Abstract
Background: There is a longstanding debate on whether the practice of coaching support is useful for entrepreneurs who lack the skills and assistance needed to make a success of their businesses. Aim: To gain a better understanding of the benefits derived from coaching support, this study explores the debate on whether coaching is useful as a support function for entrepreneurs. Setting: Entrepreneurs who participated in a support intervention programme to assist them with the development or growth of their business. Methods: This study employed a qualitative research design and used 12 semi-structured, face-to-face interviews that were conducted with entrepreneurs from the Pretoria region, who received support intervention for business purposes between August and October 2015. Results: The study found that confusion still exists around the concepts of coaching and mentoring. Furthermore, it was found that both mentoring and coaching are useful as a support function for entrepreneurs, as evidenced through the benefits derived from the intervention. These benefits mainly include the development of skills, particularly of 21st-century skills, new perspectives, enhanced communication, increased self-awareness and learning, and were facilitated by learning. Conclusion: Both mentoring and coaching can benefit potential entrepreneurs; however, each form contributes different benefits. Coaching contributes to the self-development of entrepreneurs, whilst mentoring assists in the development of managerial functions needed to successfully start and grow a business. It is clear that these different forms of support intervention aid in developing different skills, and therefore, entrepreneurs should articulate their required needs before engaging support.
Highlights
It is well documented that entrepreneurial skills are becoming increasingly important for survival and future entrepreneurial and business success as well as job creation
The aim of this study was to address and develop a better understanding of the gap that exists in literature on whether coaching is useful as a support function for entrepreneurs and to better understand the benefits derived from the received support intervention
I’ll doubt myself, but I’m more confident in my leadership skills.’ (P12, female, experimental coachee). These findings suggest that coaching is useful as a support function and offers several benefits such as selfdevelopment and increased confidence, it should be noted that 59 out of the 138 coded responses that contributed to the theme of coaching were responses from the two experimental participants (P11 and P12) who received coaching from a qualified coach using a specific growth model to develop the person
Summary
It is well documented that entrepreneurial skills are becoming increasingly important for survival and future entrepreneurial and business success as well as job creation. This is especially true in today’s dynamic and competitive environment in which entrepreneurs are faced with greater market and competitive pressures (Dobrea & Maiorescu 2015:249). There is little research on the perceived benefits derived from a coaching as a support intervention in the small-to-medium enterprise or emerging entrepreneurial environment (Audet & Couteret 2012:516; Crompton & Smyrnios 2011:2; Saadaoui & Affess 2015:55). There is a longstanding debate on whether the practice of coaching support is useful for entrepreneurs who lack the skills and assistance needed to make a success of their businesses
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