The craftsman spirit of employees has a direct impact on the core competitiveness of enterprises. As a popular talent development program, can mentorship help cultivate the craftsman spirit of employees? The purpose of this paper is to reveal the positive effect of mentoring on protégé craftsman spirit, as well as its mechanism. Based on mentoring theory, we explored the intermediary role of protégé deliberate practice and investigated the relevant boundary condition. Using a three-stage questionnaire survey, we collected data from employees in Chinese enterprises. Finally, 370 questionnaires were effectively obtained. We utilized data analysis software such as Mplus and SPSS to test the hypotheses. The empirical results showed that mentoring has a significant positive effect on protégé craftsman spirit. Deliberate practice of protégés mediates the relationship between mentoring and protégé craftsman spirit. Mentor advice-seeking behavior can reinforce the positive effect of mentoring on protégé deliberate practice and strengthen the mediating effect of deliberate practice between mentoring and craftsman spirit. In conclusion, we provide a theoretical explanation for mentoring to cultivate the craftsman spirit of employees, as well as relevant management insights for talent management practices within enterprises.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how mentors affect the career satisfaction of protégés. Drawing from the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), the authors propose a dual processing model that considers both cognition and emotion in the relationship between mentoring and the career satisfaction of protégés.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed a three-stage questionnaire survey to collect data from employees in Chinese enterprises, resulting in a total of 329 valid responses.FindingsThe results showed that mentoring had a significant positive impact on protégé career satisfaction. Additionally, role clarity and positive affect of protégés played dual-mediating effects between mentoring and protégé career satisfaction. Moreover, as a non-mentoring behavior, mentor advice-seeking behavior strengthened the positive impact of mentoring on role clarity and positive affect.Originality/valueIn the study, the authors utilize the ELM as a new perspective to construct a dual-mediating model of protégé role clarity and positive affect to illuminate the mechanism of mentoring on protégé career satisfaction, advancing the literatures of mentoring relationship and career development. Further, the authors put forward the moderating effect of mentor advice-seeking behavior by considering it as a non-mentoring behavior of mentors to deepen the understanding of mentorships. Moreover, the authors attempt to propose the long-term cumulative effect of the dual processing to expand the application of the ELM in interpersonal processes.