Relationship between Self-efficacy and Individual Performance: Mentoring as the Moderator

全文

(1)Relationship between Self-efficacy and Individual Performance: Mentoring as the Moderator. by Tzu-Ying Chen. A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of. MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Major: International Human Resource Development. Advisor: Chu-Chen Rosa Yeh, Ph. D.. National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan January 2019.

(2) ACKONWLEDGEMENT I would like to appreciate everyone who helped me and encouraged me during the process of my master degree. I might not able to go through all of these and finish my thesis without any of you. First, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Rosa, one who worried about my thesis more than myself. Dr. Rosa used her professional knowledge guided me the way to finish my thesis. Also, she allows me to explore my research by my path. In fact, every time I felt nervous before I meet with Dr. Rosa, she always uses her patience to guide me and solve my questions. I would say the best decision during my master degree is to choose Rosa to be my advisor. Second, thanks to my friends and classmates. We play together, work together. I learned lot of things from you guys. One of the best thing in NTNU is meet you guys and being friends with you. The time we spent in study room are the most memorable time in my master degree. Wish everyone can have an amazing life in the future. Third, thanks to my internship company, Foxconn. I finished approximately half of my thesis during my internship. Thanks for the tolerant of my manager Kate and Victor. And also thanks my college Evelyn, who gave me psychological support and confidence. They showed me the attitude which a successful worker should have and gave me the chance to gain the experience. Last but not the least, thanks to my family for supporting me to process my master degree and exchange program. To let me know, whatever decision I make you will be the most powerful backup. I am so glad I was born in such a lovely family. Especially, this thesis is for my grandfather, I wish I could be your proud. I love you forever.. I.

(3) ABSTRACT Self-efficacy could influence personal behavior and performance. However, low self-efficacy is one of the problems of early-career employees. By investigating the effect of mentoring functions on the relationship between self-efficacy and individual’s performance, this research hopes to provide directions on mentoring in organizations for early-career employees. The target sample was 395 early-career employees who had a mentor in the workplace in the past 6 months. Applying a quantitative approach with the convenience sampling method, data was collected via a questionnaire distributed through the online channel such as google survey and social media. The result shows mentoring has more a direct effect than moderating effect on performance. The only moderating effect found is that of role modeling function, which has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between self-efficacy and in-role performance. It appears that mentor’s role modeling function helps employees with lower self-efficacy to improve their in-role performance, but does not help those with higher self-efficacy. The findings from this study have significant theoretical and practical implications for employees, mangers, HR practitioners and employers.. Keyword: Self-efficacy, mentoring function, in-role performance, extra role performance, early-career employee. I.

(4) TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ I TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................... II LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................... IV LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................... V CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ..............................................................1 Background of the Study ............................................................................................ 1 Statement of the Problem ........................................................................................... 2 Purpose of Study ........................................................................................................ 3 Questions .................................................................................................................... 3 Significance of Study ................................................................................................. 4 Scope of Study ........................................................................................................... 5 Definition of Terms .................................................................................................... 5. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................8 Early-career Employees ............................................................................................. 8 Performance ............................................................................................................. 11 In-role Performance.................................................................................................. 11 Extra-role Performance ............................................................................................ 13 Self-efficacy ............................................................................................................. 14 Self-efficacy and Work-related Performance ........................................................... 15 Mentorship ............................................................................................................... 16 Mentoring Function .................................................................................................. 18 Mentoring Function and Performance...................................................................... 20. CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODS ..............................................23 Research Framework ................................................................................................ 23 Hypothesis ................................................................................................................ 24 Research Procedure .................................................................................................. 26 Research Design ....................................................................................................... 27 II.

(5) Sampling and Data Collection.................................................................................. 27 Questionnaire Design ............................................................................................... 29 Measurement ............................................................................................................ 30 Validity and Reliability ............................................................................................ 34 Pilot Test .................................................................................................................. 34 Main Study ............................................................................................................... 36. CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ..................................46 Pearson’s Correlation Analysis ................................................................................ 46 Regression Analysis ................................................................................................. 49. CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ......................64 Conclusions .............................................................................................................. 64 Discussion ................................................................................................................ 65 Research Implications .............................................................................................. 66 Practical Implications ............................................................................................... 67 Research Limitations ................................................................................................ 68 Future Research Suggestions ................................................................................... 68. REFERENCES .........................................................................................70 APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE ........................................................78. III.

(6) LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1. Samples of Early-career Employee .................................................................... 8 Table 3.1. Descriptive Statistics on Sample Demographics (N = 395) ............................. 29 Table 3.2. Descriptive Statistics on Sample Demographics (n = 77)................................ 35 Table 3.3. Reliability Analysis of Pilot Test (n = 77) ........................................................ 35 Table 3.4. Summary of Goodness of Fit Criteria .............................................................. 36 Table 3.5. Model Fit Summary – Original CFA Model (N = 395) ................................... 37 Table 3.6. Confirmatory Factor Analysis Result (N = 395) .............................................. 39 Table 3.7. Item Deleted in the Modified Model ................................................................ 42 Table 3.8. Model Fit Summary – Modified CFA Model (N = 395) .................................. 43 Table 3.9. Summary of Average Variance Extracted and Composite Reliability.............. 44 Table 3.10. Multi-group Comparison Result .................................................................... 45 Table 3.11. Cronbach's Alpha of Measurements (N = 395) .............................................. 45 Table 4.1. Mean, Standard Deviations, Correlations, and Reliability (N = 395) .............. 48 Table 4.2. Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis – In-role Performance ............... 51 Table 4.3. Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis – Helping .................................. 56 Table 4.4. Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis – Voice ...................................... 59 Table 4.5. Hypothesis Testing Results Summary .............................................................. 62. IV.

(7) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1. Research framework ....................................................................................... 23 Figure 3.2. Research procedure ........................................................................................ 27 Figure 3.3. Research CFA model ...................................................................................... 38 Figure 3.4. Modified CFA measurement model (N = 395) ............................................... 43 Figure 4.1. Plotting interaction effect _ role modeling ..................................................... 53. V.

(8) CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. Background of the Study There is one common issue among graduate students and early-career employees, who tend to show lower self-efficacy (Klassen, Krawchuk, & Rajani, 2008). In order to deal with the issue, mentoring has been offered as an effective solution. As a new comer to a company, mentoring becomes a key function. Mentoring has widely been seen as an interpersonal influence process (Allen, Poteet, & Russell, 2000). Mentors help protégés with their psychological growth (Rhodes, 2002), career development (Hunt & Michael, 1983), and performance (Tonidandel, Avery, & Phillips, 2007). Self-efficacy is a factor which will influence individual outcomes (Bandura, 1982), for example, as an early-career employee, they will doubt if they have necessary ability to complete the tasks successfully. This is a common situation to organizational new comers, especially for those who just graduated from school and early-career employees, even if they had good education experience before they start working. Education is a way to teach knowledge to students, including professional knowledge, skill and abilities for working, but it does not guarantee self-efficacy when students first enter an organization. Managers should organize strategy for helping employee increase their outcomes, which will affect organization performance. Mentoring is a good method which has been used in operation for years. There are many researches which investigate mentor as their key variable. The significant role of mentoring for employee’s life has drawn an increasing attention from researchers since Kram and Isabella (1985) announced the theory. However, even if mentoring has been recognized as a method for enhanced career development, lots of organizations did not make formal plans for operation (Kram & Isabella, 1985). According to Scandura and Ragins (1993), mentoring has three dimensions, including psychosocial support, career development, and role modeling. These three factors might 1.

(9) have different effect on protégés. Therefore, this research will try to find out if mentoring functions will influence protégés in different ways. By analyzing mentoring functions, the result can provide appropriate direction for organizations to develop the mentoring program which fits the organizational needs. Mentoring function has been proved as an important factor associated with the in-role performance in the organization (Liu, Liu, Kwan, & Mao, 2009). By contrast, less researchers had focused on the relationship between mentoring function and extra-role performance, such as helping and voice behavior. In addition, extra-role behavior has been proved to have positive effect on organizational effectiveness (Podsakoff, Ahearne, & MacKenzie 1997), it becomes a popular issue for enterprises and managers. Managers try to motivate the employee to do the extra role behavior in order to enhance organizational performance. However, Kram and Isabella’s study (1985) has mentioned that mentors are strongly related to protégés’ behavior, hence, this research aims to examine these two variables.. Statement of the Problem Self-efficacy has been proved to have a positive relationship with work-related performance. However, work-related performance has a broad definition. In previous studies, little attention has been paid on the in-role and extra role performance on earlycareer employees. Although self-efficacy has already been proved to have an indirect influence to extra role performance (Salanova, Lorente, Chambel, & Martínez, 2011), still little research has investigated the direct relationship between them. Mentoring has always been a popular concept in research since Kram and Isabella (1985) announced it. After that Scandura and Ragins (1993) claimed the act of mentoring includes several functions, which also indicate different mentorship roles. Although plenty of previous researches have examined the relationship between mentoring function and performance, they took women (Ragins & Scandura, 1999), students (June, Potter, 2.

(10) Simpson, & Edwards, 2000), coaches (Tonidandel et al., 2007) as samples, and paid less attention on early-career employee (Whitely, Dougherty, & Dreher, 1991). An understanding of the relationship between mentoring function and performance is very crucial for an organization. A major limitation existed in the past mentoring research, that is, most studies focused on middle-level to senior-level managers but often made recommendations for managers of mentoring at the beginning of their careers (Roche, 1979). Therefore, this study focuses specifically on early-career employees. This study proposes that organization can impact early-career employee’s performance through mentoring functions.. Purpose of Study Based on the preceding discussions, there are some objectives of this study. Firstly, this study focuses on the early-career employees, who seem to have lower self-efficacy (Klassen et al., 2008), in order to understand mentoring’s influence on performance. Second, this study distinguishes performance into two dimensions, in-role performance and extra-role performance. By analyzing the collected data, this study hopes to examine the relationship of self-efficacy on different types of performance. Third, this research applies Scandura’s (1992) theory, and separates mentoring function into three factors. This study investigates the moderation effect of mentoring function on the relationship between selfefficacy and performance. Furthermore, this study explores the effectiveness of different mentoring functions. The result of this study may provide some evidence and suggestions for future researchers who want to probe into the early-career employees’ performance.. Questions This research seeks to examine the following questions: 1. What is the relationship between self-efficacy and in-role performance for early-career employee?. 3.

(11) 2. What is the relationship between self-efficacy and extra role performance for earlycareer employee? 3. Does mentoring function have a significant moderating effect between self-efficacy and in role performance? 4. Does mentoring function have a significant moderating effect between self-efficacy and extra role performance?. Significance of Study Based on the literature review, none of the research has focused on the relationship of mentoring function and protégé’s professional performance. In addition, this study emphasizes a particular sample, early-career employees. Early-career employees as a research sample has seldom been tested in the organizational field. Therefore, this study not only contribute to academic field, but also organizational domain. By connecting the concept of self-efficacy and individual’s performance, it might create a new way for organizations or managers to enhance newcomers’ in-role performance and the intention of helping others. This research may provide new directions for future researches in the academic field, moreover, it can help managers to better program the mentoring function to employees. For academic, it is a new direction for study in self-efficacy and mentoring function. According to previous studies, there are few researches that pay attention to early-career employees, especially in connecting these two variables. Through this study, it will verify the importance of mentoring to the employees. In terms of practical application, nowadays, organizations try to employ those who just graduated to join their company for several reasons. Firstly, early-career employees are cheaper than senior employees. From the company’s perspective, lower pay implies lower cost. Secondly, early-career employees are more flexible than seniors. Senior employees have lots of working experience and know-how of working process. This is 4.

(12) their advantage and also disadvantage at the same time. Sometimes, they would like to insist on their own knowledge rather than listen to others’ suggestions. By contrast, earlycareer employees are more willing to participate in training program and willing to learn. For these reasons, early-career employee become more important workforce recently. Managers should prepare better training programs in order to retain talents. Supervisors could refer to this study for developing strategy to improve early-career employee’s performance. Organizations can also benefit from assigning the most suitable function of mentor to help protégés. For HR professionals, the finding and conclusion in this result would provide useful guide for designing training program for early-career newcomers, if the organizational culture encourage organizational citizenship behavior, the result might give some suggestion for how to improve employee’s extra role performance. In addition, selfefficacy self-report might be a predictor of individual’s performance. The result may help HR appropriately assign a mentor for the employee.. Scope of Study This study targeted only the early-career employees, who has worked for five years or below, in various industries. Furthermore, it only investigated the sample who has a working mentor in the past 6 months. In addition, the study focuses on the relationship among self-efficacy, dimensions of mentoring function, in-role performance, helping and voice, according to the model constructed in this research.. Definition of Terms Self-efficacy It refers to one’s belief in his/her ability or skill can accomplish the task or succeed in specific condition and difficult and the belief that future actions will be successful (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997). This study adopts Bandura’s definition, study early-career employee’s confidence on their own professional ability which can solve problem smoothly. 5.

(13) Mentoring Function It is defined as an interpersonal exchange in the workplace between a junior and a senior employee, in which the senior employee (mentor) supports, guides, and orients the junior employee (protégé) to the various tasks, functions, and culture within the organization (Kram, 1983). It includes three dimensions, career development, psychosocial support, and role modeling.. Psychosocial Support It is defined as reflecting the friendship function of mentoring (Kram & Isabella, 1985). Friendship function refers to the interaction of mentor and protégés. For example, protégé will exchange confidence, share their feeling and have meals with mentor. This research adapts Kram and Isabella’s definition, defines psychosocial support as the mutual affection relationship between mentor and protégé, which provide interpersonal support.. Career Development It is defined as tap the one-on-one career coaching function performed by mentors (Scandura & Ragins, 1993), such as, mentor will interest in protégés’ personal career and assign specific task to them. This study adapts Scandura and Ragins’s definition, measure the protégés’ feeling of coaching from their mentor.. Role Modeling It is defined as reflected the protégé’s modeling of the mentor’s effective work behaviors (Scandura & Ragins, 1993). Mentor as the one who has special relationship with the protégé, especially in work-related field. Mentors give the suggestion and help protégés to get familiar with organizational culture. As a result, protégés will imitate the behaviors of the mentor. This study adopts Scandura and Ragins’s definition, to examine if protégés’ behavior will be affected by mentors.. In-role Performance In-role behavior is required or expected behavior and is the basis of regular and 6.

(14) ongoing job performance (Katz, 1964). It is defined as the behaviors which are recognized by formal organization systems and as described in job descriptions (Williams & Anderson, 1991). Adopting Williams and Anderson definition, this research investigates employee’s formal individual behavior and self-reported performance. For example, if protégés can accomplish the task which was assigned by the company.. Helping Helping is defined as promotive behavior which emphasizes cooperative and the acts of consideration (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). Helping is a behavior which directly affiliative and also emphasizes the interpersonal harmony. It helps building and maintaining the relationship with others.. Voice Voice is a behavior of making suggestions or recommending organizational change and modification. Even when others oppose the opinion. Van Dyne and LePine (1998, p.109) defined it as “a promotive behavior which emphasizes expression of constructive challenge intended to improve rather than merely criticize”.. Early-career Employees Early-career employees are not defined by the age. Different from the new comers, it is more focus on the employees’ working year. This group includes workers whose working experience is less than five years. The working experience comprises part-time job and internship experience.. 7.

(15) CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW. This section provides a review of previous studies which is relevant to this research. Firstly, the definition and concept of self-efficacy will be discussed. In the second part, will discuss about the mentoring’s history and the detail content of mentoring function. After that, will talk about the moderator effect in this study. In the last portion, will illustrates the definition and relative content of in-role performance and extra role performance. In addition, the hypothesis will be developed as well in this chapter.. Early-career Employees This study defines early-career period as previous 5 years of personal career age. This definition was adapted from past researches. Early-career employee has been studied in lots of researches, whereas there is no formal definition for it. Below are some of the researcher’s definition which treated early-career employee as their sample. List was arranged by published year. Table 2.1. Samples of Early-career Employee Sample. Year. Author. During the 10 years following their 1957 high school 1975 graduation. Sewell, W. H., & Hauser, R. M. Using alumni records at the Universities of Kansas, 1991 Missouri, and Oklahoma, surveyed all graduates of the M.B.A. programs from the classes of 1980, 1981,. Whitely, W., Dougherty, T. W., & Dreher, G. F.. and 1982. Alumni for whom the school had a complete 1991 demographic file for the 10-year period of 19761986.. Cox, T. H., & Harquail, C. V.. (continued). 8.

(16) Table 2.1. (continued) Sample. Year. Author. Respondents' careers are observed during the 7 years 1995 from age 24 to age 30.. Light, A., & Ureta, M.. Continuous work experience in the first 3 years of labor market participation.. 1998. Claes, R., & RuizQuintanilla, S. A.. Collect from Anon U's administrative records, and describe students from the cohorts that entered. 2011. Rothstein, J., & Rouse, C. E.. between 1995 and 2002. According to the list, it can be categorized in two major kinds. One is sorted by tenure, employee’s working experience. For example, Sewell and Hauser (1975) and Cox and Harquail (1991) used previous 10 years of respondent’s career as their distinguished criteria. Claes and Ruiz-Quintanilla (1998) investigated employee who has work experience in the first-3-year. The reason was that they thought the one who has continuous work experience in the first 3 years of labor market has more motivated behavior to learn (Claes & RuizQuintanilla, 1998). Another way is sorted by particular year and age. According to Whitely et al. (1991) and Rothstein and Rouse’s (2011) articles, both of them distinguished their respondents based on particular year. Whitely et al. (1991) focused on the graduated students of 1980, 1981, and 1982, tried to figure out the career mentoring’s effect on earlycareer employee. Light and Ureta (1995) choose the different way for choosing their sample, they used age as criteria. Collected data from age 24 to age 30 respondents, in order to describe individual’s differ in their work experience. They regarded this age as a reasonably long, and fixed portion of respondents’ life. In conclusion, there is no specific definition or limitation for the early-career employee, most of the researchers based on their needs to define the sample. There is no discipline to follow by reviewing the literature. This study focuses on the early-career employees who just entered into society. As just-graduated students, self-efficacy and 9.

(17) mentoring might be the most important element which will affect their career development. For this study’s purpose, it will focus on the one who are not so familiar with the career development and career path. This study defined early-career employees as one who graduated from school and with a work experience in the first 5 years of labor market participation. Previous studies of the early-career employee have provided some findings on career processes (Dreher, Dougherty, & Whitely, 1985; Weinstein & Srinivasan, 1974). Both of these articles emphasized the careers of graduates from Master's in business administration (MBA) programs. Weinstein and Srinivasan (1974) found that the respondents’ graduate grades were significantly correlated to both line and staff earnings. Furthermore, Dreher et al. (1985) studied more about the MBA degreed students, and found that possession of the MBA degree was positively related to current salary, but only for lower-class backgrounds. However, there are three particular perspectives for researchers to study in earlycareer employee. First, according to previous researches, researchers used salary as the measurement of early-career progress, but less of them focus on career outcomes (Whitely et al., 1991). In order to understand the work life of early-career professionals and managers, it is important to investigate their outcomes though additional measurements. Second, researchers need to study on additional influences which will affect early-career outcomes. For example, mentoring is a process which has been recognized as an interpersonal influence. Most of organizations would prefer to use mentor as a training program, help the early-career employee to adapt the culture or working process of the company. Another influence is social stratification, especially socioeconomic status, which has been investigated broadly in sociology. Last one, some suggest researchers should test the moderatos of career progress and their determined factors. Evidences had already illustrated that manager’s characteristic is a factor of employee’s career progress (Dreher et al., 1985). 10.

(18) Performance In this research, based on organizational citizenship behavior theory, the performance can be extended to extra role behavior (Van Dyne, Cummings, & Parks, 1995) and in-role performance. In-role performance is defined as the behavior toward formal tasks and duty written in the job description (Williams & Anderson, 1991). By contrast, extra role performance is characterized as the essential activities that are beyond the formal role, but have good effectiveness for organization; the actions are not done by command but in voluntary (Moorman, Niehoff, & Organ, 1993; Organ, 1988). Researchers regarded extra role performance as organizational citizenship behavior, and they noted the importance of this kind of activities to all function of an organization (Organ, 1988). It is important to distinguish these two kinds of performance for some explanation. First, according to the previous researches, it shows that when managers assess the employees, they will consider both type of performance. By evaluating overall performance, a better decision can be made (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Hui, 1993). Second, both types of performance have contribution to the financial performance and the organization (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994). Third, these two type of performance have been hypothesized to have different causes and effects (Organ, 1988, 1990). There is an example to explain about the different antecedents and consequences, that is, in-role performance can be seen as a cause of organizational commitment, while extra-role performance as an effect of it (Munene, 1995). However, in this study, both kind of performance are tested as the dependent variables which are affected by self-efficacy.. In-role Performance To a manager, individual’s performance is an important evaluation index, by essential performance data, attendance rate, and behavior observation. These are normal standard of assessing employees, through the assessment, managers can judge employees, to see who is not qualified for the company, and give some advice to them. In-role performance has 11.

(19) been valued specifically, it represents how employee do their responsibilities. Key performance indicators (KPI) and objectives and key results (OKRs) as two methods which has been used frequently. For example, the biggest technical company “Google”, use OKRs as their goal management system (Steiber & Alänge, 2013). By reviewing employee’s objective achievement rate, managers could see them in-role performance. In-role performance was first being studied in 1964, which investigated the college students, trainees, and delinquents (Katz, 1964). However, the variables had different name from this study, it was called “role-performance”. The study emphasized the sample’s community involvement, mental health and role performance (Hansell, Smith, & English, 1964). After years, the variable in-role performance has popped up with extra-role performance at the same time. In 1998, MacKenzie, Podsakoff, and Ahearne tried to see the possible cause and effect of salesperson’s performance. They studied in-role performance and extra role performance to see the thread. In-role performance has been proved that it has positive relationship with employee satisfaction (Brown & Peterson, 1993). Furthermore, there are several researches which investigated the relationship between in-role performance and organizational setting, such as Becker and Kernan (2003), who proved that in-role performance has significantly effect on affective commitment to supervisors by investigating 187 MBA students. In another research, Tremblay, Cloutier, Simard, Chênvert, and Vandenberghe (2010), based on the sample of employees from a Canadian hospital, found that if HRM practices has been regard as the signs of support and procedural justice, it can stimulate employees’ in-role and extra-role performance. From manager’s perspective, in-role performance is a critical issue which will affect the relationship of employees and the employer; it has also been affirmed that leader-member exchange has significant effects on in-role performance (Hui, Law, & Chen, 1999). In-role performance is a common topic in every organization, and managers and supervisors heavily rely on it. 12.

(20) Extra-role Performance Extra-role performance is an extend concept of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). According to Bateman and Organ (1983), the “extra work” is defined as the behaviors that are beyond the job descriptions. Furthermore, extra behavior has another meaning, that is, employees do the tasks which they are not told to. In fact, OCB cannot be forced (Organ, 1988), all of the behavior are voluntary, if employees don’t want to do so, they won’t get punished (Van Dyne et al., 1995). Extra-role performance is a synthesis review of these behavior, but it won’t affect individual’s performance assessment. Compared to in-role performance, more researches focus on extra role performance recently, because researchers have found that extra role performance has influence on salespeople’s assessment, in that it might affect the manger’s decision about subordinate’s promotion and training program (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1994). The ones who have more extra-role behavior, will have more opportunity getting a promotion. This factor might be the cause to explain why the extra-role performance become popular recently, since 2010 the articles published on Scopus keeps increasing. Based on Van Dyne et al.’s (1995) research, extra-role performance has four dimensions,. helping,. voice,. stewardship,. and. whistle-blowing.. Although. this. categorization was useful because it combined lots of haphazard literature, it was not assessed empirically. As a result, according to Van Dyne and LePine (1998), they emphasized two promotive behaviors: helping and voice. Helping is an affiliative promotable behavior. It is a cooperative behavior; it builds and preserves relationships. It also represents the interpersonal harmony. Voice is defined as a challenging promotable behavior, which provides innovative and useful suggestions for organizational improvement. Helping and voice behavior are important to organizations, especially when it is a cooperation oriented company.. 13.

(21) Self-efficacy Self-efficacy refers to one’s belief in his/her ability or skill to accomplish the task or succeed in specific condition and difficulties and the belief that future actions will be successful (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997). Bandura sees self-efficacy as a main element in social cognitive theory. A low sense of self-efficacy will associate with depression, anxiety, and helplessness. Moreover, self-efficacy related to physical, emotional well-being and stress resistance (Bandura, 1997). In social cognitive theory, he discussed employee’s motivation which is the basis of outcome expectations. In fact, there are little research about self-efficacy expectations, instead, researchers contributed on the correlates or outcomes of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1982). Social self-efficacy expectation has been seen as a potential element which has significant influence on individual and career development. It was defined as the confidence in one’s ability to engage in a society or a workplace, including social networking, interaction, and maintaining the relationship with others (Anderson & Betz, 2001). Although most research had emphasized the prediction of the performance and the importance of behavior of specific fields, nevertheless, the cause and the process of self-efficacy are still unclear (Renko, Carsrud, & Brännback, 2009). Self-efficacy first appeared in Bandura’s self-efficacy expectation theory (Bandura, 1977) as a mediator of behavior change. In Bandura’s research (1982), he claimed that selfefficacy has powerful effects on learning, motivation, and performance. The reason is that people try to learn and operate the tasks they believe they could accomplish successfully. Self-efficacy affects learning and performance in three ways (Bandura, 1982). First, selfefficacy influences the goals that employees set for themselves. Low esteem employees are likely to choose low personal goals. By contrast, high self-efficacy employees would set relatively difficult goals for themselves. Second, self-efficacy influences the effort of people’s contribution on their job. High esteem employees work hard on learning and 14.

(22) implementing the tasks due to the belief that their ability can help accomplish any given tasks successfully. Last, self-efficacy influences the persistence of people in their attempt in taking on new tasks and overcoming difficulties. Employees with high self-efficacy are confident with their problem-solving ability. Hence, they are more willing to persist and learn until the problems are solved. By comparison, low self-efficacy employees would more easily give up when they face problems. The concept of self-efficacy has become more important in social psychology research. It has also been involved in organizational cognition (Bandura, 1993), human resource and behavioral (Ajzen, 2002; Bandura, 1977) theories. Moreover, in addition to the relationship of self-efficacy and social expectation, researchers have started to investigate work/careerrelated efficacy (Betz & Hackett, 1981). Bandura and Locke (2003) concluded that selfefficacy is a powerful influential factor of job performance.. Self-efficacy and Work-related Performance Self-efficacy has been studied for years, so does performance. Both of these two variables are popular. According to pervious research, it showed that self-efficacy is significantly related to work performance, for instance, skill acquisition (Mitchell, Hopper, Daniels, George-Falvy, & James, 1994), and newcomer adjustment (Feldman, 1981). Basing on the concept of social cognitive (Bandura, 1986), and self-efficacy theories (Bandura, 1997), there are some research that focus on organizational performance, such as, managerial idea generating (Gist, 1989). According to a meta-analysis (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998), which investigated 114 studies on the relationship between self-efficacy and work-related performance, the result showed that there is a significant correlation between these two variables. Based on the literary evidences, this research hypothesized that there is an overall positive relationship between self-efficacy and work-related performance (Hypothesis 1). H1: Self-efficacy has a positive relationship with in-role performance. 15.

(23) Previous scholars claimed that high self-efficacy individuals can make good use of adaptive behavioral strategies (Raghuram, Wiesenfeld, & Garud, 2003). The reason that lead to this result is not only they have knowledge of citizenship behaviors but also they know that these behavior can benefit particular work place. Due to Speier and Frese (1997) and Morrison and Phelps (1999)’s research, they found that self-efficacy predicted personal initiative and ‘taking charge’ behavior. Furthermore, Motowildo, Borman, and Schmit (1997) conceived individual’s degree of self-efficacy as predictors of organizational citizenship behavior. Therefore, this study puts forth the hypothesis that there is positive relationship between self-efficacy and helping behavior. H2: Self-efficacy has a positive relationship with helping. Voice is a behavior of making suggestions or recommending organizational change and modification. Moreover, the ability of voice requires an individual’s belief in the possibilities to cope with the situational demands (Van Dyne, Graham, & Dienesch, 1994), the ability to speak up and express oneself, and the personality of extraversion. As a result, the individual differences are major element which will influence voice behavior. LePine and Van Dyne (2001) suggested that it requires a stable and secure environment to speak up. They also argued that there is a positive relationship between self-esteem and voice behavior (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998). Therefore, this research hypothesizes a positive relationship between self-efficacy and voice behavior. H3: Self-efficacy has a positive relationship with voice.. Mentorship The description of mentor has a long history, it can be traced back to ancient Greek mythology. In 800 B.C, King Odysseus entrusted a friend as mentor to guide his son, Telemachus, to become a great leader of kingdom (Carruthers, 1992). After that, goddess of wisdom, Athena, responded to lead him, helped him to go through the difficult (Henderson, 1985). Mentor has been defined as an interpersonal relationship between a 16.

(24) senior or expert person (mentor) who willing to teach, support, and lead a less experiences individual (protégé) to advance the personal and professional development (Kram, 1983). First, mentor has been clearly identified by Kram. He found that mentor has strong related to protégés behavior (Kram & Isabella, 1985). He claimed that via direct learning and observation, protégés are easier to imitate and enhance the ability to perform tasks at the same time. Nowadays, mentor has become a popular variable in research, with more than 1,000 articles published every year since 2006. There are several ways to separate the dimensions of mentoring, such as Rhodes (2002) who separates mentor into three dimensions, youth mentoring, academic mentoring, and workplace mentoring, respectively (Rhodes, 2002). This functional concept is based on personal experience in different life stages, which can be separated into childhood, student and employee, three of the most important roles in life. It assumes that there have supportive relationships with personal experience and emotional, cognitive, and psychological growth (Rhodes, 2002). By the change of personal role identify, mentoring will have different effect on protégés. Academic mentoring is a classic model in education, teachers offer knowledge, guidance and support to student (Jacobi, 1991). In addition, this way of mentoring may have effect on psychological adjustment and train student’s sense of professional identity (Austin, 2002). When it goes to workplace mentoring, as the word indicated, it associates with organizational setting and the professional ability and skill to complete the task (Kram & Isabella, 1985). Researchers have revolved around some related issues with organizational setting and human resource (Petrick, Ayala-Fierro, Cullen, Carter, & Aposhian, 2000). For instance, Scandura (1992) found that mentorship is related to career mobility, in addition, mentoring has been proved to have positive effect on protégés’ promotions, incomes and satisfaction with their pay and benefits (Dreher & Ash, 1990). There is another research 17.

(25) which studied the relationship of mentorship and personal career development, such as Wright and Wright (1987) who pointed out that mentoring has benefit to both mentor’s and protégé’s professional career development. When mentors provide mentoring to their protégés’, at the same time, mentors will increase professional visibility and reputation in the organization. The study of mentoring not only focused on formal employees but also focused on international interns (Feldman, Folks, & Turnley, 1999). Moreover, criterion variables are considered about mentoring relationship with gender, age, race, and perceived similarity (Ensher & Murphy, 1997).. Mentoring Function According to Kram and Isabella 's mentor role theory (1985), mentor provided two categories of functions, career development, which is to provide protégés guidance and suggestion to achieve the organization goal, and psychological support, which deals with the interpersonal relationship in order to enhance the protégés’ ability, self-efficacy, professional and individual development (Ragins & Cotton, 1999). About the career development function, Kram and Isabella (1985) provided five specific functions: sponsorship, coaching, protection, challenging assignments, and exposure. All of the functions above depend on the mentor’s authority and position in the organization; it emphasizes the organization goal and personal career path. The other function, psychological support, can be provided as four functions: acceptance and confirmation, counseling, friendship, and role modeling. The opposite of career development, the psychosocial function pays more attention on individual position, to extend to the personal level (Kram & Isabella, 1985). One function is not suitable for every situation; a good mentor should provide these functions appropriately.. Career Development There is another way to see mentoring functions, Scandura (1992) separated it into three factors. The first one is “career development”, which demonstrates the one on one 18.

(26) mentorship, similar to coaching, which focuses on performance and professional behavior and skills. The career development mentor may be a supervisor in the same organization but may not be in the same working team with protégés (Eby, 1997). This factor is similar with Kram (1983)’s career development function, the mentor emphasizes the work-related actions. According to previous research, the results pointed out that most protégés who perceived the career related mentoring lead to beneficial outcomes (Chao, Walz, & Gardner, 1992). As a result, this study assumes career development mentoring function will moderate the relationship between self-efficacy and performance. H4a: Career development mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and in-role performance. H5a: Career development mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and helping behavior. H6a: Career development mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and voice behavior.. Psycho-Social Support The second factor is “psycho-social support” (Scandura & Ragins, 1993), which indicated the friendship, acceptance and confirmations, counselling and role modeling in mentoring relationship (Kram & Isabella, 1985). Social support has been categorized into four forms: emotional, appraisal, informational, and instrumental support (House, 1981). The social support may reduce the stress individual’s faces and also reduce the effects of symptoms which individuals may experience (House, 1981). In addition, when providing the psycho-social function to the protégés, the individual’s feeling of ability confidence in professional character can be supported by a relationship of colleague (Kram & Isabella, 1985). Scandura (1992) concluded from the result of a research which sampled 244 manufacturing managers who had mentoring experience. He mentioned that vocational and psycho-social support were found to be related to managers' working outcomes. Psycho19.

(27) social support mentoring as a bidirectional-beneficial relationship to both mentor and protégé. In this research, it will investigate the moderating effect between self-efficacy and performance. H4b: Psychosocial support mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and in-role performance. H5b: Psychosocial support mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and helping behavior. H6b: Psychosocial support mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and voice behavior.. Role Modeling The third factor is “role modeling”, it shows the reflected behavior on protégés which is affected by mentors. Imitating is a normal behavior when people try to learn new things. And indeed, it helps people get familiar with new tasks at hand. According to Donaldson, Ensher, and Grant-Vallone’s (2000) research, mentoring has positive relationship with citizenship behavior, which is resulted from imitating the mentor. Therefore, it is hypothesized that role modeling will have a moderating effect between self-efficacy and performance. H4c: Role modeling mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and in-role performance. H5c: Role modeling mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and helping behavior. H6c: Role modeling mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and voice behavior.. Mentoring Function and Performance Mentoring function has been has argued to have a relationship with organizational behavior concepts and protégés’ career outcomes, such as career expectations, 20.

(28) organizational commitment, salary, working hours, performance, and supervisory responsibility of protégés (Scandura & Ragins, 1993). Mentoring can be seen as an effective method which helps early-career employees and new comers adapt to the company’s culture and understanding the working process. Different functions of mentoring will have different influence on protégés, especially in behavior. Behavior is a component of performance, and individual performance is an index of employee’s promotion and salary. Firstly, the most basic support from mentor is career development mentoring, which provides protégés the support on their job responsibilities. In the meta-study of Ghosh and Reio Jr. (2013), they synthesized 18 studies from pervious scholars, and distinguished the mentoring outcomes into two broad categories: objective career outcomes and subjective career outcomes. Objective outcomes include compensation and promotion. Subjective outcomes stand for job satisfaction, organization commitment, career success, turnover intention and job performance. The benefit of mentoring on employee outcomes is obvious. According to this literary evidence, it is suggested that mentors have an important influence on career outcomes. Hypothesis 7 is developed from this concept in this study. H7a: Career development mentoring function has a positive relationship with in-role performance. H7b: Career development mentoring function has a positive relationship with helping behavior. H7c: Career development mentoring function has a positive relationship with voice behavior. For early-career employees, socialization experience may potentially influence their condition, such as loneliness, social isolation and performance anxieties. Mentors provide social support and aid, which is important for protégés. The supportive resources should contribute to employees’ performance, therefore, hypothesis 8 is proposed as follows. 21.

(29) H8a: Psychosocial support mentoring function has a positive relationship with in-role performance. H8b: Psychosocial support mentoring function has a positive relationship with helping behavior. H8c: Psychosocial support mentoring function has a positive relationship with voice behavior. In the mentoring function, “role modeling” represents the mentor’s influence, which will affect protégé to become what others want (Scandura, 1992). When a mentor shows organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), protégés will try to imitate it. As a result, many organizations use role modeling mentoring as a method to teach early-career employees, with the belief that it will significantly enhance their intention of OCB, and raise the protégé’s extra role performance. As such, hypothesis 9 is proposed as follows. H9a: Role modeling mentoring function has a positive relationship with in-role performance. H9b: Role modeling mentoring function has a positive relationship with helping behavior. H9c: Role modeling mentoring function has a positive relationship with voice behavior.. 22.

(30) CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODS. In this chapter, it demonstrates the concept, procedure, and statistical techniques of this study to make sure the process meet adequately with the purpose. The headings below include research framework, hypothesis, research procedure, questionnaire design, sampling and data collection, measurement, and validity and reliability.. Research Framework The following framework demonstrates the relationship among four variables in this study. Self-efficacy is the independent variable, and in-role performance and extra role performance are the dependent variables. Mentoring function serves as a direct effect on the outcome variables, as well as the moderator, which will affect the relationship between self-efficacy and performances.. Figure 3.1. Research framework. 23.

(31) Hypothesis H1: Self-efficacy has a positive relationship with in-role performance. H2: Self-efficacy has a negative relationship with helping. H3: Self-efficacy has a positive relationship with voice. H4a: Career development mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and in-role performance. H4b: Psychosocial support mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and in-role performance. H4c: Role modeling mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and in-role performance. H5a: Career development mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and helping behavior. H5b: Psychosocial support mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and helping behavior. H5c: Role modeling mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and helping behavior. H6a: Career development mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and voice behavior. H6b: Psychosocial support mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and voice behavior. H6c: Role modeling mentoring function will moderate the positive relationship between self-efficacy and voice behavior. H7a: Career development mentoring function has a positive relationship with in-role performance. H7b: Psychosocial support mentoring function has a positive relationship with in-role performance. 24.

(32) H7c: Role modeling mentoring function has a positive relationship with in-role performance. H8a: Career development mentoring function has a positive relationship with helping. H8b: Psychosocial support mentoring function has a positive relationship with helping. H8c: Role modeling mentoring function has a positive relationship with helping. H9a: Career development mentoring function has a positive relationship with voice. H9b: Psychosocial support mentoring function has a positive relationship with voice. H9c: Role modeling mentoring function has a positive relationship with voice.. 25.

(33) Research Procedure Firstly, the researcher identified the topic of this research, which was based on personal experience when serving internship in a company. Because of a lack of operational experience, the researcher had a lower level of self-efficacy while doing the tasks. For the reason, this research tried to investigate the issue on early-career employees, in order to help them in workplace. Secondly, the researcher conducted the literature review, through reading articles to gain knowledge about the history and definition. Literature review is one of the most important and essential process in research procedure, in order to get substantial knowledge in professional domain. Next step, the research developed the research questions, for the reason to ensure the direction of the research. The next step was to develop the framework, by establishing the independent variables and criterion variables, and the effect of the moderator with them, and to create the hypotheses. Then, the researcher developed the measurement for research variables. Through literature review, the researcher sought out some relevant scales which can be used to assess the variables, checked the citation and Cronbach alpha reliability of the scales, for the sake of measurements’ reliability and validity. After all of the above process were done, this study collected data from the target sample. Once all the needed data were collected, data were analyzed to test the hypothesis, and findings were interpreted. Finally, the researcher provided recommendations and conclusions based on the result.. 26.

(34) Figure 3.2. Research procedure. Research Design This study uses a quantitative approach to statistically test the hypothesis. Quantitative research is a systematic investigation via statistical and computational techniques for observing the particular phenomena (Bhawna & Gobind, 2015). By quantitative approach, the researcher can get massive data to analyze the relationship between self-efficacy and performance and also predict the influence of mentoring function. Early-career workers are the sample of this study.. Sampling and Data Collection The sample of this research is 395 participants of early-career employees whose tenure were below 5 years and with a working mentor in past 6 month. The target comprises employees from various industries with different professional backgrounds. This study used convenience sampling method to collect data by online questionnaires. The online survey was designed using google forms, which is free and time saving. The questionnaire 27.

(35) was distributed via technological means, like email, social media (e.g, ptt, Facebook) websites, etc. Table 3.1. provides a demographical sketch of the sample. Base on the descriptive statistics, it shows that most of the participants were 21 to 30 years old (89.6%) and most of them had a bachelor degree (77.7%). This study surveyed the early-career employees, especially focusing on the employees who had below 5 years of working experience. According to the survey of ministry of labor of R.O.C in 2016, it showed that 60.47% of people started to work when they were 22-25 years old. The result was the same as the data of this study. University education is very common in Taiwan. As a result, a bachelor degree has become a standard, critical for looking for a job in Taiwan. Most of the students will try to study in university in order to fulfill the social expectation. The sample data shows the same distribution with the phenomenon. Moreover, most of their tenure were lower than 2 years (46.5%). For the year after graduation from last education, participants were evenly distributed among still studying (21.6%), below 1 year (24.4%), and 1~2 years (22.1%). Over 60 percent of respondents reported that they were in their first job experience (60.7%). And approximately 70% of respondents do not have similar working experience before. Although this study only collected the data from a small sample of a large population, the sample distribution shows these participants can be considered as representative of early career employees.. 28.

(36) Table 3.1. Descriptive Statistics on Sample Demographics (N = 395) Feature Age. Categories. Frequency. Percentage (%). Below 21 21~30 31~40 41 and above Female Male. 24 353 16 1 184 210. 6.1 89.6 4.1 0.3 46.7 53.3. Below high school High school Bachelor’s Degree Master Degree Doctorate or above Still studying Below 1 year 1~below 2 years 2~below 3 years 3~below 4 years. 7 9 306 71 1 85 96 87 53 32. 1.8 2.3 77.7 18.0 0.3 21.6 24.4 22.1 13.5 8.1. Similar job. 4~below 5 years 5 years or above Below 1 year 1~below 2 years 2~below 3 years 3~below 4 years 4~below 5 years Yes No Yes. 25 16 96 87 53 32 25 239 155 124. 6.3 4.1 24.4 22.1 13.5 8.1 6.3 60.7% 39.9% 31.5%. experience. No. 270. 68.5%. Gender Education. Year after Graduation. Tenure. First job. Questionnaire Design The questionnaire is composed of four parts, and most items were adapted from the previous studies and translated from English to Chinese. Minor revisions on the language 29.

(37) may have been performed to suit the target. The self-efficacy measurement was adopted from previous studies, which provided several versions in different languages of the questionnaire. The first part of questionnaire asks about the mentoring function, which has 15 items, and is about how you feel about your mentor, the behavior, and relationship of you and your mentor. The second part includes the items which focus on personal in-role performance and extra-role performance at work, with a total of 24 items. The third part measures self-efficacy with 10 items, focus on individual’s belief. And to the last part, deals with demographic questions about the respondents, including age, gender, education, working age, and personal working-related experience. All of the items used in the questionnaire are listed in the Appendix.. Measurement This study used previously published scales to measure each variable of interest to ensure validity and reliability. All of the measurements are self-report. The details of each measurement is described below.. Self-efficacy Schwarzer, Bäßler, Kwiatek, Schröder, and Zhang (1997) regarded self-efficacy as people’s belief of they can solve a problem instrumentally. As the result, people are more intended to take the challenge and also they feel more committed to the decision they’ve made. This study adopted the self-efficacy scale from their publication. They compared three versions of self-efficacy scales, in order to examine if the theoretical construct of perceived self-efficacy is universal, and at the same time, test if the scale can be used with different language populations. In the measurement, it used 5-point Likert scale with 10 items in one dimension, focusing on individual’s general self-efficacy. The original version is from German, and also been proved to be reliable and valid in various studies (Schwarzer, 1993). Chinese and English version were adopted from the original translated items. There were 959 Costa Rican, and 293 Chinese university students participated in the research. As 30.

(38) the result, the Chinese version for the Hong Kong sample, had excellent Cronbach, α = .91; and the English version, tested at Costa Rica, got the Cronbach α = .81. This study focuses on Taiwanese early-career employee, hence, adopts Chinese version of the self-efficacy scale, using 5-point Likert scale. After data collection, the items were aggregated to form an overall value, the higher the value, the higher is the respondent’s self-efficacy.. Mentoring Function Scandura and Ragins (1993) asked respondents about if they had a working relationship which significantly affected their career mobility in their organization. Based on 20-item scale, investigating 608 employees who had a mentor, this measurement was adapted by Scandura (1992) which assesses mentoring function. After that Hair, Anderson, and Tatham (1987) deleted five items because of their factor loading lower than .50. The measurement included three dimensions. “Psycho-social support” reflects the friendship and psychological support of mentor. It includes five items. The Cronbach α estimate of internal consistency was .81. “Career development”, which describes a set of 6 items to assess the work-related support by mentor, the Cronbach α estimate was .75. “Role modeling” uses four items to reflect whether the protégés behavior were affected by mentors; the Cronbach α was .70 (Hair et al., 1987). In this research, mentoring function measurement was adapted from Scandura and Ragins’s (1993) version, and adjusted the particular words to fit the target of this research, for example, for the item “I respect mentor’s knowledge of the accounting profession.”, this research changes “accounting profession” into “specific profession”, in order to distribute to employees in various industries. This research used 5-point Likert scale as evaluation for respondents.. In-role performance This study adapted the items from Van Dyne and LePine (1998), which conducted two 31.

(39) pilot studies with different participants in their research. The first pilot included 48 MBA students, using self-report; the Cronbach α was .89. Another pilot test had 321 participants, which were subordinates from several organizations. The Cronbach α was .90. Both of the studies’ Cronbach α results were good. Hence, this research adapted the measurement. Furthermore, because most of the study sample were Taiwanese, this research translated the measurement into Chinese and used the back-translation process to ensure that the translation did not change the meaning of items. The items were evaluated using a 5-point Likert scale. The higher the overall value, the higher is the respondent’s in-role performance.. Helping The helping behavior evaluation scale came from Van Dyne and LePine research (1998), which was adapted from Organ and Konovsky (1989) and Smith, Organ, and Near (1983). Van Dyne and LePine (1998) tested in-role performance and extra performance at the same time, and they tested helping variable with 7 items with a Cronbach α of .85. This study adapted the measurement for the study and translated the scale into Chinese, utilizing back translation method to ensure the accuracy of items. Five-point Likert scale was used in the measurement.. Voice According to Van Dyne and colleagues (1994) and Whithey and Cooper (1989) researches, voice was measured with six items by Van Dyne and LePine (1998). The measurement was tested by different population, included self, peer, and supervisor. In the result, Cronbach α were .88, .95, and .94, respectively. This research adapted the measurement from Van Dyne and LePine (1998), and translated it into Chinese. The items were assessed using a 5-point Likert scale.. Demographics and Control Variables A total of 7 variables were intended as controls in the analyses, which also included 32.

(40) the demographic controls. There are several reasons underlying the inclusion of controls. First, since the outcome variables of in-role performance, helping and voice behaviors, were self-reported, they may be associated with personal background variables including age, gender and education. Secondly, mentoring is an interaction between the mentor and the protégé in the workplace, therefore, contextual factors of the job/task such as tenure, job experience were considered to be controlled. Measurement items of all of these variables were included in the last part of the survey, the background information section. Personal background. Three variables are related to personal information of the respondents. The variables are below: Gender. Gender may have different effect on the preference of individual behavior and thinking. Because of the discrepancy between male and female in physiological structure and cognition, it might cause the different result. Age. Age might influence personal thinking, feeling and experience. This research distinguished respondents into four groups. The age from below 20 years old, 20-29 years old, 30-39 years old and above 40 years old. Only four options were provided because this study focused on early career employees, who normally will not age above 40. Education. Education has potential influence on personal self-efficacy and performance. It was measured with an ordinal question with five options from below high school diploma, high school degree, bachelor degree, master degree, to doctoral degree. Working context. The variables were designed to understand the context of the respondents’ working experience. In order to investigate the potential effect of working experience on self-efficacy and performance. Working tenure. The working tenure was attempted to understand respondent’s length of working years, which has a potential impact on respondents’ career self-efficacy and performance. The questionnaire provided six options, which were: less than 1 year, 1- less than 2 years, 2- less than 3 years, 3- less than 4 years, 4- less than 5 years, 5 years and 33.

(41) above. This research focused on the employees whose working tenure were less than 5 years. As the result, the option of above 5 years was treated as a screening question, for filtering those who were not qualified. First job. First job is measured to find out if participants have previous job experience. Practice makes perfect. Work experience has potential influence on employees’ career outcomes. This variable was measured by a yes-or-no question, to distinguish participants’ condition.. Validity and Reliability The questionnaire in this study was based on the literature review by previous researches. The most important thing for a measurement is its validity and reliability. This research performed the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the measurement validity. Furthermore, this research conducted reliability testing using Cronbach's Alpha.. Pilot Test The pilot test was conducted using 77 early-career employees who have mentor experiences in the past six months. All of the participants were selected by convenience sampling and snowballing method through the internet, such as Facebook and social media. According to Table 3.2., it shows that most of the sample (90.9%) were 21 to 30 years old. There were more male than female respondents participated in the pilot test, which is 57.1% and 42.9% respectively. Most of the respondents were bachelor degree (90.9%) and had a working experience below two years. Approximately 56 % of respondents claimed that the experience they responded in the survey was their first job experience. In addition, most of them (70%) did not have a similar job experience before. Furthermore, the variables’ reliability was observed with Cronbach’s Alpha value. In Table 3.3., all of variables showed a good result. Most of the variables’ Cronbach’s Alpha were approximately .90. The result of pilot test showed an acceptable outcome, hence, this 34.

(42) research utilized the measurement directly to collect the data. Table 3.2. Descriptive Statistics on Sample Demographics (n = 77) Feature. Categories. Age. Below 21 21~30 Female Male. 7 70 33 44. 9.1 90.9 42.9 57.1. Similar job. Below high school Bachelor’s Degree Master Degree Still studying Below 1 year 1~below 2 years 1~below 2 years Yes No Yes. 2 70 5 33 15 29 77 43 34 23. 2.6 90.9 6.5 42.9 19.5 37.7 100 55.8 44.2 29.9. experience before. No. 54. 70.1. Gender Education. Year after Graduation. Tenure First job. Frequency. Percentage (%). Table 3.3. Reliability Analysis of Pilot Test (n = 77) Number of Items. Cronbach’s Alpha. Self-efficacy Mentoring Function Career Development. 10 15 6. 1.00 .95 .92. Psychosocial Support Role Modeling In-role Performance Extra role Performance Helping Voice. 5 4 4 13 7 6. .88 .89 .90 .90 .85 .87. Scales. 35.

(43) Main Study Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) In this study, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was utilized to ensure the construct validity. By using AMOS to check the CFA of measurement model, the CFA should meet the satisfactory fit which is provided below, Table 3.4. According to previous study, if the value of Chi-square divided by degree of freedom test (2/df) is under 3, it indicates good model fit (Gefen, Straub, & Boudreau, 2000).. Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Normed Fit. Index (NFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Root Mean Square error of approximation (RMSEA), Non-Normed Fit Index (TLI), and Incremental Fit Index (IFI) are some indices which will determine the overall model fit.. Table 3.4. Summary of Goodness of Fit Criteria Index. Good fit. References. χ2/df. <3. GFI. > .080. Byrne, 1994. NFI. > .90. Byrne, 1994. CFI. > .90. Byrne, 1994. RMSEA. < .08. McQuitty, 2004. NNFI(TLI). > .90. Bagozzi and Yi, 1988. IFI. > .90. Hu and Bentler, 1999. Gefen et al., 2000. 36.

(44) The original CFA model included 42 items, 10 items measuring self-efficacy, 6 items for career development, 5 items for psychosocial support, 4 items for role modeling, 4 items measuring in-role performance, 7 items of helping behavior and 6 items for employee’s voice behavior. Refer to Figure 3.3, it shows the 42 items with different variables. All of the items’ factor loading are above .60. And the result of model fit is listed in Table 3.5., which shows two of these indices (GFI = .766, NFI = .852) are not acceptable according to the criteria. Furthermore, CFI = .899, TLI = .891, are slightly lower than indicated in the criteria above. As a result, this study tried to modify the items in order to improve the fit to satisfy the CFA criteria.. Table 3.5. Model Fit Summary – Original CFA Model (N = 395) χ2 Original. 2204.9. 42 items. 55. Df. χ2/df. GFI. NFI. CFI. RMSEA. TLI. IFI. 798. 2.763. .766. .852. .899. .067. .891. .900. 37.

(45) Figure 3.3. Research CFA model. 38.

(46) Table 3.6. Confirmatory Factor Analysis Result (N = 395) Item. Estimate. Self-efficacy SE1. I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough.. .835. SE2. If someone opposes me. I can find means and ways to get what I want.. .769. SE3. It is easy for me to stick to my aims and accomplish my goals.. .799. SE4. I am confident that I could deal efficiently with unexpected events.. .884. SE5. Thanks to my resourcefulness, I know how to handle unforeseen situations.. .885. SE6. I can solve most problems if I invest the necessary effort.. .870. SE7. I can remain calm when facing difficulties because I can rely on my coping abilities.. .894. SE8. When I am confronted with a problem, I can usually find several solutions.. .874. SE9. If I am in a bind, I can usually think of something to do.. .870. SE10. No matter what comes my way, I’m usually able to handle it.. .855. Career Support CS1. Mentor takes a personal interest in my career.. .785. CS2. Mentor has placed me in important assignments.. .858. CS3. Mentor gives me special coaching on the job.. .871. CS4. Mentor advised me about the promotional opportunities.. .751. CS5. Mentor helps me coordinate professional goals.. .838. CS6. Mentor has devoted special time and consideration to my career.. .803. (continued) 39.