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Chapter 4 80 out for their interests, Littrell (2007) examined both the number of mentors and the support they provide and Lee and Kartika (2014) specifically investigate expatriates’ own mentoring behaviors. 4.7.1 Mentoring Support and Success The few studies in the current review that investigated mentoring support show mixed results. For example, while Bozionelos (1999) showed that mentoring improved the satisfaction and retention of expatriate hospital personnel, such effects were not found in a different sample (Florkowski & Fogel, 1999). Furthermore, mentoring did not influence expatriates’ commitment or their adjustment (Florkowski & Fogel, 1999). In contrast, Littrel (2007) found that mentorship could improve the satisfaction, commitment, adjustment and retention of expatriates, but this only applied to minor aspects of the mentoring process, whereas the overall relationship was weak at best. Finally, Lee and Kartika’s results (2014) suggest that expatriates who take on mentoring roles themselves, adjust better to their host environment and may therefore perform better. 4.7.2 Moderating Factors The reviewed studies put forward one factor that may have affected the results, namely the geographical proximity of the mentor and the consequences this holds for the support provided. Following Littrel (2007), it is likely that the formal assignment of a mentor does not aid expatriates, but rather the expatriate is aided by the (perceived) mentoring activities and the enhanced organizational visibility. These latter two are affected by the geographical proximity of the mentor. Littrel (2007) compared mentors in the home and host countries and found that they fulfil similar as well as different supportive roles. They provide their expatriate protégés with equal amounts of career and psychosocial assistance, whereas mentors in the host country were especially capable of providing emotional support. Due to these different roles, home and host country mentorship had distinct effects on the examined success criteria. Most strikingly, both home and host mentoring could improve the satisfaction and retention of expatriates, whereas only a host mentor stimulated expatriates’ adjustment and IA completion rates (Littrel, 2007). Unfortunately, Littrel did not extend her studies to proximity in terms of employment status or cultural background, but her results do provide early evidence for the influence of geographic proximity on mentor programs. 4.7.3 Conclusion Limited conclusions can be drawn regarding the impact of mentorship on the success of IAs, mostly due to the mixed effects and the limited number of studies in this review. Nevertheless, no strong impact of mentoring support on the success of IAs was found in any of these studies. Early work further suggests that the impact of mentoring support relies on the types of support offered and that this is influenced by the geographical location of the mentor.