When theory met practice: looking anew at small firm mentoring

WHEN THEORY MET PRACTICE:

LOOKING ANEW AT SMALL FIRM MENTORING

Dr. David McKevitt Dublin City University

The problem

Mentoring in large firms Scope Role Theory versus practice

Mentoring in small firms Scope Role Theory versus practice

What we do know…

Small firms are different

Mentoring has not been conceptualised as beginning with the needs of small firms

What we don’t know …

What are the needs of small firms, how does the mentor process support these needs and what are the outcomes of the process?

Research question

How do mentoring relationships support small firms?

How do mentoring processes differ between small firms?

Method

18 relationship case studies over two year period

Enterprise Ireland ‘Mentor Programme’

Mentors and mentees

High

Low

Low HighUncertainty about the

process ‘the means’

Uncertainty about the outcome

‘the ends’

Opportunity identification

Opportunity enactment

Business development

Business continuity

Opportunity identification

She helped us articulate it and a lot of the time it’s not a case of ‘this is what you should do’ a lot of time it’s a discussion so it’s us asking her questions and her asking us questions and then everyone coming to a understanding of what it is, a shared vision and when it happens then it makes logical sense, you see the alternatives and you see the path that you on and you see okay, this path has the best chance strategically and the right way to go”

[Case 5, mentee]

Opportunity enactment

the financial projections were all over the place; they weren’t formatted correctly, they were inconsistent, they were wrong…they had tried to cobble together a balance sheet that just didn’t make sense at all. Sometimes people get confused by capital equipment and capital expenditure and operating expenditure. [They] showed on their expenses that they bought a piece of equipment as an expense on the one hand but they’ll also show it as a capital item and depreciated it, but you don’t do both you either one or the other. And that just clearly indicates to someone that these guys really don’t know what they’re talking about”

[Mentor, case 6]

Business development

“I felt we were just doing a lot of box ticking rather than doing the real thing, that’s the disadvantage; the advantage was that there was a clear goal there and if you followed the path that was laid down and tick the box you ended up with a result… ‘what would you do in this situation’ and it was boom, boom, boom answer, and what would you do in this situation, he’s a fixer. I ran with it, a couple of them. He had all of the answers and he was a fixer-guy”

[Mentee, case 12]

Discussion

The transition of identification to enactment suggests more direct role for mentors

Non directive guidance is necessary but not sufficient for success

Small firms fall short of legitimacy- external stakeholders need to be convinced

Pragmatic versus paternalistic approach to small firm mentoring.

Further research

“Mentor Finder”

Instructions

Read 44 cards

Divide cards into 3 groups: Important Neutral Unimportant

Rank each card according to the instructions on the board

Complete short form

Cards contain statements which you can rank in order of importance

Further information

Dr. David McKevittQ135Dublin City UniversityDublin 9

david.mckevitt@dcu.ie+ 353 1 700 6841