How Mentoring Cultivates the Craftsman Spirit of Protégés—A Moderated Mediation Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Here are some comments for revision:

1.     The introduction should be rewritten. One of the most pressing challenges is the theoretical research gap. If other academics have not done anything, it does not imply a research gap; our analysis identified a knowledge gap critical for manuscript submission to SCIE journals. Typically, the framework will consist of the following elements: the significance of the issue, motivation (optional), research gap(s), aims, and possible contributions (optional). The lack of research gap(s) reduced the paper's value

2.     Theoretical model should place in Literature review

3.     The convergent and discriminant validity need to add

 

4.     There are still several language issues found that influence the manuscript's readability. Therefore, the reviewer still suggests that the authors use the service as a native proofreader.

 

Author Response

Thank you for your constructive comments for our paper! We appreciate your recommendations and we believe they will be of great value and help us to improve the quality of our paper. We have read each of the concerns or issues you mentioned carefully, and after full discussion, we have revised the paper in detail to address the issues. 

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper addresses an interesting topic and is generally well structured, but there are a few areas for improvement:

·       The verb "to temper" used in the paper's title may not be the most appropriate choice, and I would suggest rewording the title.

·       The data processing methods and presentation of results could benefit from more detail.

·       The discussion of findings should be expanded, with reporting of the authors' results to other similar studies.

·       The bibliography has rather few new scientific papers (after 2020).

Author Response

Thank you for your encouragements and constructive comments for our paper! We appreciate your recommendations and we believe they will be of great value and help us to improve the quality of our paper. We have read each of the concerns or issues you mentioned carefully, and after full discussion, we have revised the paper in detail to address the issues. 

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is exploratively interesting, because the authors set out to analyze processes, that are usually difficult to grasp, because they occur in the sphere of affective communication, and are related to the processes of attitude formulations. The general goal of the authors is to clarify, how the spirit of craftsmanship is perceived, and what impact it has on employees, improving their competence in their relationship with senior colleagues. In the Introduction section, the authors contextually cite the results of previous research related to craftsman spirit and its impact on mentored employees. The cited context provides the authors with a contribution to formulate a conjecture on, how this practice affects the transmission of knowledge and skills in the teacher-student relationship and the direction of this transmission. In the Literature Review and Hypotheses Development section, the authors acquaint the reader of the article with key publications shedding light on the mechanism of mentoring and formulate four hypotheses: H1. Mentoring is positively related to protégé craftsman spirit; H2. Mentoring is positively related to protégé deliberate practice. Employees are more likely to develop their own craftsman spirit through continuous deliberate practice; H3. Protégé deliberate practice mediates the positive relationship between mentoring and protégé craftsman spirit. H4. Mentor advice-seeking behavior strengthens the positive relationship between mentoring and protégé deliberate practice. At this stage, the reviewer is required to make two comments: (1) substantive, related to the study design implied, by the way the hypotheses are formulated, and (2) structural. The first comment is related to the suggestive nature of some of the hypotheses, characterized by subjectivity and predictability. They are related, for example, to the way the H1 hypothesis is formulated. Lexically, the suppositions associated with the positive character of the word "mentoring" project the objectivity of the hypothesis by disrupting it. Hypothesizing about mentoring, the authors formulate the thesis, that it is a positive experience and process. This is somewhat reminiscent of a constructional syllogism, as associations with the predecessor word project the perception of the thesis emerging from the successor words. Perhaps a better approach would be to ask, why a phenomenon occurs and, what factors are responsible for it. It is difficult to seek to confirm or reject a hypothesis so strongly marked by association. A design note is, that the hypotheses are scattered in a rather large section of the text between sections 2.1. to 2.4. and in between there is a sizable section of theoretical text that relates thematically to chapters 1 and 2 of the reviewed study. It would have been clearer to collect the hypotheses in one place and list them, and place their theoretical case in another, also common place. In the methodology section, the authors should very precisely and clearly indicate the circumstances of the study. From the introduction we learn, that 370 questionnaires are involved. In the Methodology (3.1.), the authors elaborate on this, explaining from which original sample they are drawn, and over what period they were collected. However, there is no data characterizing even the economic sectors from which the companies, that constitute the microenvironment for the mentors and their employees were selected. It would be appropriate to remedy this shortcoming by introducing clarification. How many such entities were there, and are the final and original samples somehow different? The strongest, but unfortunately shortest part of the article is section 3.2. This is the essence of the study, and unfortunately its place was largely consumed by the overly elaborate portions of the text that provide background for the hypotheses. The final version of the article would do well to rethink the proportion of text in each section, reducing, what is external to the research procedure. Distortions related to the suggestive potential of the words indicated earlier by the reviewer and the authors' adopted method of formulating hypotheses impinge on the content of the Discussion section. In general, it shows, that mentoring is perceived and valued positively (this is predictable). However, we do not learn, why. Nor do we learn, whether this formula has any drawbacks, and if it does, what they are due to. Taking these issues into account is, in the reviewer's opinion, crucial in explaining such mechanisms. This is because it is possible to gain insight into, how certain processes occur and, why they produce certain effects. I make no comments on the other parts of the study.

Author Response

Thank you for your encouragements and constructive comments for our paper! We appreciate your recommendations and we believe they will be of great value and help us to improve the quality of our paper. We have read each of the concerns or issues you mentioned carefully, and after full discussion, we have revised the paper in detail to address the issues. 

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors, 

I wish to make the following points related to  your manuscript:

-  You don't appear to have considered the consistency of  mentorship in the manuscript. Perhaps it a cultural issue: how consistent are mentors in  performing their roles ?  Is there scientific literature available to inform on this question as it is a key to success  ? 

-  Regarding  'mentor advice seeking'  more clarification is needed on this concept as it is counter- intuitive.  Normally the protege would seek advice from the mentor ?   Please clarify what is involved in the  ' mentor advice seeking' at an early stage in the  introduction of the paper. 

At Page 2  lines 46-52.  Could I suggest citing reference(s) forthe sentences in this area. 

- At page 3   you state  ' and highlight the  two-way nature of the mentor- protege  interaction. However   in Figure 1  all the arrows are going in one direction. Perhaps  you could  reconsider Figure 1 to indicate the  two-way nature of the mentor protege interaction. 

-  In the Results section  4.4,2 I feel that it would aid the reader if it could be explicitly stated how hypotheses are supported for H4 and H5. 

 Figure 2. 

 Should Mentoring on the  horizontal axis be replaced with ' Mentor Advice Seeking'  ? 

- I noticed a small number of typos as follows: 

- line 45, who becomes 

 -line 75.  effect on protege

-line 106  12 should be bracketed. 

- line 177  speculate

 

Author Response

Thank you for your encouragements and constructive comments for our paper! We appreciate your recommendations and we believe they will be of great value and help us to improve the quality of our paper. We have read each of the concerns or issues you mentioned carefully, and after full discussion, we have revised the paper in detail to address the issues. 

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

- I consider that another revision of the text is required (for fluency and readability);

- I did not find this bibliographic resource on Google Scholar: Li Q, Yan MH, Tang WJ, Zhang HR. Research on the Cross-level Influence of Inclusive Leadership on the Practice of Craftsman Spirit of Manufacturing Employees. Soft Science. 2021; 35(7): 98–103. doi:10.13956/j.ss.1001-8409.2021.07.15;

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. We have read each of the issues you mentioned carefully, and after full discussion, we have revised the paper in detail to address the issues.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf