Development of a two-way mentorship scale focusing on next-generation core competencies

Abstract

Abstract With society and technology developing rapidly and the new generation of young adults entering the workforce, the core competencies that must be possessed by employees are changing along with factors such as changes in the external environment and enterprises’ internal demands; consequently, the characteristics of mentorship are also subject to change. This study investigated two-way mentorship and the core competencies necessary for workers in an organization. After rigorous testing and compilation processes, this study developed a two-way mentorship scale for assessing the three dimensions of career development, psychosocial support, and role modeling. The data analysis revealed that the internal consistency values for career development, psychosocial support, and role modeling were 0.911, 0.879, and 0.791, respectively. The factor loading of all items exceeded 0.50 and thereby conformed to the theoretical model. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the goodness-of-fit indices of the scale met the corresponding standards. The average variance extracted was 0.342–0.497, the composite reliability was 0.591–0.911, and the square root of the average variance extracted was 0.584–0.704. Finally, managerial, practical, and academic suggestions are proposed on the basis of the study results, and the research limitations are identified.