Mentoring social entrepreneurs in India: attributes and functions

This paper identifies factors that contribute to an effective mentoring relationship. It focuses on social entrepreneurs in India - a growing segment populated by small enterprises but considered vital for addressing the development needs of the poor. Extant literature in the area of mentoring is predominated by works on employee mentoring and scant attention has been paid to mentoring entrepreneurs and in particular social entrepreneurs. This research addresses this gap by exploring the attributes of the mentor and entrepreneur that contributes to effective mentoring and identifies certain critical functions of mentoring. The conclusions from this study indicate that experience and empathy, intensity and interest, transparency, development of individual and social spark are the attributes that are required for an effective mentoring relationship. In addition the mentor also needs to perform the following functions for successful mentoring; creation of appropriate climate for mentoring, inculcation of structured thinking process, leveraging on differences of views, encouraging multiplicity of mentors and mentoring and reiteration of enterprise objectives.