Resource Translation Across Sectors: Contextual Contingenciesin Women’s Career Success

Abstract

While organisational behaviour scholarship recognises perceived organisational support
(POS) and relational mentoring as vital resources for women’s subjective career success (SCS),
empirical research frequently presumes that resource-translation processes operate uniformly
across occupational environments. This study investigates how industry sector conditions resource-
translation pathways and shapes the career returns of developmental mentoring under
domestic family responsibility (FR) among female professionals. A cross-sectional survey was
administered to a stratified sample of N = 923 full-time employed women across four distinct
sectors in Gujarat, India, comprising Higher Education (n = 382), Banking and Financial Services
(n = 205), Information Technology (n = 180), and Healthcare (n = 156). Data were evaluated
using Welch one-way ANOVA, Games-Howell post-hoc contrasts, saturated cross-sector
OLS interaction models, and 5,000-resample bootstrap conditional indirect effect estimation.
The empirical findings reveal that while reported domestic family responsibility did not
differ significantly across sectors (Welch F = 0.792, p = .498), institutional resource baselines
diverged substantially (Welch F = 27.962, p < .001). Furthermore, resource-translation pathways
exhibited significant sectoral contingencies. Healthcare demonstrated a significantly
weaker POS-to-mentoring translation relative to Higher Education (interaction B = -0.2891,
p < .001), whereas Information Technology exhibited a significantly weaker mentoring-to-
SCS relationship (interaction B = -0.6891, p = .011) alongside a significant three-way interaction
with family responsibility (B = 0.1496, p = .041). Moderated mediation was confirmed in
Banking and Higher Education. These findings demonstrate that career resource translation
is fundamentally context-contingent, underscoring the necessity for sector-tailored talent
management interventions rather than universalist diversity policies.