Mentoring development at student international business case competitions

Abstract

PurposeManagement education has received an immense amount of attention from both scholars and practitioners in the last few decades. Most research efforts have aimed at improving classroom education processes, programs and outcomes. Only a limited amount of research has focused on extracurricular activities such as mentoring top talented students for international business case competitions. This paper aims to examine the knowledge flow between mentors and strategic management undergraduates while they prepare for international business case competitions. This flow provides the opportunity for the development of phronetic skills, knowledge and leadership potential of undergraduates.Design/methodology/approachTo understand the flow, 55 mentors worldwide were examined to provide evidence of their mentoring practices, perceived development of undergraduates and reverse learning of the business schools' top talents. For the analysis, the study used partial least squares–structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that extracurricular mentoring of business case competitors strongly affects their development and creates recursive effects on the development of mentoring activities.Research limitations/implicationsGiven the parsimony of mentors for premier global case study competitions, the findings of this study cannot easily be generalized to mentoring as such.Originality/valueDespite the importance of the topics, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, a study of this kind has never been conducted before. For the construct of the authors’ model, the study was inspired by the multistage mentoring process theory.