"Entrepreneurs' assessment of mentors - The role of experience, values, and subjective stress"

Abstract

Mentors are a promising source of support for entrepreneurs. However, research on the relationship between entrepreneurs and their mentors is sparse. In particular, we lack insights into the antecedents of these relationships, including how entrepreneurs assess the attractiveness of potential mentors. Addressing this gap, we introduce a model of entrepreneurs’ assessment of mentors building on network generation theory. We test our model using a conjoint experiment with 140 entrepreneurs. We theorize and find that mentors’ entrepreneurial experience, industry experience, and mentoring experience positively impact entrepreneurs’ assessments of potential mentors. Consistent with our model, these relationships are stronger when entrepreneurs and mentors have similar business-related values. Entrepreneurs’ subjective stress influences these contingencies in an interesting way: Under stress, entrepreneurs react more negatively to a mentor’s entrepreneurial and industry experience if their values differ from th...