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Mentoring and newcomer Mentoring and

newcomer well-
well-being: a socialization being

resources perspective
Di Cai 285
School of Management, Shandong University, Jinan, China
Received 19 December 2019
Shengming Liu Revised 1 August 2020
School of Management, Fudan University, Shanghai, China 11 January 2021
Accepted 18 February 2021
Jia Liu and Li Yao
School of Management, Shandong University, Jinan, China, and
Xingze Jia
School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of mentoring on newcomer well-being, as
mediated by newcomer socialization and moderated by proactive personality.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected at four time points in a sample of 227 newcomers.
Regression analysis and bootstrapping method were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings – Mentoring had a positive and indirect effect on newcomer well-being through socialization. The
moderated mediation analysis also revealed that proactive personality augmented the direct effect of
mentoring on socialization and its indirect effect on well-being.
Research limitations/implications – Our data were collected in China, thereby limiting the generalization
of the research findings. Future research can test our model in different cultural contexts.
Practical implications – Organizations should consider establishing a mentoring program to foster
newcomer socialization and achieve well-being. Within the mentoring context, cultivating newcomers to
become more proactive can predict higher socialization levels, resulting in higher well-being.
Originality/value – Previous research largely focused on the development of the well-being of tenured
employees. Drawing on socialization resources theory, this study focuses on the newcomer well-being and
proposes the influential mechanism and boundary condition of the relationship between mentoring and
newcomer well-being. It sheds light on exploring the well-being development for newcomers.
Keywords Newcomer well-being, Mentoring, Socialization, Proactive personality
Paper type Research paper

With increasing workloads and workplace stress, employee well-being, defined as the
overall assessment of life and work satisfaction and psychological needs (Diener, 2000; Zheng
et al., 2015), has drawn great attention from scholars. Employee well-being has also been
linked to many positive organizational outcomes, such as job involvement (Wright and
Huang, 2012), organizational commitment (Kalliath and Albrecht, 2012) and organizational
citizenship behavior (Kalshoven and Boon, 2012). In this way, studies have explored how to
increase employee well-being and provided several important perspectives, including job
characteristics (Lee and Ashforth, 1996), work–family interface (Frone et al., 1992) and off–job
recovery (Fritz et al., 2010). However, most of these studies focus on employees who have
worked at their organizations for several years, overlooking approaches to well-being for
newcomers.
Journal of Managerial Psychology
Vol. 36 No. 3, 2021
This research was supported by the grants funded by Qilu Youth Project of Shandong University awarded pp. 285-298
to Di Cai, and by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 72002038) and Innovative and © Emerald Publishing Limited
0268-3946
Personalized Research Support Project of Fudan University (Grant 20210203) awarded to Shengming Liu. DOI 10.1108/JMP-08-2019-0485
JMP The experiences of newcomers are quite different from those of tenured employees, and
36,3 many of these distinctions are associated with newcomer well-being and subsequent
outcomes. Specifically, newcomers are generally unfamiliar with their job requirements and
need to significantly adjust their personal lives to meet the demands of their new roles
(Nifadkar and Bauer, 2016). Such an adjustment can be a source of strain. In support of this,
recent studies have demonstrated that newcomers’ experience of negative affect increased
during their initial period of employment (e.g. Tekleab et al., 2013). Compared with tenured
286 employees, newcomers have a greater inclination to leave and more opportunities to do so.
Such an inclination suggests that poor well-being may frequently lead to newcomers’
turnover and thus incur significant financial losses for companies (Allen, 2006). A recent
survey from an authoritative recruitment website in China showed that 56% of millennial
employees switch jobs in less than a year. In sum, effectively promoting newcomer well-being
is a key task for newcomer management and a potentially fruitful topic for organizational
research. Nevertheless, this issue has been neglected in well-being literature thus far.
To explore this issue, we suggest that mentoring, which refers to the provision of support
for inexperienced employees (prot
eg
es) by experienced and skilled employees (mentors) in
organizations (Kram, 1985), can promote newcomer well-being. According to socialization
resources theory (SRT) (Saks and Gruman, 2012), the organizational socialization practice
plays an important role in facilitating newcomer socialization. This theory also suggests that
successful socialization can be helpful to provide newcomers with resources that can serve
them well in dealing with the demands of the adjustment to the new environment and
protecting themselves against the strain (Schaufeli et al., 2009). As a result, we contend that
mentoring, as an important organizational socialization practice, can help newcomers
maintain well-being through fostering the socialization process.
In addition, previous research has also appealed to explore how organizational
socialization practices might interact with newcomer individual differences to influence
socialization outcomes (Bauer et al., 2007). An important individual difference influencing
newcomer socialization process is newcomer proactive personality (Li et al., 2011). In
particular, Kim et al. (2005) argued that employee proactivity may substitute the effect of
organizational socialization practice, rather than harmonize with it. However, our research
advances a new perspective that proactive personality will amplify the positive effect of
mentoring on socialization and well-being. Furthermore, Fang et al. (2017, p. 524) argued that
“it is supervising and problematic that socialization resource theory (SRT) does not include
personal resources that originate from individual difference and affect socialization
outcomes.” Thus, the investigation of this issue is also theoretically meaningful since it
response to current calls to extend SRT. Figure 1 depicts our overall theoretical model.

Theoretical background and hypothesis development

SRT (Saks and Gruman, 2012) suggests that newcomers need supportive programs from
organizations to gain resources for successfully adjusting to their jobs, roles and organization
during socialization. Moreover, the resources gained through socialization can contribute to

Proactive
personality

Figure 1. Newcomer Newcomer

Theoretical model Mentoring
socialization well-being
positive attitudes, behaviors and well-being (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007). The basic premise Mentoring and
of SRT is that entering a new organization is always associated with anxiety, uncertainty and newcomer well-
shock for newcomers (Allen and Shanock, 2013; Jones, 1986). In this case, providing
newcomers with the resources they need to cope with these challenges is the most effective
being
and efficient way to promote their successful socialization and well-being.
Literature on SRT has identified several ways for organizations to provide socialization
resources for newcomers, such as providing social support, information and training (Cranmer
et al., 2017). This manner of providing resources is consistent with the requirements of 287
mentoring, which is often used as an important organizational practice to help newcomers well
adapt to the new environment and overcome the difficulties in the socialization process (Allen
et al., 2017). Compared with supervisors and peers, mentors are more professional in providing
useful support for newcomers. Specifically, we focus on formal mentoring in this study, that is,
mentors and prot
eg
es are typically matched on the basis of job function (Allen et al., 2006).
Furthermore, SRT is extended by demonstrating that personal resources (e.g. individual
personality) interact with social resources to influence newcomer learning and assimilation
(Fang et al., 2017). Through this perspective, we can achieve a picture of the positive effect of
mentoring on newcomer well-being coherently. Accordingly, we claim that mentoring is an
important organizational practice to promote newcomer socialization and subsequently
increase newcomer well-being. We further propose such positive effects of mentoring will be
more salient for newcomers with a high proactive personality.

Mentoring and newcomer socialization

As newcomers often have few established relationships in the socialization process
(Baumeister and Leary, 1995), the support from mentors, who are familiar with their
organization, are in an excellent position to steer newcomers in the right direction and stay
healthy mentality (H€ausser et al., 2010). In particular, experienced mentors can provide both
career support and psychosocial support for newcomers (Kram, 1985). Career support aids
newcomers’ professional development and provides coaching and benevolent challenging.
Psychosocial support is conducive to employee personal development and includes
counseling, acceptance, confirmation and friendship.
Newcomer socialization is defined as the process by which a newcomer acquires knowledge,
skills, behaviors and attitudes to become an “insider” in the organization (Fisher, 1986).
According to SRT, socialization is an important resource for newcomers to attain well-being,
which protects them from strain and helps them deal with the demands of adjustment to the new
environment. SRT also suggests that the interactions with insiders are crucial for socialization,
such as feedback seeking, negotiation and direct support (Saks and Gruman, 2018).
Through providing career support for newcomers, mentors provide learning
opportunities for newcomers to familiarize them with the required professional knowledge
and skills. This work-related resource allows newcomers to better fulfill their job
requirements and become more qualified in their roles (Son, 2016).The fulfillment of new
job role further reduces the obstacles that hinder newcomers to integrate into their
organization. In addition, through providing psychological support, mentors help newcomers
build social ties with others. This relationship-related resource enables newcomers to know
other employees in different positions and departments, thereby helping them integrate into
their organizations (Nifadkar and Bauer, 2016).
In sum, mentoring can foster newcomer socialization by providing newcomers with useful
opportunities, knowledge and information about their roles and organizations and by
facilitating communication between newcomers and other organizational members. We thus
propose the following:
H1. Mentoring is positively related to newcomer socialization.
JMP Mediating role of newcomer socialization
36,3 We further propose that newcomers’ socialization can increase their well-being. As Cooper-
Thomas et al. (2014, p. 320) noted, “well-being was a concern of early socialization scholars
and has continued to be of interest.” SRT suggests that socialization resources intend to
reduce the uncertainty and anxiety of newcomers and speed up the transformation from
outsider to insider (Saks and Gruman, 2012).The reason is that sufficient socialization
resources can help newcomers respond to the strain during the adjustment process and can
288 reduce the ambiguity of their role requirements and setting. By gaining additional social and
job resources from socialization, newcomers can regain an equilibrium in the adjustment,
remove the barriers that prevent them to feel happy, develop other positive perceptions of
their organization and themselves (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013), and thus maintain
well-being.
Combining our arguments about the relationships among mentoring, socialization and
well-being, we further propose that mentoring can provide resources for newcomers to
improve their well-being by facilitating their socialization. That is, mentoring contributes to
the successful socialization of newcomers that subsequently provides additional socialization
resources for newcomers. Such socialization resources also help newcomers adapt to their
organization, master their work, improve their confidence at work and consequently increase
their well-being. Taken together, mentoring enhances newcomer socialization, which, in turn,
positively affects their well-being. Thus, we put forth our hypothesis:
H2. Mentoring has an indirect and positive effect on newcomer well-being through
newcomer socialization.

Moderating role of proactive personality

Although mentoring is an important source to provide support for newcomers during
socialization, previous research indicated that individual personality influences their
intention to utilize and acquire resources from environment (Bozionelos and Bozionelos,
2010). Proactive personality refers to the extent to which individuals tend to identify
opportunities to enact change and take advantage of such opportunities (Crant, 2000).
Newcomers with a high proactive personality can identify opportunities and have a strong
motivation to learn from others to promote themselves (Major et al., 2006). Such newcomers
can take advantage of the career support provided by mentors. For instance, they can exert
further effort in understanding and learning the knowledge and information their mentor
shared. They can also notice the value of psychosocial support aided by mentors and
subsequently seize opportunities to extend their social ties with other members in their
organization. In support of these possibilities, Joo et al. (2018) found that the motivation of
prot
eg
es to learn accentuates the positive effect of mentoring. As a result, we propose that
proactive personality can enhance the positive effect of mentoring on newcomer socialization.
By contrast, less proactive newcomers are more passive, indicating that they are less
sensitive to opportunities in the environment (Crant, 2000). As such, they less likely notice the
potential benefits provided by mentoring and thus may reduce the chance to foster their
socialization. For example, mentors may introduce senior employees to newcomers, but less
proactive newcomers may not initiatively build subsequent relationships with them.
Furthermore, newcomers must change themselves to adjust to the new environment, and
such an adjustment is always difficult to do (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013). As passive
newcomers do not have a strong willingness to change themselves, they may not appreciate
the help from mentors and may even feel uncomfortable and stressful to communicate with
mentors who often ask them to adjust to the new environment. Consequently, mentoring is
more important for more proactive newcomers to develop socialization than for less proactive
newcomers. Thus, we propose that:
 H3. Proactive personality moderates the positive effect of mentoring on newcomer Mentoring and
socialization, such that the positive effect is stronger when newcomer proactive newcomer well-
personality is high.
being
Integrative moderated mediation model
Thus far, we have developed a theoretical basis for the indirect effect of mentoring on
newcomer well-being through socialization and the moderating effect of proactive 289
personality on the relationship between mentoring and socialization. The theoretical
rationale behind these hypotheses further suggests that an integrative moderated mediation
model may apply. From the view of SRT, mentoring is an important organizational practice
for newcomers to develop socialization, which accumulates resources for newcomers to deal
with the difficulties in the adjustment process to the new environment and promotes
newcomer well-being as a result. This effect may also be more salient for newcomers with a
high proactive personality, who likely consider mentoring as an important opportunity for
self-enhancement, than those with a low proactive personality. Taken together, the study
proposes hypothesis:
H4. Newcomer proactive personality moderates the indirect effect of mentoring on well-
being via newcomer socialization, such that the indirect effect is stronger when
newcomer proactive personality is high.

Methods
Sample and procedure
Data were collected in a large information technology (IT) company in China. We explained
the aims of our study to the top managers and received support from them. Then, the
company informed all the newcomers to participate in our survey. We received a list of
newcomers and their email addresses and online questionnaires were emailed to all 468
newcomers. We also took several measures to ensure high response rates, such as ensuring
answers were anonymous and sending out reminders by email.
Following previous literature about newcomers and considering the company’s available
time, we collected data at four points. At Time 1, 467 newcomers, who had worked at the
company for less than one year, rated their proactive personality and demographic
information. At Time 2 (five months later), 392 newcomers reported their mentoring
perception (83.94% response rate). At Time 3 (one month later), 352 newcomers rated their
socialization (75.37% response rate). At Time 4 (three months later), 266 newcomers reported
their well-being (56.96% response rate).
The time interval is consistent with previous literature about newcomers and
socialization. For instance, previous studies have asked prot
eg
es to evaluate mentoring
functions six months after the formal mentoring program was launched and obtained
prot
eg
es’ outcomes one month later (Chun et al., 2012; Wanberg et al., 2006). Studies have also
typically measured the outcome of newcomer socialization from a two- to four-month period
(Ostroff and Kozlowski, 1993; Wang et al., 2011).
The final matched sample included 227 newcomers, with a response rate of 48.50%.
Among them, 85.46% were male, the average age was 24.10 years (SD 5 2.08), and most of
them obtained a bachelor’s degree or above (i.e. master’s degree or doctor’s degree; 99%). We
also contacted some of the newcomers who failed to finish the survey and found no significant
difference between their well-being and the well-being of our sample.
JMP Measures
36,3 We followed Brislin’s (1970) translation and back-translation procedure to create a Chinese
version of our measures. First, a bilingual research assistant translated the original English
items into Mandarin. Second, another research assistant translated the items back into
English. The research members collaborated to resolve discrepancies between the original
and back-translated versions of the scales. All measures were rated on a five-point Likert-
type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
290 Mentoring. Mentoring was measured using 15 of the 18 items developed by Dreher and
Ash (1990). We deleted three of the original items, which are “Helped you finish assignments/
tasks or meet deadlines that otherwise would have been difficult to complete,” “Protected you
from working with other managers or work units before you knew about their likes/dislikes,
opinions on controversial topics, and the nature of the political environment” and “Gone out of
his/her way to promote your career interests,” because these items reflected the protection
from mentors that refer to the efforts of mentors to prevent newcomers from being in
dangerous situations, whereas our focus is career and psychosocial support to promote
socialization. Previous studies also used a short version of Dreher and Ash (1990)’s 18-item
scale to measure mentoring and showed great reliability and validity (Bozionelos and Wang,
2006). A sample item is “Shared history of his/her career with you.” The Cronbach’s α
was 0.97.
Socialization. Newcomer socialization was measured with Zhao et al.’s (2007) eight-item
scale. A sample item is “I know how to do my job efficiently.” The Cronbach’s α was 0.93.
Proactive personality. Proactive personality was measured using Seibert et al.’s (1999) 10-
item proactive personality scale. A sample item is “I am constantly on the lookout for new
ways to improve my life.” The Cronbach’s α was 0.82.
Well-being. Newcomer well-being was measured with an 18-item scale developed by Zheng
et al.’s (2015). A sample item is “I am satisfied with my work responsibilities.” The Cronbach’s
α was 0.97.
Control variables. Following previous research on newcomers (Lapointe and
Vandenberghe, 2017), we controlled for three variables: newcomers’ age (year), gender
(1 5 male, 2 5 female) and education level (1 5 bachelor’s degree, 2 5 master’s degree,
3 5 doctoral degree). The results were stable after excluding the control variables.

Results
Preliminary analysis
Before testing our hypotheses, we conducted a series of confirmatory factor analysis by using
Mplus 7.0 to test the construct validity of our research model. The baseline model included all
four variables of mentoring, newcomer socialization, well-being and proactive personality. To
reduce the number of parameters in the structural equation model and to keep a reasonable
degree of freedom (df) in the model, we used the item parceling method recommended by
Bagozzi and Edwards (1998). Specifically, we assigned items of mentoring, newcomer
socialization, well-being and proactive personality separately to two parcels, four parcels, two
parcels and three parcels, respectively. As shown in Table 1, the hypothesized four-factor
model provided a good fit to the data (χ 2 (29) 5 46.52, χ 2/df 5 1.60, CFI 5 0.99, TLI 5 0.99,
RMSEA 5 0.05, SRMR 5 0.03), indicating the convergent validity of our measurement
instruments. We tested the discriminant validity of the hypothesized four-factor model by
contrasting it with alternative measurement models. The results (presented in Table 1)
revealed that the hypothesized four-factor model fitted the data considerably better than
other alternative models. Such findings provided support for the discriminant validity of our
measures.
 χ2 df χ 2/df CFI TLI RMSEA SRMR
Mentoring and
newcomer well-
Four-factor modela 46.52 29 1.60 0.99 0.99 0.05 0.03 being
Three-factor model (a)b 118.27 32 3.70 0.96 0.94 0.11 0.07
c
Three-factor model (b) 750.83 32 23.46 0.67 0.53 0.32 0.17
Two-factor modeld 820.22 34 24.12 0.63 0.52 0.32 0.18
One-factor modele 1073.20 35 30.66 0.52 0.38 0.36 0.21
Note(s): n 5 227 291
a
Four-factor model: Mentoring, Socialization, Proactive personality, Well-being
b
Three-factor model (a): (Mentoring þ Proactive personality), Proactive personality, Well-being Table 1.
c
Three-factor model (b): Mentoring, Proactive personality (Socialization þ Well-being) The results of
d
Two-factor model: (Mentoring þ Proactive personality) (Socialization þ Well-being) confirmatory factor
e
One-factor model: all items were loaded on one factor analysis

As the data of this study were collected from a single respondent and with similar methods, a
common method bias problem may exist (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). Thus, we closely
followed the procedural and statistical remedies suggested by research to address this
problem (Podsakoff et al., 2012). We used procedural remedies, such as anonymous
respondents and using a longitudinal design, to minimize the bias. We also examined the
potential presence of bias in the data by conducting Harman’s one-factor test. Common
method variance refers to the appearance of a single factor or a generic factor that explains
the majority of the variance (Podsakoff et al., 2012). In our sample, no single factor explained
the majority of the variance.

Descriptive statistics and correlations

Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations and correlations of the measured variables.
The results showed that mentoring was positively related to newcomer socialization
(r 5 0.49, p < 0.01) and well-being (r 5 0.20, p < 0.01). Newcomer socialization was positively
related to well-being (r 5 0.27, p < 0.01). The results are consistent with our argument.

Hypothesis testing
We conducted OLS regression analysis in SPSS to test our hypotheses. As shown in Table 3,
mentoring was positively related to newcomer socialization (β 5 0.51, p < 0.01, Model 6).
Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported.
Hypothesis 2 posited the mediating effect of socialization. As presented in Table 3,
mentoring was positively related to well-being (β 5 0.21, p < 0.01, Model 2); similarly,

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Gender 1.15 0.35 –

2. Age 24.10 2.08 0.10 –
3. Edu 1.23 0.45 0.09 0.61** –
4. Mentoring 4.21 0.78 0.16* 0.13 0.09 (0.97)
5. Proactive 4.13 0.44 0.11 0.03 0.09 0.36** (0.93) Table 2.
personality Means, standard
6. Socialization 4.28 0.58 0.14* 0.14* 0.13* 0.49** 0.17** (0.82) deviations and
7. Well-being 3.94 0.73 0.4 0.05 0.01 0.20** 0.16* 0.27** (0.91) correlations for all
Note(s): n 5 227; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 included variables
JMP Dependent variable: well-being Dependent variable: socialization
36,3 Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8

Gender 0.03 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.13 0.04 0.04 0.05

Age 0.06 0.09 0.04 0.06 0.07 0.14 0.14 0.13
Education 0.03 0.03 0.06 0.05 0.09 0.10 0.09 0.08
Mentoring 0.21** 0.10 0.51** 0.51** 0.56**
292 Socialization 0.28** 0.23**
Proactive personality 0.01 0.02
Mentoring*Proactive 0.15*
personality
R2 0.00 0.05 0.08 0.08 0.04 0.28 0.28 0.30
F 0.27 2.71* 4.59** 4.01** 3.06* 22.03** 17.55** 16.00**
Table 3. △R 2
0.00 0.04 0.07 0.04 0.04 0.25 0.00 0.02
The results of △F 0.27 10.02** 17.48** 8.81** 3.06* 75.85** 0.03 6.19*
regression analysis Note(s): *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

newcomer socialization was positively associated with well-being (β 5 0.28, p < 0.01, Model
3). When the effects of newcomer socialization and mentoring were considered together
(Model 4), mentoring became non significant (β 5 0.10, n.s., Model 4), but newcomer
socialization remained significant (β 5 0.23, p < 0.01, Model 4). To further test the indirect
effect, we first used 1,000 bootstrapping samples and then reported bias-corrected confidence
intervals for the indirect effect through the PROCESS in SPSS. The results revealed that the
indirect effect of mentoring on well-being through newcomer socialization (95% Confidence
Interval [CI] 5 [0.10, 0.47]) was significant. Thus, Hypothesis 2 was supported.
Hypothesis 3 proposed the moderating effect of proactive personality. As reported in
Table 3, the interaction term of proactive personality and mentoring was significant in
predicting newcomer socialization (β 5 0.15, p < 0.05, Model 8). We plotted this moderating
effect in Figure 2 and conducted a simple slope test. Figure 2 illustrates that when newcomer
proactive personality was high (þ1 SD), the relationship between mentoring and newcomer
socialization was strong (simple slope 5 0.41, p < 0.01); when the proactive personality was
low (1 SD), such a relationship became weak (simple slope 5 0.23, p < 0.05). Thus,
Hypothesis 3 was supported.
Hypotheses 4 predicted that proactive personality moderates the indirect effect of
mentoring on well-being through newcomer socialization. We also tested this conditional
indirect effect using SPSS macro PROCESS. The results revealed that the indirect effect of
mentoring on newcomer well-being (through newcomer socialization) was strong when
proactive personality was high (indirect effect 5 0.15, 95% CI 5 [0.05, 0.28]), and such a
relationship became weak when proactive personality was low (indirect effect 5 0.08, 95%
CI 5 [0.03, 0.19]). Hence, the results provided support for Hypothesis 4.

Additional analysis
As well-being includes three different aspects of an individual’s life (i.e. work well-being,
psychological well-being and life well-being), we also conducted a supplementary analysis to
investigate whether differential relationships exist between mentoring and the three
dimensions of newcomer well-being. We conducted path analysis in Mplus 7.0 to
simultaneously examine the effect of mentoring on these three dimensions. The results
indicated that the relationship between mentoring and well-being varies according to the
dimension. Specifically, mentoring had significant and positive indirect effects on work
 4.8
Mentoring and
newcomer well-
4.6 being
Newcomer socialization

4.4
Low proactive
personality
4.2 293
High proactive
4 personality
Figure 2.
The interactive effect
3.8 of mentoring and
proactive personality
on newcomer
3.6 socialization
Low Mentoring High Mentoring

well-being (indirect effect 5 0.12, p < 0.05) and psychological well-being (indirect effect 5 0.12,
p < 0.01) through newcomer socialization. Meanwhile, the indirect effect of mentoring on life
well-being was not statistically significant (indirect effect 5 0.08, p 5 0.07). Proactive
personality can also moderate the positive and indirect effects of mentoring on work
well-being and psychological well-being via newcomer socialization separately.

Discussion
Our study examined the relationship between mentoring and newcomer well-being. The
results showed that mentoring had an indirect and positive effect on newcomer well-being
through socialization. Such indirect effect was stronger when newcomers have high proactive
personality. In addition, our supplementary analysis found that mentoring had significant
influences on work well-being and psychological well-being but had an insignificant
influence on life well-being. The reason may be that mentoring can provide career and
psychosocial support at work (Kram, 1985), both of which further promote work well-being
and psychological well-being separately. While, life well-being, referring to happiness in one’s
life (Zheng et al., 2015), can be affected by a variety of other factors, such as family support
and feeling of self-worth (Erdogan et al., 2012), and thus the effect of mentoring can be limited.

Theoretical implications
Our study has several major contributions to the current literature. First, although plenty of
studies have demonstrated the importance of well-being and explored the antecedents of
tenured employee well-being (e.g. Wright and Huang, 2012), few studies have explored this
issue in the newcomer context. Drawing upon SRT, our study found that mentoring plays an
important role in promoting newcomer well-being through socialization, especially for work
well-being and psychological well-being. This finding enriches our understanding of
newcomer well-being development and responds to previous research’s appeal to explore the
formation of well-being in different contexts (Cutrona et al., 2000).
Second, our study responded to previous appeal to explore the interactive effect of
organizational socialization practice and individual difference on newcomer socialization
outcomes (Bauer et al., 2007). Past research indicated that proactive personality may
attenuate the positive effect of external support since high proactive personality can provide
personal resources which substitutes the influence of external resources (Li et al., 2011; Kim
JMP et al., 2005). For example, Wang et al. (2017) found that organizational support was positively
36,3 related to work engagement only when employee proactive personality was low. However,
our research challenged pervious findings about the substitutive effect of proactivity by
proposing that newcomer proactive personality can amplify the positive effect of mentoring.
In doing so, we enrich our understanding of the relationship between organizational
socialization practice and newcomer proactive proactivity.
In addition, through exploring the interactive effect of mentoring and newcomer proactive
294 personality, we also expand the scope of SRT. Most research on SRT focused on the external
support for socialization resources (Saks and Gruman, 2012), while paying less attention to
newcomers’ differences in their ability to absorb such resources. We theorized and found that
proactive newcomers likely utilize the benefits of mentoring. As such, in exploring the
development of socialization resources, we should consider not only organization
socialization practice but also individual difference in attitude toward such support.
Third, ample research has demonstrated the positive effect of mentoring in socialization
outcomes. Through examining the influence of mentoring on three dimensions of well-being,
our research echo previous research by highlighting positive effects of mentoring on
newcomer work well-being and psychological well-being. Interestingly, we did not find a
significant effect of mentoring on life well-being. Hence, previous research may miss an
important point that the effect of mentoring may be impeded in newcomer life area. Given that
quality of work life is a proximal factor of life well-being and the important role of life well-
being in determining newcomer’s performance and turnover (Erdogan et al., 2012), we
encourage future studies to explore the factors that boundary conditions of the relationship
between mentoring and life well-being.

Practical implications
Our study provides several managerial implications for organizations, mentors and
newcomers. Newcomer well-being is one of the greatest challenges faced by organizations
today (Zheng et al., 2015). To help newcomers integrate into their organization and enhance
their well-being, organizations may consider establishing a formal mentoring program and
encourage mentors to provide career and psychosocial support for newcomers. Moreover,
organizations can select more proactive newcomers in the recruitment or develop newcomers’
proactivity to facilitate socialization. Newcomers should also be aware of the benefits of being
proactive and fostering their own proactivity. In addition, our findings suggested that
socialization tactics can help newcomers in their transition into their new roles and promote
the integration into their organization. We encourage newcomers to develop their
socialization through actions such as understanding their role requirements and building
relationships with important insiders. In this way, they can accumulate additional resources
in response to strain during the adjustment process and thus acquire and maintain
well-being.

Limitations and future directions

Our study has several limitations, which offer directions for future research. First, our data
were collected in China and most participants were male and highly educated. Future studies
can examine our research model across different cultures or education degrees, with a more
gender-balanced sample to enhance the generalizability of our findings. In addition, although
we did not find significant differences in the demographic characteristics and well-being
between responses and non responses, the low response rates should be noted. Specifically,
newcomers who dropped out were more likely to be those for whom mentoring did not work.
This issue potentially limits the robustness of our findings, thereby creating a need for future
research to replicate our results in samples with less attrition. For instance, future studies can
adopt Dillman et al. (2014)’s tailored design method to improve the response rate in collecting Mentoring and
newcomer data. newcomer well-
Second, although we used a time-lagged design, the common method bias still remained.
Even though our measures are consistent with previous newcomer research (Rubenstein et al.,
being
2020), we encourage future studies to collect data from multiple sources and conduct a
longitudinal study to examine the relationship between mentoring and well-being. Some
qualitative research designs (e.g. case study and phenomenology) can also be excellent touches.
Third, although we found that newcomer proactive personality strengthened the influence 295
of mentoring on socialization, mentoring is possibly more important for newcomers with a
low proactivity because they may need support from insiders more than proactive
newcomers who can proactively adapt to the new environment by themselves. Thus, future
research can investigate under what conditions mentoring may have a strong effect on
socialization for newcomers with a low proactive personality.
Finally, future studies should consider other moderators and types of mentoring
relationships to offer a nuanced picture of the relationship between mentoring and newcomer
well-being. For example, such a relationship may be contingent on mentor status and
capacity (Uen et al., 2018). Moreover, it has theoretical meaning to investigate the influence of
mentor–newcomer (dis)similarities, such as gender similarity or race similarity, on the
development of their socialization and well-being. Furthermore, exploring whether this model
can work with newcomers who were only informally mentored or who had good vs bad
mentoring experiences may offer additional insights.

Conclusion
Drawing on SRT, this study examined the development of well-being in the newcomer
context. The moderated mediation model was supported among newcomers from an IT
company in China. We found that mentoring promoted newcomer well-being by improving
their socialization, and such an effect was strong for newcomers with a high proactive
personality. Our research contributes to the literature in well-being, newcomer, mentoring
and proactive personality fields.

ORCID iDs
Shengming Liu http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3516-7081
Li Yao http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5369-4662

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Corresponding author
Shengming Liu can be contacted at: [email protected]

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