Journal Screenshot

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

The Enabling Conditions Necessary for Effective Online Mentoring: A Proposed Model

Nadine Oosthuizen, Sandra Perks

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v9-i6/5975

Open access

Online mentoring offers several benefits to stereotyped individuals and those from marginalized groups as it combines conventional mentoring approaches with new technology and provides wider access to a pool of mentors. The aim of this paper was to develop and validate a hypothesized model of the enabling conditions necessary for effective female online mentoring. A positivistic quantitative research methodology was followed by collecting data with a structured self-administered online questionnaire using convenience and snowball sampling. A final sample of 63 respondents in South African were obtained. An Exploratory Factor Analysis was applied to extract the valid constructs and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients calculated to confirm reliability of the measuring scales. The enabling conditions for effective online mentoring are infrastructure readiness, consideration of demographic matching preference, the characteristics of the mentor; the communication process followed; the perception of the mentoring pair about online mentoring and to develop an online relationship. The validated model and measuring instrument can be used by researchers for further testing or by institutions wishing to implement an effective online mentoring program.