Changes in modern organizations toward shorter tenures and faster employee socializations have shifted the mentoring landscape away from dyadic programs toward more collective approaches where mentoring is provided on an ongoing basis informally and idiosyncratically. However, little is known about how this shift has impacted the ways in which employees personally benefit from providing mentoring to others amid contexts containing multiple sources. Drawing on a social network perspective, our research explores the notion that employees accrue proximal and distal career benefits based upon valuable social capital specifically derived from centrality within intraorganizational developmental networks. In this study, we examine three proximal career benefits: career satisfaction, personal learning, and perceived marketability, and one distal career outcome: employee retention. Using a time-lagged study design, we evaluate the effects of providing mentoring via intraorganizational developmental network centrality in comparison to mentoring received and other pertinent career criteria. Our study findings affirm a mediated link between providing mentoring and several career outcomes. We discuss our findings with theoretical and practical implications.
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