The Effects of Mentor Quality, Exposure, and Type on Junior Officer Retention in the United States Army

Despite the prevalence of mentor relationships in the workplace, little is known about their impact on labor market outcomes, including job retention. Using plausibly exogenous assignment of protégés to mentors in the US Army, we find positive retention effects for protégés assigned to high-performing immediate and senior supervisors. These positive effects are strongest for those with high SAT scores. We find virtually no evidence of type-matched mentoring effects on retention, except when mentors are also high-performing. For protégés serving under high-performing mentors, matching on high SAT score and home division positively impacts protégé retention.