achieved through brainstorming, open discussions and provision of suitable or conducive grounds for creativity, sharing of ideas, organizing workshops, conferences, web archiving, digitizing, identification and collectively addressing problems and finding solutions.…”

Strategy for Knowledge Management Sustainability: A Lesson from The Industrial Automation Unit

“…The concept of knowledge externalization has no coherent base theory, and many projects are reported to have limited success (Virtanen, 2011). Informal mentoring has a positive impact for organization specific knowledge (Roobol and Koster, 2020 The open question aims to get aspiration for the KM.…”