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.
What are the recommendations for practice?
This study suggests that the timing of mentoring is important and should be provided when entrepreneurs might be feeling negative or low in confidence about their success potential. Programme managers can therefore plan mentoring around particular events when entrepreneurs might be feeling low e.g. at the start of or during a pandemic, or following a pitch event / meeting with an investor, where they were unsuccessful,
Read the full paper:
Cite the paper:
St-Jean, E., & Mathieu, C. (2015). Developing Attitudes Toward an Entrepreneurial Career Through Mentoring: The Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy. Journal of Career Development, 42, 325-338.