Flexibility and sustainability of mentorship model for entrepreneurship development: An exploratory study

Abstract

The myth that entrepreneurs are born, no more holds good, rather it is well recognized now that the entrepreneurs can be created and nurtured through appropriate interventions. The flexibility of Mentorship has been extended to provide support to first generation entrepreneurs of SMEs who face problems when they open their nascent Enterprise. The study is conducted keeping the view point of potential entrepreneurs who generally do not have any business background but are enthusiastic to start a new venture, thereby needing a Mentorship support. The objective of the study is to analyze the synergy between Mentor and Mentee and their co-existence in the firm in terms of benefits associated to both of them particularly specifying Mentee’s perception for Mentor. Analysis is done through MSVI (Mean Scale Value Index) and ANOVA which is used to analyze the statistical significance between the potential entrepreneurs and their level of interest in entrepreneurship and their perception towards the need of Mentor. The main contribution of the paper is to enhance the understanding of mentorship for first generation entrepreneurs.