The relationship of mentoring and network resources with career success in the Chinese organizational environment

TLDR

The study examined how mentoring and network resources (social capital) relate to career success among 113 Chinese white‑collar workers. The study found that while mentoring is widespread and culturally embedded in China, it is linked only to intrinsic career success, whereas network resources (Guanxi) showed no association with either intrinsic or extrinsic success, contradicting prior expectations about social capital’s benefits.

Abstract

The relationship of mentoring and network resources, the two components of social capital, with career success was investigated in a sample of 113 Chinese white-collar workers. The findings suggested that the prevalence of mentoring in the Chinese workplace is substantially higher than in the Anglo-Saxon workplace, and that Chinese employees do not distinguish their network ties or Guanxi into expressive and instrumental. These results were in line with the presumption that mentoring is an integral part of the Chinese culture and with the view that network ties or Guanxi in the Chinese society cannot exist in a purely instrumental form. In contrast to hypotheses, however, the findings suggest a limited relationship between social capital and career success. In particular, the amount of mentoring, participants reported they had received, was related to their intrinsic career success but not to their extrinsic career success; and the amount of network resources or Guanxi was related neither to extrinsic nor to intrinsic career success. These results were largely at odds with the accumulated knowledge on the benefits of social capital for career success. The findings are discussed with respect to the changing nature of the Chinese business and organizational environment, and their implications for human resource practices.