Background: In contemporary careers, individuals are expected to proactively manage and develop their own paths. "Career urgency," originally conceptualized in Japan, captures three affective-cognitive facets—"feeling of being pressurized," "urge to develop one's career," and "concern for one's career"—that relate to turnover intention and mental health.
Objective: To develop an English version of the Career Urgency Scale (CUS-E) and examine its factor structure, reliability, and validity among U.S. young adult workers.
Methods: Following the ISPOR Task Force guidelines, the original Japanese items were forward-translated, reconciled, back-translated, reviewed by the original authors, and cognitively debriefed with native English-speaking workers. The main study used a web panel survey of full-time U.S. employees aged 23-35 (N = 200; 100 men, 100 women; M_age = 29.52, SD = 3.98), with data collected August 25-31, 2025. Participants completed 16 preliminary CUS-E items (4-point scale), turnover intention (Mobley et al., 1978), introjected regulation from the Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale (Tremblay et al., 2009), and the GHQ-12.
Results: Cognitive debriefing led to minor wording revisions. Confirmatory factor analysis of the 16 items prompted removal of two low-loading items (λ < .30). The final 14-item model showed satisfactory fit, χ²(74) = 212.673, p < .001; CFI = .915; RMSEA = .097; SRMR = .064. Internal consistency was acceptable: "feeling of being pressurized" α/ω = .91/.91, "urge to develop one's career" .75/.75, and "concern for one's career" .79/.79. Correlations were as follows: "feeling of being pressurized" and "concern for one's career" correlated (r > .50) with turnover intention and GHQ-12; "urge to develop one's career" correlated (r > .20) with turnover intention, introjected regulation, and GHQ-12.
Conclusions: The CUS-E replicated the original three-factor structure, showed adequate psychometrics, and exhibited expected external correlates. Findings support the cross-linguistic applicability of career urgency and provide a tool for comparative research on early-career adaptation and well-being.