Department of Management Studies, INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI

Title: Business Mentoring for Holistic Growth of Entrepreneurs: A Perspective of Mentors

DeepaliResearch Scholar, Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi

Prof S. K. Jain

Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi

Dr. Harish Chaudhary Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Background• Need of the Study• Literature Review• Learning from the literature• Risk of Business Mentoring Relationship• Focus of the Study and Gaps• Research Questions• Research objective• Methodology• Analysis and Findings• Conclusion

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BACKGROUND

• Enterprise failure has become a key issue in developing economies (Cressy and Storey, 1996; Stanworth and Gray, 1991)

• Mentoring to young and potential entrepreneurs is found to be one of the solutions to increase the survival rate of small and medium enterprises (Shridhar and Ravikumar,2008; Deakins, D., et al., 1998; Gibb, 1997; Ibrahim and Soufani, 2002; Robertson, 2003)

• There is constant realization of re-defining, entrepreneurship education (Khanduja and khanduja, 2008) and entrepreneurship (e.g. training) in India (Awasthi, 2011, Mathew, 2008) and so as business or entrepreneurial mentoring

• Monopolistic competition has almost gone, entrepreneurs are experiencing global competition, constant need has been realized to improve, the way mentoring is being done for entrepreneurs

• Business mentoring is undertaken voluntary by experienced experts of the industry and academia (Shridhar and Ravikumar,2008)

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NEED OF THE STUDY

• Experience, guidance, coaching, advising teaching (Pegg,1999) and psychosocial support (Waters et al., 2002) is not enough for potential entrepreneurs to survive

• Business mentoring needs mentor to perform beyond traditional roles

• Though there have been studies which shows the importance of business mentoring (Barret, 2006; Sullivan, 2000), but less is known from the perspective of the Mentor

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REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE• The core of the mentorship is to develop mentee- a less experienced

person by mentor- a more experienced or expert person (Mullen, 1998)

• 1400 years ago- Kautilya (350-275 B.C.) mentored Chandrgupta, as a result Chandragupt became emperor of India and Kautilya received recognition, satisfaction, fame and high place in his mentee’s empire

• Mentoring can be- Informal (Bozeman and Feeney, 2007) and formal (Chao et al, 1992, Eby and Allen, 2002).

• Dyad relation (Kram, 1985, Auster, 1984; Eby & Allen, 2002; Ragins and Scandura, 1997) and group mentoring (Dansky,1996)

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REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE cont..

St-Jean and Audet (2009) entrepreneurial mentoring is a relationship which acts as a support to novice entrepreneur (the mentee) who is being mentored by an experienced entrepreneur (the mentor), entrepreneurs may learn managerial skills from them

Entrepreneurial mentoring is a business development process for managers who own small business (Gold et al., 2003)

Brown (1990) suggested that “mentoring is the process in which an experienced veteran helps to shape or guide a newcomer…true mentoring is an extended, confidential relationship between two people who have mutual growth and corporate success – as common goals”

Harrington (1999) More experienced entrepreneur acts as a ‘critical friend’ or ‘guide’ that help other in career and development

Gravells (2006) Entrepreneurial mentoring is a support provided to entrepreneurs (small business) at the pre-stage of start-up and further than as well

Mentors as role model are significant in personal development of entrepreneurs (Hudson et al. 2002).

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REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE cont..

Cos and Jennings (1995) suggested that mentoring act as a facilitator to entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs should develop an ability to learn from their mistakes

Kruger (1998) argues that entrepreneurship requires range of tasks which are complex to perform alone by entrepreneurs. Therefore, mentors are needed to help them

Sullivan (2000) termed business mentoring as “critical incidents”. It focuses on learning from actions of mentor

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RISK OF BUSINESS MENTORING RELATIONSHIP

• Hansford et al. (2001) found that personality mismatch, ideological differences or expertise differences caused problems in the mentoring relationship

• Noe (1998) studied the impact of mentoring, found that in comparison to mentee, mentors tend to overvalue their support and endorse a greater percentage of the business success to the mentoring

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LEARNING FROM THE LITERATURE

From the definitions we can conclude that so far mentoring is defined as a process of developing relationship between more experienced and less experienced person, which include guiding, advising, helping, coaching and teaching whereas mentorship is defined as a relationship between mentee and mentor

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FOCUS OF THE STUDY AND GAPS

• This paper focuses on the study of mentor’s perspective on defining mentoring and linking the role of mentors in business mentoring

• A thorough examination of relevant literature suggested that although several scholars have discussed the definition of business mentoring and the role of mentors for business mentoring, the majority of those studies were conducted in US, UK, Canada and Australia and their findings are specific to the environment of developed countries

• The other limitation of those studies is that they are focused on discussing attributes of mentor/mentee and mentor’s importance in the growth of entrepreneur/enterprise. The studies are focused on personal and professional development of entrepreneur/enterprise

• Although, literature offers important insights regarding the role of mentor in the growth of business, it fails to provide linkages between mentoring, mentor’s attributes and enterprise mission/vision

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• What are the changes happened during last two decades in business mentoring within India?

• How the role and perception of mentor has changed towards business mentoring in a developing economy, specifically in India?

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RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

• To understand the perspective and role of business mentors

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METHODOLOGY

• To explore a new theory which may provide logical bases for the changes happened in business mentoring and conceptualizing relationships, we used grounded theory methodology

• A content analysis was performed to analyze the data qualitatively on the research questions

• The data has been gathered with pre-defined agenda or focus for the purpose of deriving theory and concepts (Strauss and Corbin, 1990)

• The unit of analysis at primary level is “word”. Then the words are grouped as per their similarities and differences through open coding to form categories. Through axial coding categories are related to each other and to core category

• The categories are formed in a way that they match the same process (Baskerville and Pries-Heje, 1999, Strauss and Corbin, 1990)

• At last linkages within and between the categories are explored to make sense of relationships and theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967)

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DATA COLLECTION

The data was collected through interviews of Mentors from different organizations in India.

A total of 30 respondents are interviewed across India

Open-ended, in depth interviews which lasted for 60 to 90 minutes. To address the issue, a sample of 30 respondents is considered to be large enough

To maintain reliability and validity the same procedure is repeated for the each interview (Ashill et al., 2003)

The respondents were contacted through the email. An email sent to them along the research questions of the study so that respondents may understand the agenda of the research. A small write-up was also requested from the respondents so as to understand their views on business mentoring (research questions) in India

Telephone interviews were scheduled as per the appointments given by respondent via email. Local (NCR region) interviews are conducted face-to-face

Before starting the interview, respondents were told about the need and the purpose of the study

To check the accuracy and perform cross checks, the written response and interviews are matched for each respondent

RESPONDENT PROFILE

All the respondents are currently into mentoring. All respondents have more than 15 years of mentoring experience. The typical background of the respondents include: academician, entrepreneur, director of company, chief executive officer (CEO), general manger of bank, vice chancellor of university, head of entrepreneurship (ministry of science and technology) and independent professional consultants. All the respondents belong to multiple backgrounds. Only one respondent was female and rest 29 are males. The age of respondents lies between 50 to 70 years

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• To maintain the authenticity of the coding, researcher who collected data, have done the coding (Richardson, 1993; Denzin, 1994; Kvale, 1995)

• Interviews were transcribed completely so that reinterpretation with every fresh reading is also possible (Kavale, 1995)

• Open-coding is done line by line• The unit of analysis was “word”• At the next level words are identified along with phrases to understand their

contextual meaning• Author (entrepreneurship) along with co-author (entrepreneurship and economics

background) categorized the data• Linkages are found based on keywords and phrases with similar or contrasting

meaning that support the common theme “business mentoring”• The researchers also looked for the direction of the words that is positive/negative

or support/opposite (Neuman, 2003)• Common consensus among authors helped in finalizing the most appropriate

categories related to business mentoring• Though mentoring is a process and mentorship is a relationship between mentor

and mentee, the words mentoring and mentorship are used interchangeably in this study

CODING AND CONTENT ANALYSIS

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l

Zig-Zag Data Collection and Analysis to Achieve Saturation of Categories

Data Collection Data Analysis

Close to SaturatedCategories

ThirdInterview

SecondInterview

FirstInterview

More RefinedCategories

RefinedCategories

PreliminaryCategories

TowardSaturation ofCategories

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l

Open Coding to the Axial Coding Paradigm

Open Coding Categories Axial Coding Paradigm

One open codingcategory as core

phenomenon

1.Vision/ Success/ Values as Mentor’s

aspiration

complete handholding of

mentee

timely developmental

technique

5. Mentor understands

business

4. Mentor’s involvement as

holistic growth of mentee

Causal Conditions

CoreCategory orPhenomenon

Context

Strategies Consequences

InterveningConditions

Enterprise Failure, Unemployment, lack of entrepreneurship, education, culture, mentors, confidence among entrepreneurs

3. Multi-dimensional

personality of business mentor

2. Experience/ Diversification/

Network as background (business

mentor) complete handholding

of mentee

timely developmental

technique

Cat. 1, 2,3,4,5

Lack of mentor’s interest, commitment, time & mentee

behavior, culture

Initiate for longer durationInitiate as Mentee’s aspirations

Survive as holistic growth

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FINDINGS

CATEGORIES PROPERTIES DIMENSIONS

Business mentoring is a timely developmental technique

TimeDevelopmentTechnique

LongHolisticEffective

Business mentoring is a complete handholding of mentee

HandholdingGrowth

Initiation to SurvivalHolistic

Mentor’s aspiration Vision Success Values

Personal / ProfessionalPersonal / ProfessionalPersonal / Professional

A complete handholding

Vision/ Success/ Values

as Mentor’s aspiration

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FINDINGS cont..

Some Typical Responses

Mentorship is a process to help the client to identify solution for a particular problem timely

Mentoring is a time-proven technique used to help the mentees to achieve their potential. The purpose of mentoring is to help and development of mentees

Mentorship start from business plan, mentee’s initial part itself is faulty when they don’t have business plan. Primary executive summary include: what is the reason to start a business, who are the members and what is the competency, when they start market, money/finance. In last five years everyone is talking about venture funds/ fund. But nobody gives money at ideation state, mentor needs executive summary

Aspirations of a mentor is not the aspirations of a learner, but the overall growth, inclusive of field, topic as well as the personality and ability to adjust or deal the actual situations, more of a life skill can surely be affected or influenced by the role of a mentor

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FINDINGS cont..

CATEGORIES PROPERTIES DIMENSIONS

Background (business mentor) ExperienceDiversification Network

Limited/ Many Years MultipleDiversified

Multi-dimensional personality of business mentor

EnablerMotivatedKnowledgeableUnambiguousCompetentPassionatePersonality

Yes/NoHigh/LowYes/NoClarityLess/Very muchYes/NoPositive/Repulsive

Mentor’s involvement as holistic growth of mentee

InvolvementInterferenceDecision MakingInterest

High/LowHigh/LimitedYes/NoPersonal / Professional

Mentor understands business Business skillsCompetitorsSubject areaProblem SolverVisionaryExperienceProcess KnowledgeFund raiser

Yes/NoYes/NoYes/NoYes/NoYes/NoContemporaryContemporaryYes/No

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FINDINGS cont..

Some Typical Responses

Technology, target market break through needs, business development skills, funds raising abilities, ability to enter into strategic business alliance needs for rapid growth of the business etc.

Mentors who have been first generation entrepreneurs are most effective and influential. That is followed by the ones active within the second/third generation of family business, members in/from the stakeholders interest e.g, engineer, CA, Banker, and Professor in the area of Strategy/Entrepreneurship/Family Business/ Innovation, field experience must for all

Passionate, enabler, unambiguous, motivated for entrepreneurship, mentor is a gifted person who assist, encourage, support the entrepreneurs

Mentors should not try to transform the mentee or impose the mentor’s own values on the mentee

Who understands the nuances on the nature of business, intrinsic and extrinsic to firm and can seamlessly guide the incumbent entrepreneur in his/her journey to become an entrepreneur

Mentor understands

business

Mentor’s

involvement as holistic growth

of mentee

Experience/ Diversification/

Network as background

Multi-dimensional

personality of busines

s mentor

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FINDINGS cont..

The core of business mentoring is achieving vision and success for entrepreneur and creating value for enterprise. Mentors reported that most of the times mentee do not have vision for their enterprise. This is why even after passing the stage of survival, entrepreneurs are remain full of anxiety and feel aim less too. A mentor helps entrepreneurs to articulate the vision for his/her enterprise and for them as well, and handholds them to achieve their aspirations. To arrive at conclusion, all the categories are combined together in a diagram. The inter-linkages in the form of intersections/subset are shown in figure 3. Mentor’s aspirations which are actually entrepreneurs/enterprise mission (or core of mentoring), can be achieved with the help of attributes of mentor (Category 4,5,6,7) through a timely developmental technique. A complete handholding by mentor leads to achieving core of mentoring. A complete handholding encompasses all the categories and all the categories are subset of a complete handholding. A complete handholding is a process of mentoring. It includes mentoring through timely developmental technique. A timely developmental technique is used by mentor to achieve the core of business mentoring

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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

First, the organizational or any other mentoring is not time bound but business mentoring is result oriented and time bound in nature otherwise mentee (entrepreneur) may face serious consequences including failure of firm

Second, business mentoring is in transition face, previously it was done on voluntary basis but now it requires full time professionals (Mentors) with accountability. Business mentoring for start-ups would be more in a formalized structured way rather than an informal one this is also hinted by Hofman (1998). It is now beyond just guidance or consulting but it requires a technique to fulfill entrepreneurial goals timely, a complete handholding of entrepreneur by mentor

Third, mentor’s background is very much important. Hierarchy is not important in business mentoring, a mentor should have diversified experience/expertise and ground-level experience to understand the voice of customer

Fourth, mentor’s goal is not only to develop entrepreneur or enterprise but to work for vision and mission as well

Fifth, the involvement of mentor is not limited to provide psychological and psychosocial support (Waters, L. et al., 2002; Kram, 1983, 1985) but essentially in terms of time and efforts. A mentor should ask questions to mentee in order to clear any ambiguity and enables entrepreneur to take right decisions

Sixth, a business mentor needs to understand the in and out of mentee’s business, despite having diversified experience. A systematic understanding of business plan and executive summary before starting a business is must for entrepreneurs.

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CONTRIBUTION

Definition for business mentors:

“Business mentor handholds an entrepreneur to achieve his/her vision and aspiration with accountability, for a given period of time”

Definition of business mentoring:

“Business mentoring is a process to achieve entrepreneurial aspirations through a timely developmental technique which involves complete handholding by a mentor”

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THANK YOU