Impact of mentoring and peer-learning within a global entrepreneurship programme Joanna Mills, Shima Barakat and Shailendra Vyakarnam University of Cambridge, UK.
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ABSTRACT Mentoring and peer-to-peer learning are well recognised as important interventions to support entrepreneurship because they allow the transfer of knowledge from direct experiences and learning of one entrepreneur to another, most often within faceto-face settings. This paper reports on the role and impact of both mentoring and peer-to-peer learning within a new and innovative higher education programme specifically designed for entrepreneurs who are disparately located around the globe and who are either starting, or considering starting, a new business venture or entrepreneurial initiative for the first time. Keywords: mentoring, peer-to-peer learning. I INTRODUCTION Governments are currently placing much emphasis on entrepreneurship to stimulate the growth of economies by supporting a wealth of initiatives. Entrepreneurship within Higher Education is often placed high on their agendas to stimulate innovation and encourage educated individuals to be more entrepreneurial. What is embodied within such government policies, is that the outcomes should be the development of entrepreneurs and this in turn requires that entrepreneurship education goes beyond teaching students about entrepreneurship to develop pedagogies that create entrepreneurs (Kirby, 2007). Governments are also increasingly supporting new and growing businesses through a myriad of practical initiatives, for example the UK’s Growth Accelerator Programme where coaching and mentoring feature as prominent support interventions. Technology and the internet now pervade our lives, education and learning and in addition have created a wealth of entrepreneurial opportunities. The explosion of Web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005), in particular has created many new possibilities for educators through enabling a more social approach to learning (Mason and Rennie, 2008; Minocha, 2009). Elearning is employed within all levels of education and within many disciplines including business and management, however there remain few reports of
online or blended learning in entrepreneurship education (Arbaugh, et al., 2010). In an earlier study (Mills, et al., 2010) we took initial steps to explore E-learning and its role within entrepreneurial education by especially focusing on the collaborative learning arising from the interactions of students with each other online. We believe the evidence gained from this work demonstrated that social constructivist and connectivist learning facilitated through e-learning can be applied successfully to entrepreneurship education. The aim of the current study is to investigate the impact and value of mentoring and peer-to-peer learning to a globally based cohort of participants striving to develop themselves as entrepreneurs and initiate new business ventures, and explore these as pedagogical interventions within the context of E-learning for entrepreneurship education. First we review literature relating to mentoring and peer-to-peer learning within the context of entrepreneurship, education and the virtual environment. We then draw upon evidence from a new programme at the University of Cambridge, the Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship, which is delivered largely online, to gain insights into the value, processes and relationships of mentoring and peer-to-peer learning. II LITERATURE REVIEW A. Mentoring Entrepreneurs Mentoring has long been recognised as a positive intervention for personal career development and has been well researched. In mentoring, the mentor usually is someone more senior than the mentee who has experience and a degree of success in the field and who serves career development, as well as psychosocial and role modelling functions to a more junior mentee (Kram, 1983). Research into mentoring support for entrepreneurs is, by comparison, relatively limited. Some studies focus specifically on coaching for SMEs (Gray, et al., 2011) whilst others use the term ‘entrepreneur enabler’ as an umbrella to embrace a number of advisory and support roles (Thompson and Downing, 2006) and highlight three interlinked aspects to supporting entrepreneurs: turning the
basic idea into a successful product or service, developing the business and transitioning the ‘entrepreneur in waiting’ into a ‘competent practitioner’. Mentoring functions have been studied in the entrepreneurial context, and four psychological functions (reflector, reassurance, motivation and confidant), four entrepreneurial career-related functions (integration, information support, confrontation and guide) and a role model function have been confirmed (St Jean, 2011a). Mentoring as a learning intervention may have particular relevance for entrepreneurs for whom both experience and reactions to ‘critical incidents’ are important to their learning processes (Cope and Watts, 2000). It is through these that entrepreneurs ‘learn to learn’ and to adjust strategies and make decisions based on that learning. Mumford (1995) suggested that the most effective relationship between a mentor and learner will ensure that the learning cycle is completed in relation to situations problems and opportunities. Sullivan (2000) suggested that entrepreneurs are often activists so mentors may need to assist with reflection and Deakins and Freel (1998) propose that mentoring interventions focus on helping the entrepreneur to learn, rather than imposing solutions. Some studies have focused on the role of mentoring for entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. Ozgen and Baron (2007) highlight the importance of social sources of information such as mentors, networks and participation in conferences in enabling opportunity recognition and St-Jean (2011b) suggests that the more a mentee learns with a mentor the more they trust their own ability to recognise opportunities, and that the experience of the mentors helps to both shape the thinking of the mentee and bypasses their lack of experience. Entrepreneurs, without the backdrop of any organisational interventions have the choice to either utilise networks or personal contacts to seek out mentors, participate in formal mentoring programmes or not to engage with mentoring at all. Bisk (2002), Sullivan (2000) and St-Jean and Audet (2009) have explored the success factors and issues surrounding formal mentoring programmes and a key emerging issue is the matching process between mentors and mentees. Bisk (2002) found that career related advice that entrepreneurs seek is quite general therefore there is no need for mentors to be experts in the business or industry sector of the mentee entrepreneur, and St-Jean and Audet (2009) cite meeting efficiency, mentees belief that the mentors understand their situation and mutual
trust as key factors relating to the success of the mentoring relationship itself. B. E-mentoring, Education and Entrepreneurship Single and Muller (2001) define E-mentoring as ‘the merger of mentoring with electronic communications’ and note that this has also been termed telementoring, cybermentoring, or virtual mentoring. ‘E-mentoring is a relationship that is established between a more senior individual (mentor) and a lesser skilled or experienced individual (protégé), primarily using electronic communications, and is intended to develop and grow the skills, knowledge, confidence and cultural understanding of the protégé to help him or her succeed. Structured e-mentoring occurs within a formalised program environment and provides training, coaching and structure to increase the likelihood of engagement in the e-mentoring process and relies on program evaluation to determine the impact on the participants (both protégés and mentors) and to identify improvements for future programs’ (Single and Mulller, 2001). The arguments for and against E-mentoring have been widely discussed (Clutterbuck and Cox, 2005). Within a mentoring relationship, Ementoring may operate at different levels, i.e. as the only mechanism of communication, the primary mechanism or supplemental to a primarily face-toface mentoring relationship (Ensher, Heun and Blanchard, 2003), however most literature on Ementoring within formal programmes, is linked to education or professional development and the benefits and challenges are widely reported (Shrethsa, et al., 2009; Williams, et al., 2012). Single and Muller (2001) devised a theoretical framework for E-mentoring within formal programmes which focuses primarily on structure and process and incorporates the three key stages: planning; structured implementation; and assessment, in a cyclical and iterative model. Overall they highlight that both the e-mentoring process and the expectations of both mentors and participants need to be managed closely. Akin and Hilburn (2007) and Williams and Kim (2011) provide reports of e-mentoring in practice for professional development and education, respectively, highlighting the actions taken to manage and support e-mentoring processes, including the setting of clear objectives; developing structures; administrative, technical and mentoring
support; technology and communication tools; training; and assessment. The success of an E-mentoring programme will also depend upon building trust between participants. Zey (2011) suggests that programme facilitators should aim to shepherd relationships; however the self-motivation, flexibility, communication and technological skills of participants and mentors are also crucial to success (Colky and Young, 2006). More recently Mashaw (2012) has proposed an effectiveness index for online courses and mentoring which is influenced by factors such as: the learning experiences of participants; programme facilitation; the technology used for communication; interaction and participation; the inspiration of the mentor; and hindrance factors. Key to the success of any form of mentoring is building the mentoring relationship. Whilst Bierema and Merrian (2002) suggest portfolios of strategies that both mentor and protégés might adopt to enhance the success of e-mentoring relationships online, Purcell (2004) suggests that the relationship should be established in person. The skills of the mentor are also critical. Homitz and Berge (2008) propose that good mentors are responsive, good at listening, open, honest, nonjudgmental and ethical, approachable, available, good at observing and problem solving, patient, set expectations and have genuine interest in helping the protégé. It has often been noted that entrepreneurs require flexible, learner-centered and informal mechanisms of support (Gibb, 1997) and with this in mind the virtual environment and e-mentoring may present themselves as excellent mechanisms for supporting entrepreneurs (Perren, 2003). Evans and Volery (2001) identified three critical success factors for the use of the internet to provide business development services for entrepreneurs as being: exploitation of the inherent strengths of the internet, the importance of personal communication and effective programme and internet site management. C. Peer-to-peer learning and support for entrepreneurs Other mentoring possibilities also exist such as peer-mentoring and step ahead mentoring, and often individuals have a constellation of mentoring relationships to enhance personal development (Eby, 1997; Ensher, et al., 2001; Higgins and Kram, 2001). There are reports of some formal face-to-face programmes for entrepreneurs that harness peerlearning and mentoring. For example Zhang and
Hamilton (2010) explored building trust for effective peer-learning and found that avoiding issues of competition to be successful as the participants still shared business problems and learning needs. Pittaway et al., (2009) required participants to engage in peer mentoring on a oneto-one basis at regular intervals and found that the act of peer-mentoring was highly positive enabling these individuals to gain confidence and insight into their own problems as well as developing selflearning skills. Powell and Houghton, (2008) explored facilitated, peer-to-peer educational micronetworking for entrepreneurs and discovered that topics covered by these micro-networks ranged from hard business challenges through to more personal issues and it was impossible for these small businesses to separate the two. Real examples of remote peer-to-peer learning and support for entrepreneurs are non-existent at present; however it has been discussed in the literature. Evans and Volery (2001) propose that ‘entrepreneurs are willing to participate in a small learning network if the benefits go beyond that of just learning together’ and Stokes (2001) identified that shared learning with other business managers had some appeal. III RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY The role of mentoring and peer learning within programmes for entrepreneurs has been demonstrated within the literature to have positive benefits for entrepreneurs and e-mentoring may have a role in supporting entrepreneurs. However, despite the potential of the internet, the discussions of such support have largely related to local or domestic audiences of entrepreneurs. At the same time, there remain very few examples of entrepreneurship education delivered online or through blended learning formats and these studies mostly relate to courses delivered to students based within universities, rather than entrepreneurs located around the world. With this in mind the key research questions for our study are:
How effective are mentoring and peerlearning in supporting a globally based cohort of entrepreneurs within an educational programme, where the objectives are to enable them to learn, develop as an entrepreneur and implement a new enterprise? What factors influence the effectiveness of mentoring and peer-learning within education
for entrepreneurship for a global cohort of entrepreneurs? The focal point is the Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship launched at the University of Cambridge in 2011. Designed specifically as a programme ‘for’ entrepreneurs rather than ‘about’ entrepreneurship it seeks to combine the practicality of entrepreneurship with academic rigour. It is delivered through a blended approach of two residential sessions in Cambridge (three weeks in total) plus around 250 hours of collaborative and individual study delivered through a dedicated virtual learning environment which take place over a 12 month period. Participants are assigned a mentor who supports them in translating their learning to a real ‘Enterprise Project’ with the aim of taking steps towards implementation at the end of the programme. The mentor role is distinct from that of academic programme faculty and specifically the key responsibilities of the mentor are: • • • • • •
Supporting and nurturing participants entrepreneurial talents and ambitions Supporting participants learning and translation of this learning to practice Assist students in identifying the detailed advice and support they might need and encouraging them to find that support Offering general guidance, constructive criticism and comments during the project Engaging with participants and responding in a timely manner Attending final presentations and giving feedback to faculty on participants’ presentation performance.
For this study mentors were invited to attend a workshop at the end of the first year of the programme to specifically review the mentoring element in a focus group type discussion. Three of the six mentors engaged by the programme were involved in this discussion which was recorded for later evaluation, the remaining three responded to the same set of questions independently by email. The entire cohort of 31 entrepreneurs who participated on the programme was invited to participate in online discussion forums designed specifically to contribute to this research. A total of 18 participants contributed to varying degrees and the data collected was rich with information, so we believe that this represents a level of qualitative data that this sufficient for this research.
IV THE POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP The overall objectives of the programme are to provide an academically rigorous programme of learning; enable participants’ personal development as entrepreneurs; and support participants in the translation of learning to develop new ventures and enterprises. The programme is carefully designed to enable participants to work on new ventures concurrently with their studies and these ventures provide a clear and meaningful target for the direct application of learning and as a project for written assignments. The programme comprises four sequential courses, two of which (Courses 1 and 3) have residential and online components and the remainder are delivered entirely online. Assessment is based around participants’ own Enterprise Projects, reflective learning journals, participation within the VLE, inclass tests and oral presentations within the residential sessions. The design of the E-learning component is based around weekly themes, each following the same format. Some written content is provided as a start point for each theme and complemented by video lectures given by role model entrepreneurs to highlight key learning points. Participants are encouraged to contribute to asynchronous discussion forums to consolidate their learning, before personalising it by translating and applying their learning to their own Enterprise Projects through a weekly assignment. Participants are expected to develop or utilise key entrepreneurial skills such as networking, and are encouraged to reflect on these skills. Asynchronous discussion forums are crucial in consolidating and personalizing content and are also vital for promoting collaborative peer-to-peer learning. For each weekly theme there are three types of forums designed to: 1. Deepen participants understanding of the content through individual contributions and learning from the contributions of their peers 2. Start to translate learning to participants’ own projects 3. Explore entrepreneurial experiences: participants own, the role model entrepreneurs within the videos and their colleagues (Mills, et al., 2010). For each course there is also a ‘Students’ Open Forum’ for participants to share progress of their ventures and enjoy social interactions. Mentoring is provided to all participants both at residential sessions and remotely: they are assigned
a mentor at the start of the programme and each mentor has five or six mentees. At both residential sessions there are defined ‘group mentoring’ sessions where the mentor facilitates their mentees to work on defined tasks, and the second residential session also included a ‘one-to-one’ mentoring session for individual discussions. During the online components of the programme, participants are encouraged to schedule regular discussions with mentors. The frequency, length and medium of interaction (telephone, Skype, email) is agreed between mentors and mentees individually, however it was recommended to mentors that they should allocate 30 minutes per week per participant for mentoring. Single and Muller (2001) highlight the importance of planning and managing expectations within ementoring programmes and the following steps and practices were implemented with regard to our mentors: Detailed documentation including: briefing documents, agreements, registration form and NDA1 Workshops in advance of each of the residential sessions Debriefing meetings approximately three weeks after each residential session Private VLE mentors discussion forum Regular contact from Programme Director with regard to participant and mentoring progress. Participants were also provided with a briefing document, an introduction to mentoring during the first residential session and regular reminders to contact with their mentors. The nature of the programme, with limited residential time in Cambridge and the flexibility of online learning attracts participants from across the globe (participants of 12 different nationalities located in 10 different countries in the first cohort). As well as geographical dispersion and a diversity of cultural influences, the cohort ranged from 21-55 years old on entry to the programme and in experience from fresh graduate to experienced employee or entrepreneur. Additionally participants came from a myriad of industry sectors. Although the majority of participants were seeking to become or continue their careers as entrepreneurs, twelve of the participants were employed within Universities in Malaysia, primarily as entrepreneurship educators. This diversity highlights both a richness of possibilities for peer-learning and the range of 1
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potential discussion points that mentors might encounter. V FINDINGS Three types of data that are important in the assessment of e-mentoring programmes (Single and Muller, 2001): involvement data (the frequency of interactions between mentoring pairs), formative data to guide the alteration or enhancement of the program and summative data to determine the value of the e-mentoring program and how well it achieved program goals. We present our findings in these terms. A. Role of the Mentor Mentors were asked to review the list of their expected tasks and in general they believed these were fairly accurate and encouraged them to focus on the participants Enterprise Projects. However, a number of issues emerged surrounding the expectations of participants, the academic nature of the programme, the balance between the Enterprise Project and personal development and the variation in levels of interaction with participants from regular conversations to minimal contact. Specific points were made in relation to the group of entrepreneurship educators from Malaysia, particularly with regard to the additional motivation of developing these individuals as entrepreneurship educators and the tensions that arise as a result between their personal development as educators and development as entrepreneurs. The mentors also highlighted that they generally had fewer interactions with these participants than other mentees, although it remains unclear as to whether this can be attributed to culture and expectations, time pressures or their prior experience as entrepreneurship educators. The mentors were asked about whether their time with participants focused on mentoring personal development or Enterprise Project development, and generally they felt that this depended on the needs of the participant and their own knowledge and style. Two quotes from different mentors provide insight into how mentoring developed: ‘At the early stages when we started talking to the students about their projects, I focused on trying to find out how much they really believed in their projects and what their motivations were to take them forward. This takes time and is an evolutionary process. You can’t move the project forward without the person, so ultimately mentoring of both becomes intertwined, but this develops through the programme.’
‘Whether the initial enquiry was personal or business development was irrelevant, because it was supporting the individuals’ personal development that enabled the business development to get to the next stage.’ B. Mentoring at Residential Sessions and Online Mentors generally preferred face-to-face mentoring and felt that this had greater impact. They also believed that face-to-face mentoring within the first residential session laid excellent foundations for the remote mentoring and suggested additional one-toone mentoring at this point. Different mentors adopted different approaches to group sessions within the residential sessions even though they were all provided with the same set of tasks. Whilst one generally adopted a group discussion approach, another found asking participants to complete a task and present worked better, a third combined work in pairs with holding individual discussions and a fourth adopted the approach of facilitating peerlearning. The approach was influenced by both the mentor’s personal style, the dynamics of the group and the task, however mentors all highlighted the need to be flexible. Remote mentoring was seen by mentors to be an extension of the residential sessions and was almost exclusively delivered on a one-to-one basis. Mentors took a range of approaches using different mediums (telephone calls, email, Skype, face-toface meetings) depending upon the participants and their needs. One mentor highlighted how he had regular email exchanges with some mentees, phone calls with another and long face-to-face meetings every four or five weeks with a fourth. For all mentors there was a variation in the levels of interactions, and they had very limited interactions with some participants for different reasons including preferences for working more independently and extensive travel. However a key challenge and frustration highlighted by some mentors were participants who did not respond despite numerous attempts to reach out to them. C. Mentoring Relationships A key aim of our study was to explore how mentoring relationships developed during the programme, so we asked mentors for their suggestions as to the essential elements and ‘deal breakers’ of mentoring relationships on the programme. Essential elements of mentoring relationships fell into a number of key areas:
Nature of the relationship – openness to discussion and collaboration, an attitude of ‘together we can make progress’, mutual trust, respect and integrity, and clear objectives. Commitment and motivation – understanding commitment of both mentors and mentees and mentors need to understand mentees motivations. Mentoring is most successful when mentees really need and want it. Trust – established between mentor and mentees and between mentees within group mentoring. Regularity of contact – participants have different needs so flexibility is required and mentoring relationships are unique. Personality, values and ethics – consideration of the person as well as the enterprise project. Listening – mentees must know that mentors are listening and mentors must respond accordingly so they truly connect. Attributes of mentors – they must be human, open, honest, direct and willing to be wrong. Clarity of roles – especially within a structured academic programme.
Mentors made the following comments on ‘deal breakers’: When there is clearly no chance of a workable relationship, I must use my integrity to know when that time has come. When particpants don’t respond, there is a limit to my time and responsibility to follow up. There may be personality clashes, but also values or ethics clashes. Although the latter can be discussed there may come a time when I just can’t deal with these. Remote mentoring presents challenges to listening as one can’t listen completely without voice tones, breathing or visual clues so interactions are open to misinterpretation or mis-communication. Mentors should not act as experts or judges. Mentees who won’t listen, who have closed minds, who won’t reflect or consider the feedback they have been given, who see themselves as superior to the mentor, who expect too much from the mentor, or who become dependent upon them are challenging to mentor.
Finally the mentors were also asked to consider the skills that should be fostered by participants to enable good mentoring relationships to develop and they listed: Listening Reflection Ability to ask clear questions Willingness to be open Desire to learn by engaging with others Ability to accept criticism, but challenge criticism that they feel is unjustified. One mentor also made the point that ‘a good mentor will make people want to listen to them’ highlighting the instrumental role that mentors play. Mentors also need to have skills and abilities such as delivering feedback, but many of these can be developed and trained. As experienced mentors, our group recognised that they often mentored instinctively, but they acknowledged the need to continually work on mentoring relationships to counteract complacency. D. Impact of Mentoring and Peer-to-Peer Learning – the Participants Perspective To initiate discussions and provide a high level perspective, programme participants were asked to describe their journey over the programme and were invited to share specific examples of their learning experiences. The big impact of the programme for some participants was clearly evident as the following extracts describe: ‘The programme has been transformational for me, it has become a lot more than just a Cambridge certification and it has helped me answer one of my biggest questions, "Do I really want to start a company?".’ ‘It has truly been one roller coaster ride. A year ago I was a girl paralyzed by an idea, unable to speak to anyone about it... Now I’m a girl, who is at the brink of launching the website she has dreamt about for four long years, in which she has embedded a creative marketing strategy and business model in the very design of her site itself, having made the first public announcements and ready to take on the world.’ Whilst some participants highlighted the overall journey, others focused on the development of the Enterprise Project reporting pilot projects,
launches, financial support, collaborations and a multitude of steps such as websites, mobile applications, doing projects for customers, developing networks and formally setting up a business. Further participants cited aspects of personal development (better understanding of personal strengths and weaknesses, learning to trust intuition, increased self awareness and alertness to entrepreneurial opportunities) and one of the entrepreneurship educators described a range of interrelated impacts of the programme including enhancing teaching, supervision and research in entrepreneurship, leading the entrepreneurship centre at the university and contributions as an entrepreneur to the family business. A further discussion explored the value of mentoring and the clear messages of thanks to mentors provides overwhelming evidence that their guidance, support and facilitation of group mentoring at residential sessions with ‘skill and sense’ and by providing a ‘dynamic learning environment’ was much very much appreciated by participants. The following provide insights into individuals’ experiences of working with their assigned mentor: ‘Every feedback or input from my mentor is thought provoking, opening up an alternative way of thinking about a situation or issue.’ ‘This course has allowed me to confront my demons – my poor listening skills and my need to get a better grasp of the entrepreneurial finance. Instead of masking my deficiencies I faced them head on and I have my mentor to thank for that. …. I feel well poised to embrace a more entrepreneurial lifestyle.’ Although students were specifically assigned to a mentor for the duration of the programme they were encouraged to network with other mentors at residential sessions. A number of participants highlighted the benefits of interacting with multiple mentors both in general terms such as extending networks and the additional encouragement, however one recounted in detail the impact of very specific interactions with each of the mentors which resulted in new connections, taking alternative perspectives and developing practical approaches. In terms of challenges only two were cited by participants. For one the initial mentoring relationship simply did not work so a different mentor was assigned and this new relationship thrived. The second provided the only comment on the challenges of e-mentoring by highlighting that:
‘Mentoring was best when done in person …. I feel that during the remote part of the program, the same quality of discourse was never achieved, simply because the workload of the program, paired with all other commitments and the need to contribute on the VLE, leaves very little time for long and high quality Mentor discussions, especially in written format.’ With regard to peer-to-peer learning the VLE provides a permanent record of participants’ contributions and data drawn from it quantifies the extent of peer-to-peer interactions. Over 5300 contributions made by participants of which 4445 were posted within discussion forums relating to learning themes and the remainder in open social forums. The impact of peer-to-peer interactions appeared to be fourfold: 1. Collaborative learning which arose from the diversity of perspectives, contributions of additional materials, analyses, searching questions and the sharing of experiences. ‘The vast array of knowledge, different viewpoints and exchange of ideas was a positive experience, from those in their twenties to those in their sixties. I learned something from all of the regular contributors to the VLE.’ ‘Each of us had exciting and inspiring journeys to share. We all had our breakthrough moments… seeing this and experiencing this with my very own eyes was the absolute beauty of it… There were some who contributed early on to the discussion forum and got the conversations going ... [while] some others who joined in at the end, but tied it up all, getting an overview of all the discussions that had been unraveling so far - both roles are equally crucial.’ 2. Direct contributions to the development of individuals ideas and Enterprise Projects. ‘Discussion with peers gives me chance to test my idea and improve on it before I introduce it to the market.’ ‘My successes with my project include genuine collaboration with class mates - in particular I am indebted to one of my classmates who helped me simplify my idea.’ 3. The value of the global entrepreneurial network.
‘This program has established a new platform for networking ... The relationships that we built can be one of our competitive advantages … as we exchange ideas and information. This program has created new networking around the globe which is priceless.’ 4. The value of the social and open forums for participants to share their progress: ‘Celebrate on your success, even if it appears as something small; feeling progress makes a big difference.’ To sum up the overall impact of peer-to-peer interactions versus their expectations at the start of the programme one participant commented: ‘When I started the program, I honestly was expecting a bit more rivalry …among the people joining, simply because obviously everyone is very convinced about their own idea and criticism is not always well received. I was proved wrong, on numerous occasions..... Doing a part-time course like this, there will always be up's and down's in motivation, simply because you are never fully immersed in the material but study in your free time next to juggling work, family, and other commitments. The discussions were always a great way to get motivation back and focus on the goal.’ VI DISCUSSION AND REFLECTIONS Combining our findings from mentors and participants with reflections from the authors as Programme Faculty a number or points are worthy of discussion. We believe we have demonstrated that both mentoring and peer-learning through a combination of face-to-face and remote interactions have a positive impact, with qualitative evidence from programme participants highlighting the value in terms of knowledge and understanding of entrepreneurship, personal development and in progressing entrepreneurial projects. However, we believe the real value of our study rests in developing a deeper understanding of the factors that influence the effectiveness of mentoring and peer-learning where participants, mentors and the Programme Team are disparately located around the globe. Central to such highly social and interactive learning processes for entrepreneurship is establishing successful relationships. Based upon our findings we believe that factors associated with participants and mentors combined with the
structures, processes and actions associated with the programme team, lay the foundations for trust and respect so that relationships can start to form at the initial residential session. Mentoring and peer-topeer interactions are subsequently nurtured through the programme as collaborative learning relationships that in turn deliver the impacts described in our findings. The programme team actively facilitates VLE discussions, and participation during online learning components is assessed through a range of criteria. We believe the latter is instrumental in stimulating a high level of peer interactions (Mills, 2010). Alongside this, the initial residential session plays a key role in establishing social and learning relationships and in building trust between participants. Some participants feel isolated during the online learning periods, partly because as entrepreneurs their journey can be lonely, but also because they are distant from peers. We believe this builds a desire to reach out on the VLE. The contributions of participants also make for very rich discussions and engaging and valuable reading. Despite the success of mentoring within this particular programme, there were challenges, mostly arising from the tension of providing an academically rigorous educational programme that strives for practical entrepreneurship. This tension manifests itself at many levels: for participants; for mentors; and for the design of the programme. The programme structure and processes partially address this, for example: all assessments are positioned as academic pieces of work and the practical support role of mentors to translate learning to Enterprise Projects is clearly defined and distinct from the more academic role of Programme Faculty. However some challenges remain. For mentors the nuances of mentoring to enable a qualification to be gained are quite different to that of mentoring participants to become entrepreneurs. The programme is primarily academic and the application of theory to the Enterprise project as a real live context for learning is instrumental to the success of participants on the programme in gaining the qualification. The role of the mentors to support participants in translating that learning to their project means they need to assist participants in changing the relationship they have with the academic material by helping them recognise that the body of knowledge and set of theories studied can be used as a toolkit for the Enterprise Projects. To this end, although the overall roles of mentors and programme faculty are quite distinct there are
also overlaps. Perhaps it requires mentors with specific skills to facilitate entrepreneurial learning. For mentors, their involvement in this programme was quite different to mentoring entrepreneurs elsewhere, and they stressed the need to be flexible in combining mentoring, coaching and facilitation. Remote mentoring was however new to them, but they embraced it, were flexible in adopting their own strategies and appreciated the limitations. Two real challenges remained: • How to work with participants who do not respond to the offer of remote mentoring; • The time to engage in the high levels of discussion within the VLE. These can be addressed through a combination of the processes, structures and role guidance surrounding the programme. Perhaps the most important finding from this study is that overall mentoring on a programme such as this is quite different to other entrepreneurial support or entrepreneurship education programmes. It may take a very special kind of mentor who has a real passion to support nascent entrepreneurs, an appreciation of the underpinning academic rigour and the time to devote to fully engaging with the virtual learning environment to enable success. VII CONCLUSIONS To achieve the development of entrepreneurs from educational programmes we need new pedagogical models which combine practicality and academic rigour with an entrepreneur-centered approach and we believe this new programme is one such model. From the evidence we have collected, we also believe that a combination of face-to-face and remote mentoring and peer-learning are instrumental in supporting a globally based cohort of entrepreneurs. Such interventions have an impact on real understanding of entrepreneurship, personal entrepreneurial development and the progress of entrepreneurial projects. Factors associated with participants, mentors and the design of the programme influence both the peer-to-peer and mentoring interactions and relationships that play a role in delivering such success, and programme teams can influence these through mentor selection, programme design and programme management to enhance effectiveness. This was an exploratory study and there are a number of avenues that are open to further research. Firstly in a programme where students are located across the globe a diversity of cultural influences will exist, however aside from noting the positive benefits of different perspectives on learning, we have not explored the impact and value of such
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