Search results

This research examines whether mentoring is a predictor of entrepreneurial intentions. It also explores how intent translates into action through implementation intentions. The study tests if the mentoring-intentions association is mediated by self-efficacy. The potential moderating effect of achievement motivation on the relationship was also investigated.

PLS-SEM was used to test the hypotheses of the 242 valid responses collected from final-year students from Libyan public universities.

Results show that self-efficacy partially mediated the mentoring-intentions association, while motivation negatively moderated the relationship. Entrepreneurial intentions had a significantly strong effect on implementation intentions.

The results verify mentoring as a practical socializing instructional approach. Therefore, universities should implement structured mentoring programs, offering emotional guidance, counsel and networking opportunities. Also, mentors should undergo training, and progress tracking is essential for improvement.

Examining entrepreneurial self-efficacy as a mediator and achievement motivation as a moderator in the mentoring-intentions association is unprecedented. The findings narrow the search for antecedents to entrepreneurial intentions and pinpoint intervention points.

Based on Chinese incubators as the research sample, this paper aims to examine whether and how incubators' entrepreneurial mentoring and financial support affect incubator patent licensing. Entrepreneurial mentoring functions through the buffering mechanism and financial support functions through the bridging and curating mechanisms.

A negative binomial model is used to empirically explain the relation between entrepreneurial mentoring or financial support and incubator patent licensing. In addition, a cross-sectional test is performed to explore whether province-level incubator support policies strengthen the effect of entrepreneurial mentoring and financial support on incubator patent licensing.

The results reveal that incubators' entrepreneurial mentoring positively affects patent licensing. In contrast, incubators' financial support has an inverted U-shaped relationship with patent licensing. In addition, the two relations are stronger when an incubator locates in a province with more incubator support policies.

The authors contribute to the literature on incubator performance by identifying an important but less discussed factor: entrepreneurial mentoring. Through the connection with mentors, tenants efficiently commercialize the value of their patents, facilitate patent licensing and expand the product market. Furthermore, the inverted U-shaped association between financial support and patent licensing shows that incubation support does not always have a linear effect on incubator patent licensing. Overall, this study provides evidence on the effect of incubator support on incubator patent licensing.

This study investigates the impact of mentoring on real estate students' entrepreneurial intentions with a focus on Nigeria, an emerging African economy. Specifically, the study assessed the influence of mentoring on the entrepreneurial intentions and career preferences of real estate students and analysed the influence of having a real estate mentor on the respondents' perception of the motivators and inhibitors to their entrepreneurial intentions.

The study adopted a descriptive research approach using closed-ended questionnaires. The study population comprise final year real estate students selected from three federal universities offering Real Estate in southwest Nigeria. Total enumeration was adopted for the study. From a total population of 231 students, a response rate of 69.26%, representing 160 questionnaire were retrieved and found suitable for the analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistical techniques were employed for data analysis.

The result shows that the factor structure of the motivators for students who have real estate mentors clustered into four constructs; in order of influence are personal fulfilment/satisfaction, flexibility/financial motives, mentoring/economic influences and personal preferences/prestige and status. Meanwhile, economic/independence, personal preference/fulfilment, financial motives/self-perception and mentoring were the factor clusters influencing intention for real estate enterprise by students who have no real estate mentor. Predominant debacles across both categories of respondents relate to the lack of support and market uncertainty.

There is a growing body of knowledge exploring the linkages between mentoring and the development of entrepreneurial intentions. However, scant empirical investigations have examined the impact of mentoring on real estate students, especially from the perspectives of emerging markets which are usually characterised by low economic opportunities and where issues of graduate unemployment appear endemic and yet to be appropriately resolved.

This study explores the implications of mentoring on the entrepreneurial intentions of real estate students' from the perspective of an emerging market.

Entrepreneurial mentoring is widely regarded as an effective way to train novice entrepreneurs all over the world. However, the effectiveness of this approach and the determinants are not well understood under country-specific conditions. The purpose of this paper is to build a conceptual framework and use empirical analysis to explore the mentoring effect and its determinants, especially in the Chinese context.

The paper uses data from 172 young entrepreneurs which had been supported by Youth Business China, Mianyang Office since 2008. The factor analysis and structural equation model have been applied to analyze the data to investigate the quantitative relationship and path of the mentoring effect of entrepreneurship with mentor’s factors, young entrepreneurs (mentees’s factors) and their interrelationship.

The assessment scores of the entrepreneurship mentoring effect both in experience level and effectiveness level are relatively high, in the satisfactory range. The entrepreneurship mentoring effect, measured by the experience and the performance level, is determined by the coupling interaction of the mentor, the mentee and their interactive relationship. Among them, the mentor’s characteristic, the most important being his/her intention, has the biggest effect on the mentoring effect, significantly bigger than the mentor’s quality and skill. However, the mentor’s intention is not strong as expected. The interactive relationship between the mentor and the mentee also has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial mentoring effect. The study also discovered the mentee factors have comparatively smaller effect on both the interactive relationship and the mentoring effect. Furthermore, it is found that the absorptive capability and learning intention of the young entrepreneur are relatively weak.

The construction of the index system of this research reflects the overall characteristics of the research objects and their static relationships. Therefore, the dynamic change of the mentoring relationship in different phases of the mentorship has not been taken into account. Also, self-serving bias may exist as this research measures the mentoring effect by the feedback on the mentor’s perception, using surveys completed by the mentees to measure both the mentee’s traits and the mentor’s qualities.

This study provides guidance on how entrepreneurship could be promoted and on how educational institutions in China can make the mentoring process a positive and effective system in order to enhance the mentoring effect.

The empirical conclusions of the present study can be applied to other business incubator, entrepreneurship education institutions and for the improvement and promotion of entrepreneurial mentoring system in China.

This paper probes into the mentoring system in the context of China from a new perspective and proposes an original conceptual model to study the entrepreneurship mentoring effect and its determinant.

Mentoring appears to be a good support practice to reduce entrepreneurial doubt, amongst other things. Although perceived similarity could foster the mentoring relationship, gender dyad composition may also influence doubt reduction for entrepreneurs because of the potential gender stereotype in entrepreneurship.

The authors performed longitudinal research based on an initial sample of 170 entrepreneurs supported by a mentor to investigate the evolution of entrepreneurial doubt.

This study demonstrates that doubt can be reduced with mentoring, but only temporarily for male mentees. Gender stereotypes may be at play when it comes to receiving the support of a female mentor as entrepreneurship is still, unfortunately, a “male-dominated world.” Receiving support from mentors perceived as highly similar within the dyad does not reduce entrepreneurial doubt. Trusting the mentor is an important aspect, besides gender, in reducing entrepreneurial doubt.

The research provides insights into the gendered effect of mentoring to reduce entrepreneurial doubt. It shows that gender dyad composition should be taken into consideration when studying mentoring or other similar support to entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the contributions of peer mentoring as a learning support for mentee students in higher entrepreneurship education.

This paper presents a single embedded case study focussing on mentee students’ perceptions of peer mentors’ support of their entrepreneurial learning during an experiential master’s course. Employing an abductive approach, the researchers conducted cross-sectional, thematic analyses of individual mentee interviews complemented by data from joint reflection sessions, reflection reports and observations during the course timeline.

The peer mentors contributed to the mentee students’ learning through various forms of support, which were categorised into mentor roles, mentor functions and intervention styles. The analysis found that peer mentors fulfil three coexisting roles: learning facilitator, supportive coach and familiar role model. These roles constitute the pillars of a typology of entrepreneurial peer mentoring.

This study contributes theoretical and empirical insights on peer mentoring in entrepreneurship education. It represents a first benchmark of best practices for future studies.

The case study suggests that adding peer mentoring represents more efficient support for entrepreneurial learning than a teacher alone is able to provide. The typology can also be used for training peer mentors.

The researchers construct a new typology for entrepreneurial learning support, which contributes to theory development within the field of entrepreneurship education.

The experiences materialising as learning tasks in the entrepreneurial context do not automatically transform into effective learning for a novice entrepreneur. In this paper, we develop a comprehensive and situational role taxonomy for entrepreneurial mentoring meant to address this challenge.

Entrepreneurial mentoring builds on the assumption that it can facilitate the transformation of experience and consequently enhance the learning outcomes for a novice entrepreneur. By integrating and extending the extant research on entrepreneurial learning and mentoring, we argue for a dynamic and situational approach, scrutinising the fit between discrete entrepreneurial learning modes and the mentoring functions targeting them.

We complete our theorising by developing four propositions and a taxonomy of mentor roles. The role taxonomy comprises a repertoire of four different roles that target the learning modes through learning-enabling mechanisms drawn from the learning literature.

The role taxonomy poses important implications for future entrepreneurship research. The role taxonomy can be directly employed in more targeted, formal training programmes for both mentees and mentors.

The purpose of this study is to examine the under‐researched subject of the role of mentoring relationships within and outside of organizational boundaries as individuals make the career transition from being a corporate employee to becoming an entrepreneur.

Using structured interviews, the authors collected data from 24 men and women in the financial services industry in the UK about their experiences in making the transition from a corporate organization to a new venture work context. All interviews were transcribed and systematic Nvivo coding was used.

Developmental relationships with structural, relational, and cognitive embeddedness were most likely to transfer from the individual's corporate workplace to their new venture. Support for both the recent literature on multiple mentors and for gender differences in the patterns of these mentoring relationships was also found.

This is the first published study to examine whether mentor relationships from previous corporate employment transfer to the protégé's new entrepreneurial venture and whether other types of relationships (e.g. coworkers, clients) are transformed into mentor‐protégé relationships after the career transition to entrepreneurship. It is also among the few studies to examine mentoring of entrepreneurs and gender differences in mentoring within the entrepreneurial work context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how autonomy, moderated by employment status, impacts the relationship between entrepreneurial mentoring (EM) and entrepreneurial intentions (EI) among three countries (Germany, Kenya, and Uganda); as informed by both theory of planned behavior and self-determination theory.

A convenient sample of 1,509 youth from Germany, Kenya, and Uganda consisting of final-year university students, wage-employed, and unemployed was identified and studied. A multi-group analysis was conducted to test for differences in the impact of EM and autonomy on EI.

The findings indicate that mentoring and autonomy are positively correlated with EI. EM and intentions were lower among German participants than for the East African countries. The moderated moderation results revealed that EM is related to higher EI among students and the unemployed, and when individuals have higher levels of autonomy. Country-level analysis showed the effects of EM and autonomy are highest in Germany and lowest in Uganda.

Mentoring and self-determination play an important role in the development of EI. Entrepreneurship mentors should specifically support their protégées to develop the ability to act autonomously as an important entrepreneurial competence. The results further indicate that effectiveness of EM varies according to employment status and among countries. This is particularly important for targeting and designing of EM interventions. EM resources should be applied to youth with high autonomy, who are in either in insecure wage employment or who have no jobs. Protégés with low levels of autonomy should be supported to appreciate autonomy and develop the ability for autonomous action. Future EI research should also examine the impact of the availability of attractive positions in wage employment; and the effects of the availability of social safety nets on the need for autonomy.

A major challenge in EI research is the predominant focus on student populations. Using a multi-group analysis, the present paper tested for differences in the impact of EM and autonomy on EI. EM and EI were lower in German participants that in Kenyan and Ugandan participants. Whereas EM was generally positively correlated to EI, the moderated results showed that EM is related to higher EI among students and the unemployed, and when participants have higher autonomy. The study implies that EM and EI are highly correlated when participants need to work but have not or cannot find work or whey they do not need salaried employment to survive.

One of the main goals of entrepreneurial mentoring programs is to strengthen the mentees’ self-efficacy. However, the conditions in which entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) is developed through mentoring are not yet fully explored. The purpose of this paper is to test the combined effects of mentee’s learning goal orientation (LGO) and perceived similarity with the mentor and demonstrates the role of these two variables in mentoring relationships.

The current study is based on a sample of 360 novice Canadian entrepreneurs who completed an online questionnaire. The authors used a cross-sectional analysis as research design.

Findings indicate that the development of ESE is optimal when mentees present low levels of LGO and perceive high similarities between their mentor and themselves. Mentees with high LGO decreased their level of ESE with more in-depth mentoring received.

This study investigated a formal mentoring program with volunteer (unpaid) mentors. Generalization to informal mentoring relationships needs to be tested.

The study shows that, in order to effectively develop self-efficacy in a mentoring situation, LGO should be taken into account. Mentors can be trained to modify mentees’ LGO to increase their impact on this mindset and mentees’ ESE.

This is the first empirical study that demonstrates the effects of mentoring on ESE and reveals a triple moderating effect of LGO and perceived similarity in mentoring relationships.