Research On The Influence Of Mentor's Leadership Style On The Practical Performance Of Engineering Master From The Perspective Of Career Competency

Undertaking the dual mission of producing high-level talents and driving technology innovation,graduate education provides a basis for the implementation of innovation-driven development strategy.Geared to the needs of the nation and society,China has expanded the enrollment of full-time professional degree postgraduates since 2009.Fostering and enhancing career competency is the primary focus of the training mode reform for full-time professional degree postgraduates.For engineering masters,mentorship is considered to be a powerful means to develop their career competency.At present,this is adversely affected by undefined educational objective,inefficiency of school-enterprise cooperation mechanism and unclear mentoring mechanism.Studies showed that by examining demographic variables of business mentors individual difference of business mentors was the key factor affecting mentorship quality.Few studies have examined effects of mentors' behavioral pattern.To explore how mentor's leadership style affect career competency and pactical performance of engineering masters,this paper falls into four subthemes:(1)the connotation and structure of career competency for engineering masters;(2)the impact of mentors' leadership style on practical performance of engineering masters;(3)the internal mechanism of mentors' leadership style acting on practical performance of engineering masters;(4)the situational mechanism of mentors' leadership style acting on practical performance of engineering masters.This paper has put forward the research framework that the career competency and job involvement of engineering masters play a chain-mediated role between the leadership style of mentors and practical performance of engineering masters.This paper has designed two research questions and adoped interviews and questionares to collect data.The first research question aims to clarify the connotation and structure of career competency for engineering masters.To answer this quesiton,this paper has proposed a career competency scale by identifying connotation of career competency through behavioral event interview and open questionares,and verifying the structure model through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.The second research question aims to explore the mechanism how leadership styles of mentors affect practical performance of engineering masters.Based on self-determination theory,social exchange theory and theory of planned behavior,this paper applies hypothesis testing by using large sample data and have reponded to questions in the last three research aspects.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:First,the career competency model consists of 6 dimensions including business processing ability,communication and building relationship,learning and innovation,professional ethics,personal qualities,and customer service orientation,in a total of 27 elements.The descriptive statistical analysis results show that average score in the learning and innovation dimension is the lowest,male tends to be rated higher than female in professional competence,more practice time help promoting career competency and etc.Second,both supportive and control leadership styles have positive effects on the practical performance of engineering masters and supportive style works better than controlling style.Third,leadership style works on practical perfomance through career competency and job involement.Career competency works on practical perfomance through career competency and job involement.Compare with job involvement,career competency is the primary key factor to promote practical performance of engineering masters.Fourth,gender differences between mentor and engineering masters will weaken the positive impact of leadership style of business mentor on career competency of engineering master.Traditional characteristics weaken the relationship between supportive guiding style and career competency,but has no significant effect on the relationship between control guiding style and career competency.The theoretical contributions of this study are shown as follows: first,this paper defines the connotation of career competency for engineering masters in an exploratory way and constructs the relevant competency scale,which provides effective scales for relevant empirical studies and is not covered by exsiting studies.Secondly,this paper has explored the impact of leadership styles of business mentors on practical performance of engineering masters.It not only expands the understanding of current literature about the relationship between them,but also has implications to better understand the disagreement of existing studies.Thirdly,by incorporating the engineering master's career competency and job involvement into the research framework,this paper further investigates antecedent variables and outcome variables of career competency for engineering masters.It dives deep into the process mechanism that how leadership style of mentors acts on job performance of engineering masters,which has important theoretical significance.Forthly,by introducing moderator variables including gender difference and traditional characteristics,this study clarifies the boundary adjustment of theoretical model used in this paper and expands the understanding on how leadership styles of mentors enhance or hinder the development of career competency for engineering masters,which has important implications for future studies.The practical implications of this study are shown as follows: by constructing career competency model for engineering masters and defining consistuent elements,this study has provided theoretical basis for engineering master education reform and clarified future career requirements for engineering masters,which is meanningful to improve employability of engineering masters.By investigating the relations between leadership styles of mentors and job performance of engineering masters,this study has put forward practical suggestions for universities to employ qualified mentors and implement mentoring program.This study also presents implications for enterprises to implement mentorship program and improve career competency and work performance of new employees.