Passion in executive mentoring influences organizational innovativeness

Mentoring is a popular resource for individual and organizational improvement. In this study we examined for the first time passion in executive mentoring as a potential approach to developing organizational innovativeness. In most previous studies the executives, for example, chief executive officers, were the mentors, but we took the opposite view, namely, the executives were the mentees. Results confirmed the hypotheses that the executive’s perception of the mentor’s passion was positively related to the executive’s perception of organizational innovativeness, through the quality of mentoring and cognitive adaptability. Confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis confirmed the validity of the results. Results demonstrated the value of passion in executive mentoring and the subsequent link to organizational innovativeness via the quality of mentoring and cognitive adaptability. Theoretical and managerial implications and directions for further research are discussed.