The hub for coaching &
mentoring entrepreneurs
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Arca hub
Coaching & mentoring entrepreneurs
Hi and welcome to Arca, the hub for coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs. ‘Arca’ is a Latin term, meaning ‘chest for valuables.’ Here on Arca, we aim to bring you all the valuables related to coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs, so you can strengthen your practice with research, guidance, resources and more!
The practice of coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs has grown in both public and private sector entrepreneurship initiatives in recent years as a way of developing business ideas and driving them forward. Arca aims to support you in informing and enriching this practice, so that we can provide entrepreneurs with the best support possible to develop and grow their businesses.
Our vision is the be the go-to place for knowledge and insights on coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs.
Research
What’s new in research
What’s New will provide insights from research that is published in academic journal articles. We’ll be providing summaries of what the research tells us, along with recommendations for how you can apply them to your practice.
When can mentoring build an entrepreneur’s self-efficacy?
What does the research tell us? St-Jean and Mathieu (2015) showed that mentoring increases the entrepreneur’s self-efficacy and confidence in capacity to clarify their business vision and increase their management skills. The increased self-efficacy results in the entrepreneur feeling more positive about their future success potential. Read more
Managing the perception of coachability
What does the research tell us? Bryan et al. (2017) used a dataset of high-growth startups in a university incubator and found that it was possible to predict which firms were more likely to follow advice than others. Firms that followed advice from a mentor were likely to be newer and smaller teams and were thus perceived as more coachable than firms that did not follow advice and who were seen as stubborn (Bryan et al., 2017). They also found that the reason some firms were not following advice could be because they already possessed the capabilities relating to the advice given, which ... Read more
Demonstrating coachability
What does the research tell us? Coachability is defined by Ciuchta et al. (2018) as “the degree to which an entrepreneur seeks, carefully considers, and integrates feedback to improve his or her venture’s performance.” They found that coachability serves as a signal in a pitch setting and can influence a potential investor’s willingness to invest, depending on the investor’s prior coaching experience i.e. potential investors with a higher level of prior coaching experience are more likely to notice and value the coachable entrepreneur. Not only can coachable entrepreneurs be perceived to ... Read more
Share discuss advance
The NCME Network
The Network for Coaching and Mentoring Entrepreneurs, NCME, was co-founded through a research and practice collaboration between Dr Harveen Chugh and Victoria Nicholl, along with the support of Enterprise Educators UK. Our purpose is to enable enterprise educators to share practices on coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs. We aim to provide the best support possible for entrepreneurs by sharing resources, discussing key themes and advancing knowledge on coaching and mentoring for entrepreneurs.
Further your interest
Resources
Resources will point you towards useful sources of information that you can read, watch or listen to broaden your knowledge and develop professionally. Some of these will take you outside of entrepreneurship and deeper into the coaching and mentoring worlds, but of course you will find knowledge and insights that you apply to your practices with entrepreneurs. We share some of our own recommendations, plus links to other sites that you can also explore further.
Coaching for Performance The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership by Sir John Whitmore
This is one of ‘the’ books in the coaching world, with the well-known GROW model for coaching (goal, reality, options, will). As well as GROW, the book provides a great introduction to coaching principles, as well as the benefits and ROI (return on investment) of coaching. See resource
The Playbook A Coach’s Rules for Life
This is a Netflix (2020) series with coaches such as Patrick Mouratoglou (tennis coach for Serena Williams), Jose Mourinho (football coach) and Dawn Staley (basketball coach) sharing insights on how they coached their teams to success. The coaches share their methods and experiences, so this provides good inspiration for techniques you might like to try. See resource
The Coaching Habit Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier
This is an easy and practical read that takes you through a series of 7 essential questions you can ask during your coaching interactions to make them more useful. See resource
WHO WE ARE
About us
Arca, the hub for coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs was founded in 2021 and is led by Dr Harveen Chugh, winner of two National Enterprise Educator Awards. Harveen is a Consultant and Associate Professor at Warwick Business School.
Co-founders collaborating from Imperial and Warwick, Dr Harveen Chugh and Victoria Nicholl
The NCME celebrated its 3rd birthday in May 2023!
Virtual meetings per academic year
Entrepreneurship educators and programme maangers attended our in-person event at the Invention Rooms, White City, April 2023
Members from around the globe and growing!
GETTING STARTED
Tips & Guidance
EQUIP YOURSELF