**1. Introduction**

Whilst the number of women-owned enterprises has been increasing substantially in recent decades, women still create fewer enterprises than men. Government support programmes often include some form of mentoring. This is often suggested as a way of encouraging women into entrepreneurship as it is flexible, bespoke to the mentee, and provides a role model in the form of a successful woman business owner [1, 2]. Often, the "entrepreneur" is seen as typically male, so women have to manage this expectation which does not fit with their own experience [3, 4]. It has been suggested that women may have different criteria for success for their business than the stereotypical concentration on growth, such as work/life balance or social contribution [5–7].

The literature does not define how important mentoring is for female entrepreneurs, or what influence it may have on entrepreneurial practice. Whilst claims are made for the importance of mentoring for business success [8–10], the components of successful mentoring have not been determined.

The research aim of this chapter is to examine women entrepreneurs' experience of mentoring and whether it contributed to their success. Research questions cover the identification of elements of successful mentoring for women entrepreneurs and the evaluation of the contribution of mentoring to entrepreneurial success.

By determining the characteristics of the successful mentoring relationship, it is hoped to provide pointers for entrepreneurial support programmes. In addition, evaluating whether mentoring is essential for success can provide further insights into how women entrepreneurs could be supported.

## **2. The importance of women's entrepreneurship**

Economic policy has often emphasised women's entrepreneurship as a solution to underdeveloped areas. As the stereotypical picture of an entrepreneur is male, women also have to deal with the contradiction between their feminine identity and being a business owner [11].

In 2016 the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in the UK examined the importance of women's entrepreneurship to the UK economy. The report found that flexibility was a major draw for women in running their own business, as they could continue to be involved in childcare and family life. Whilst women entrepreneurs faced the same challenges as male-led small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), there were particular areas of difference. For women, mentoring was particularly important to develop self-confidence in their own skills and abilities [12].

Some researchers have suggested that women entrepreneurs in particular benefit from institutional support and that this is vital to their success [8–10]. Institutions set out the "rules of the game" that shape an individual's behaviour and beliefs and it is "essential for female entrepreneurs to gain institutional approval" [13].

#### **3. What is mentoring?**

Mentoring has been defined as "a formal learning relationship" where "mentors support and challenge the mentees to recognise their career potential", with the result that "both parties perceive they are learning and gaining from the relationship [14]. Mentors support mentees by providing advice in an empowering way [15]. Mentors may be motivated by the possibility of 'giving back' [16]. Other sources suggest that mentoring offers the opportunity to learn from others' experience who have "been there and done that" [17]. St Jean [18] defines the mentor as a person who "kindly watches over a younger individual".

St Jean [18] sets out nine roles for the mentor. The first four are psychosocial functions. Mentors give reflective feedback, enabling the mentee to identify what they do well and could do better. They may also reassure the mentee to enable them to put things into perspective and relieve stress. Motivation improves the mentee's selfconfidence. Finally, being a confidant enables the mentee to use them as a sounding board. The next categories are career-related. Helping the mentee by introducing them to contacts means they can be integrated in the business community. Mentors

*The Role of Mentoring for Women Entrepreneurs DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109422*

may pass on knowledge of management, legal and industry considerations. The mentee may be confronted by the mentor which encourages reflection and problem solving. The role of guide is the final function in this category. The mentor may also act as a role model. This framework was used to measure the most effective elements of the mentor relationship with women entrepreneurs.

Mentoring style is also relevant. This could be facilitative, collaborative or instructive. St Jean and Audet [19] refer to a maieutic or non-directive approach, which is both facilitative and collaborative. This is evidenced by open questioning so that "individuals … become aware of the knowledge within them" [20]. This allows mentees to retain their autonomy. St Jean [18] originally suggested the mentor as an older, experienced person but this seems to contradict that definition.

Women mentors can provide role models for those women who are starting their businesses. The European Commission states that "mentoring programmes would be beneficial for women entrepreneurs", and should use "successful women entrepreneurs as mentors" [21]. This clearly envisages mentors fulfilling the role model function as mentioned by St-Jean [18] above.

Thus the literature suggests mentoring as particularly important for women and recommends a collaborative approach [1, 2, 22, 23]. The role of a female mentor as role model is put forward as a reason why this form of support is important to address the gender imbalance in entrepreneurship [2].

#### **4. Business success**

Quantitative measures of business success include external, financial measures such as profit and turnover which are often cited as the main reasons for entrepreneurship. Qualitative measures may be survival, stability, job creation, recognition and personal development [24]. Motivations for starting a business will impact on the criteria the entrepreneur uses to define success. Whilst life events for men and women may be similar, it has been suggested that women may tend to be less focused on profit as a success criterion because they have always been portrayed as nurturers. This may be connected with societal stereotypes [5–7]. It may be that survival would be a better measure of success rather than growth or profit [25]. Other measures can include work-life balance, employee satisfaction, social contribution, goal achievement and effectiveness [26]. This suggests a more nuanced approach to motivation than binary classifications.

#### **5. Are mentoring and success linked?**

Whilst mentoring has been used in many programmes for entrepreneurs and in entrepreneurial learning, it is not yet known if there is a link between mentoring and business success. In most studies, there is no evaluation of how mentoring translates into long term success. Mentoring can be "more important than hard work, talent and intelligence" [27]. The "ability to learn on a continuous basis is now viewed as a key determinant of competitive success," and "effective learning for female entrepreneurs is well served through mentoring" [9]. Despite this bold statement, there was no examination of what effect the mentoring experience might have had on the business success of the mentees.

#### **Figure 1.** *Conceptual framework.*

Learning from mentors was a consistent factor in different models of mentoring [8], to the extent that they suggested that linking to mentors could provide knowledge to avoid failure. There was little examination of the claim that mentoring was linked to the direct success of the business.

In summary, women entrepreneurs may benefit from institutional support and mentoring in order to overcome additional barriers they may experience. Whilst many assertions are made linking mentoring to entrepreneurial success, there is limited evidence to support these claims. The conceptual framework derived from the literature used in this study is as follows (**Figure 1**).

In this simple conceptual framework, the entrepreneur starts their business. Then the experience of mentoring is suggested here to be directly instrumental in the success of the entrepreneurial venture. At this stage, this simplistic model reflects the literature's emphasis on the need for mentoring to achieve success [2, 9].
