Intervention(s)
Entrepreneurship is believed to be of critical importance to economic development, and leading policymakers, donor agencies, and practitioner organizations are increasingly interested in understanding the drivers of entrepreneurial outcomes (Naudé, 2010). Governments, foundations, and other influential actors have allocated considerable resources to the development of programs that support entrepreneurs through provisions of social, financial, and human capital (Global Accelerator Learning Initiative, 2017; Rogerson et al., 2014; Cumming & Fischer, 2012).
In this context, mentoring offers a promising avenue of support for entrepreneurs, and has been demonstrated to offer several benefits (Eesley & Wang, 2017; St. Jean, 2009; Ozgen & Baron, 2007). For example, students paired with entrepreneurs as mentors were shown to be more likely to pursue entrepreneurial careers (Eesley & Wang, 2017). Additionally, entrepreneurs with access to mentors have more confidence in their abilities to complete key entrepreneurial tasks (St. Jean & Mathieu, 2015; St. Jean, 2009; Ozgen & Baron, 2007), and also be more alert to new opportunities (Ozgen & Baron, 2007). Finally, mentoring has also been demonstrated to have considerable positive outcomes in other domains, such as engineering (Dennehy & Dasgupta, 2017), and academia (Poteat et al., 2009).
However, while research suggests several benefits of mentoring, there are still questions that remain unanswered. While mentor-mentee relationships have been studied in facilitated settings, we know little about how these relationships form and develop, and what factors can improve the quality of these connections. Additionally, while research suggests benefits in entrepreneurs’ self-assessed abilities, it is important to learn whether mentoring also leads to improvements in actual business performance.
We conduct a randomized controlled trial (and a subsequent quasi-experiment) that tests the impact of two strategies designed to help entrepreneurs connect to mentors – building confidence or reducing information asymmetry. In partnership with a large international nonprofit organization (MicroMentor, a program of Mercy Corps) that facilitates mentor-mentee connections online, we will compare the impact of these two strategies (separately and combined) and a control group on connection rates and the quality of those connections. We conduct a randomized controlled trial (and a subsequent quasi-experiment) that tests the impact of two strategies designed to help entrepreneurs connect to mentors – building confidence or reducing information asymmetry. In partnership with a large international nonprofit organization that facilitates mentor-mentee connections online, we will compare the impact of these two strategies (and a control group) on connection rates and the quality of those connections. In a follow-up study, we will compare business performance for entrepreneurs that received mentoring compared to those that did not, using a quasi-experimental approach.
The 4 groups of randomly assigned entrepreneurs will receive the following interventions
1. Confidence building - a series of messages (delivered through an online chat buddy mechanism on the MicroMentor platform) designed to help entrepreneurs build their confidence to reach out to potential mentors through the MicroMentor platform.
2. Encouragement to provide information - a series of messages (delivered through an online chat buddy mechanism on the MicroMentor platform) designed to encourage entrepreneurs to develop more complete online profiles on the MicroMentor platform.
3. A short video that combines elements of both confidence-building and encouragement to provide information
4. A control group that receives no intervention
The follow-up study will examine business outcomes across mentored and non-mentored entrepreneurs across all 4 groups.