Download - How to Do Things with Words: The Discursive Dimension of Experiential Learning …€¦ · · 2014-11-11“How to Do Things with Words”: The Discursive Dimension of Experiential

“How to Do Things with Words”: The DiscursiveDimension of Experiential Learning inEntrepreneurial Mentoring Dyadsby Miruna Radu Lefebvre and Renaud Redien-Collot

The purpose of this article is to assess the mentoring impact in an experiential learningentrepreneurship program. We did three-year participant observation in the major business schoolincubator of the Paris area with the aim to identify the interpersonal communicational strategiesthat mentors, which are confirmed entrepreneurs, use in order to influence nascent entrepreneurs’attitudes and behaviors in dyadic interaction. These communicational strategies are categorizedas persuasion, engagement, criticism, and provocation. An additional two-year field researchallowed us to assess the impact of these communicational strategies at the individual (commit-ment, compliance, resistance) and the enterprise levels (business launching and fund-raising).

Introduction“Saying something will often, or even nor-

mally, produce certain consequential effectsupon the feelings, thoughts or actions of otherpersons: and it may be done with the design,intention or purpose of producing them . . .”(Austin 1962, p. 101).

The seminal work of Austin (1962) putforward a theory of interpersonal communica-tion as a specific form of human action, withaction characterized as intentional behavior(von Wright 1971: 83–86). Because intention iswhat gives behavior a purpose and directs ittowards an end, communicative practicesemerge and organize as strategic intention-based behaviors of language-in-use (Allwood1977). Entrepreneurial mentoring dyads encom-

pass particular patterns of relationships amongindividuals that initiate and monitor togethergenuinely purposive communicative practices(Cavendish 2007; Jablin 2001). These communi-cative practices are realized through a range ofdiscourse-based influence tactics, in a particularmission-driven institutional context (Kalbfleisch2002). Our main premise is that securing andimproving the start-up processes thus requirematching mentoring communicational strategieswith business support objectives and situations.This is the first attempt to assess the impact ofcommunicational strategies in an entrepreneur-ial mentoring French context.

For the last twenty years, public and privateresources were invested in entrepreneurshipeducational and support programs, with con-firmed entrepreneurs enrolled in purposeful

Miruna Radu Lefebvre is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Audencia, France (AUDENCIA PRESLUNAM). She published qualitative and quantitative research on persuasive communication and entrepre-neurship. Her main focus of interest is communication as strategical behavior.

Renaud Redien-Collot is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Head of the International Relations Depart-ment at Novancia, France. His main publications are dedicated to gender and leadership, minority entrepre-neurship, entrepreneurship education, and intrapreneurial innovation.

Address correspondence to: Miruna Radu Lefebvre, Audencia, 8 route de la Jonelière—B.P. 31222, Nantes44312, France. E-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Small Business Management 2013 51(3), pp. 370–393

doi: 10.1111/jsbm.12022

JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT370

mailto:[email protected]

interpersonal relationships aiming to guide andcounsel nascent entrepreneurs1 through appro-priate diagnosis and advice, so as to fosterbusiness launching and development (Hackettand Dilts 2004; McAdam and Marlow 2007).Evidence exists that mentoring interventions atthe start-up level is beneficial to the survivaland growth of young enterprises (Deakins et al.1998; Sullivan 2000), through increasing self-confidence, managerial skills (St-Jean andAudet 2010; Wikholm et al. 2005) as well asthe “ability to act as an entrepreneur” (Kent,Dennis, and Tanton 2003). Mentoring has fre-quently been acknowledged as a primary modeof knowledge transmission and acquisition(Fielden and Hunt 2011; Johnson 2002;Merriam and Mohamad 2000), with mentorssupporting transformative experiential learning(Lee 2007: 334).

According to Kolb (1984), individuals learnthrough concrete experience, reflective obser-vation, abstract conceptualization, and activeexperimentation, with “experiential learning”characterized as “knowledge that results fromthe combination of grasping and transform-ing experience.” Entrepreneurship educationemploys experiential learning mainly as ameans to develop decision-making and criticalthinking skills, through involving students indirect experience with launching venture star-tups, elaborating business plans, and meetingwith confirmed entrepreneurs (Solomon, Duffy,and Tarabishy 2002). Corbett (2005) andCooper, Bottomley, and Gordon (2004) contrastlearning by doing with classroom learning, thefirst being emphasized as a major tool of expe-riential learning. According to them, learningby doing allows students to explore and chal-lenge the limits of their knowledge, beliefs andrepresentations, and therefore develop theirability to identify new and original solutionswhile also engaging them to explore “what isunknown.” Gosen and Washbush (2004)stressed that, during the last 20 years, experi-ential learning was implemented all over theworld as a “postmodern fantasy,” that is, aRousseauist invitation for students to return to“nature” and their “genuine cleverness.”However, the authors noticed that the expectedbenefits of learning by doing can be generatedonly if efforts are made to build a constant and

authentic dialogue between the “community ofeducators” and that of students. In the samevein, Cybinski and Selvanathan (2005, p. 253)observed that experiential learning calls intoattention the role of social interaction as ameans to develop self-reflection and self-awareness in students. According to Kalbfleisch(2002, p. 63), “communication is central to theinitiation, maintenance, and repair of mentor-ing relationships.” Still, little is known aboutthe communicational strategies that mentorsuse in order to trigger change in individualsand enterprises (Chun, Sosik, and Yi Yun 2012;Kombakaran et al. 2008; Perren 2003).

Mentoring may be conceptualized as adyadic “communication relationship” (Hill,Bahniuk, and Dobos 1989, p. 15) consisting in“verbal (and nonverbal) behaviors intended toprovide or seek help” (Burleson andMacGeorge 2002, p. 384). When engaged indyadic mentoring communication, mentorselaborate and convey supportive messagesdepicted as “specific lines of communicativebehavior enacted by one party with the intentof benefiting or helping another” (ibid., p. 386).In this perspective, mentors need to continu-ously adjust their communications to meet theneeds of their protégés, which demands a“deep understanding of their own communica-tion styles and a willingness to objectivelyobserve the behavior of the mentee” (Rowley1999). Evidence exists that interpersonal men-toring communication plays a key role in trig-gering professional success and personaldevelopment in protégés (Kalbfleisch andDavies 1993; Wrench and Punyanunt-Carter2005). Communication and mentoring scholarsare therefore increasingly committed in study-ing mentoring communication in terms ofmessage creation, transmission, and impact(Burleson and Samter 1985; Cavendish 2007;Goldsmith and MacGeorge 2000). However,little research is explicitly dedicated to thestudy of mentoring communicative actionsemphasized as strategic and goal-focused(Jablin 2001) as well as context-specific behav-iors (Hunt and Michael 1983). The communica-tional outcomes of mentoring relationshipsneed yet to be empirically assessed both atindividual and enterprise levels (Cavendish2007).

1A nascent entrepreneur is defined as “an individual who is in the process of starting a business, hascommitted resources to do it and expects to own at least part of it” (Langowitz and Minniti 2007, p. 346).

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Between 2005 and 2010, we conducted atwo-stage longitudinal field research in themajor business school incubator of the Parisarea, France. We studied 50 mentoring dyads ofconfirmed entrepreneurs and student entrepre-neurs participating to an experiential learningprogram aiming to develop both entrepreneur-ial skills and self-reflection, and to secure busi-ness launching and fund-raising. During thefirst research phase (2005–2008), we did quali-tative research with participant observation andsemi-structured interviews in order to identifythe communicational strategies most frequentlyemployed by mentors in counselling interac-tions. The results indicate that mentors use fourmain communicational strategies in order toinfluence nascent entrepreneurs’ behavior indyadic relationships: persuasion, engagement,criticism, and provocation. This taxonomy ofcommunicational strategies put emphasis onthe intended effects of mentors’ targetingstudent entrepreneurs. During the secondresearch phase (2008–2010), we did quantita-tive research with self-administrated question-naires to measure the achieved effects of thementors’ communicational strategies at indi-vidual (commitment, compliance, resistance)and enterprise levels (business launching andfund-raising).2 The results indicate that engage-ment significantly impacts business launching,whereas provocation accounts for a significantpart of variance in fund-raising. Moderatingvariables, such as gender, trust, and personalinvolvement, mediate the impact of communi-cational strategies. This research has both theo-retical and practical implications for measuringthe impact of entrepreneurial support onstudent entrepreneurs.

The business school incubator weresearched is one of the five biggest incubatorsin France. It is a business school incubator thatoffers a six-month support program designed toincrease the number of start-ups in the region,as well as to contribute to their early-phase

development. Several experienced entrepre-neurs do mentoring activities throughout theincubation period, with graduate and under-graduate student dyads relying on mutual selec-tion at the beginning of the program.3 Anadditional service is provided at the end of theincubation period for those nascent entrepre-neurs who launched their businesses: a “Busi-ness angels’ tour” program of two months, withextra coaching designed to increase fund-raising. Many international universities andFrench business schools, rather than develop-ing their own incubator, preferred to work inpartnership with already existing private andpublic incubators and nurseries. However, thisbusiness school is neither a unique nor anisolated case, as the European Commissionnoticed the growing emergence of new inde-pendent centers specialized in entrepreneurialeducation, as well as the launching of networksand business schools with integrated businessincubators (European Commission 2002; Wilsonand Twaalfhoven 2005).

We first provide a theoretical background ondyadic influence, and stress the characteristicsof entrepreneurial mentoring relationship andcommunication. Next, we present our two-stepresearch design and methodology, followed byour main findings. We then present some impli-cations for a discursive understanding of expe-riential learning in entrepreneurship education.

Theoretical BackgroundAccording to Kram (1983, 1985), mentors

help individuals by offering career-relatedadvice, exposure, and protection, as well asacceptance, confirmation, and encouragement.“More than a simple exchange of informationand accomplishment of ability,” mentoringrelationships are highly involving connectionsbetween two individuals joined together “in acommon commitment to achieving success”(Kalbfleisch 2002, p. 64). Envisioned as anempowering relationship, entrepreneurial

2The pragmatic philosophical and linguistic tradition distinguishes among the intended effects (“illocutionaryacts” in Austin’s terms 1962) and the achieved effects (“perlocutionary acts,” ibid.) of communicative actions.Achieved effects correspond to the impact and outcomes of communication at the receiver level, in terms ofcognitions, emotions, and subsequent actions.3The business school we researched elaborates specific pathways between the academic curricula and theschool incubator. For instance, undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to do theirinternship in the school incubator, and can therefore launch their own venture while still at school. Graduatestudents may also integrate the school incubator after graduation. The school business incubator deliversdegrees and ECTS credits.


mentoring helps nascent entrepreneurs tonavigate throughout the successive phases ofthe entrepreneurial process with the aim toenhance the protégés’ ability to build a peren-nial business project, while also consolidatingan entrepreneurial personality (Sullivan andKolb 1995). Entrepreneurial mentoring isdepicted as a trigger of reflexivity and identitytransformation (McAdam and Marlow 2007)that is a “reflection-in-action” dyadic relation-ship (Schön 1983) whereby mentors employvarious communicational strategies to influ-ence both protégés and their enterprises.

Interpersonal Mentoring Communicationas Purposeful Behavior

Interpersonal communication is currentlyconceptualized as person-to-person communi-cation allowing individuals to negotiatemeaning, identity, and relationship through aninteractional process involving a dyad or asmall number of individuals, enacted throughverbal and nonverbal message behavior, andoccurring in a particular social, cultural, andhistorical context (Baxter and Braithwaite 2008,pp. 4–6).

There are three main approaches in interper-sonal communication literature: individual-centered theories, discourse- or interaction-centered theories, and relation-centeredtheories. Individual-centered theories focuson how individuals plan, produce, and pro-cess interpersonal messages; discourse- orinteraction-centered theories focus on content,forms, and functions of interpersonal messages;relation-centered theories focus on the role ofcommunication in developing, sustaining, andterminating social and personal relationships.Individual-centered theories stress that “peopleuse language to achieve goals” (Berger 2008).When communicating with each other, indi-viduals try to achieve specific goals, such aspersuading, managing conflicts, regulatingactivities, and providing support and assistance(Burleson and Rack 2008). Discourse- orinteraction-centered theories examine “commu-nicative practices” (Tracy 2008), thus analyzingsocial interactions as meaningful activities setup in particular cultural and/or institutionalcontexts, “site-based and nameable” (ibid., p.158). Interpersonal communication is thereforeexamined as a constitutive process of personaland social identities. Relation-centered theoriesunderline the role of speech in developing,sustaining, and terminating relationships: “we

do not relate and then talk, but we relate intalk” (Duncan 1967, p. 249).

Dyadic communication is a distinct cat-egory of interpersonal communication whichfocuses on the dynamic interplay betweentwo individuals in relationship (Pitts and Giles2010). Dyadic influence is a concept used todepict situations where an individual holdingan influence goal uses strategies “intended toalter the cognitions and/or behaviors” ofanother individual (ibid., p. 273). A centraltopic of empirical research on dyadic influ-ence is the elaboration of classifications ofinfluence tactics (Yukl and Falbe 1990). Basedon Kipnis, Schmidt and Wilkinson (1980) tax-onomy, Yukl and Falbe (1990) suggested amodel of nine influence tactics used by man-agers to change attitudes and behaviors: ratio-nal persuasion, inspirational appeal,consultation, ingratiation, exchange, personalappeal, coalition, legitimating, and pressure.They hypothesized that individuals are likelyto use tactics that are socially acceptable, fea-sible, and effective with regard to a givenobjective (ibid., p. 526). To sum up, dyadiccommunication brings together two individu-als who jointly engage in communication andpursue action goals that they attempt torealize through influence goals. Communica-tion contents and relational patterns are there-fore embedded and function as discretesystems through which social actors such asentrepreneurial mentors and protégés actual-ize their strategic intents.

Our intention is to build here an integrativeapproach of entrepreneurial mentoring, aimingto bring together the three levels of interper-sonal communication encounters—individuals,discourse, and relation. We conceptualize inter-personal communication in entrepreneurialmentoring dyads as purposeful language-basedbehavior allowing mentors and protégés toachieve personal and institutional goals in spe-cific business support contexts.

The Dynamics of MentoringCommunication and RelationshipEntrepreneurial Mentoring as InstitutionalTalk. Entrepreneurial mentoring is a counsel-ling relationship primarily associated with“advice giving” or “providing guidance” (Gaik1992, p. 276) that emerges and develops inparticular situational contexts, thus evolvingaccording to particular forms of constraints andobjectives. The outcomes of entrepreneurial


mentoring differ according to the context, theway in which the relationship is initiated, aswell as its structure and functioning (Bisk2002). In natural settings, informal mentoringrelationships may be spontaneously initiated,with goals and mutual expectations evolvingand adapting over time to the needs of bothmentors and protégés (Allen, Eby, and Lentz2006). At the opposite, formal mentoring occur-ring in entrepreneurship support organizationsis a structured relationship, organized andplanned by a third institutional actor. Businessincubators define relational objectives, facilitatecandidate selection processes, establish eligibil-ity requirements, and predefine roles andresponsibilities of mentors and protégés(Tötterman and Sten 2005). The institutionalcontext shapes interpersonal roles and tends toorient communications toward a specificpurpose, here business launching and fund-raising. Entrepreneurial mentoring in businessschool incubators is thus realized through arange of communicative practices that are insti-tutional talk, in contrast with ordinary conver-sation, in the sense that they orient toward“specialized institutional goals and identities”(Muntigl 2010, p. 219).

Influence Goals in Entrepreneurial MentoringDyads. Kalbfleisch (2002, p. 67) noticed thatmentoring relationships are often studied as“static entities, not as relationships enacted byhuman beings” that is as evolving interactionschanging and developing over time accordingto the objectives and the context of the rela-tionship. In a social influence perspective, men-toring relationships are initiated and evolvetowards both “human as well as pragmatic”(ibid., p. 69) objectives. According to the theoryof enactment in mentoring relationships (ibid.,p. 67), protégés are more likely than mentors todirect their conversational goals and communi-cational strategies toward initiating, maintain-ing, and repairing the mentoring relationship.Kalbfleisch and Eckley (2003) noticed that thementors’ communicational strategies are moretask- and self-oriented than directed towardinitiating and maintaining the mentoringrelationship.

We think two major influence goals orientmentors’ communication in entrepreneurialmentoring dyads. The first goal consists inhelping nascent entrepreneurs to elaborate afeasible and viable business project, which isto conform to the “rules of the game” in the

industry sector in terms of matching one’sbusiness project with market expectations andpractices (cf. the “political assistance” and“role model” functions identified by Levesqueet al. 2005). The second goal consists inhelping nascent entrepreneurs to demonstratethat their business project will create value forfuture customers, which is to differentiatefrom existing offer in the industry sectorthrough launching new products and servicesor through elaborating new business models(cf. the “coaching,” “training,” and “challeng-ing” functions described by Levesque et al.2005; St-Jean 2011). According to Covin andSlevin (1990), the success of a new enterprisegoes beyond the fit with the external environ-ment; in addition to the proper co-alignmentwith existing norms and expectations, a newenterprise also needs to challenge the environ-ment and turn it to its advantage (Sarason,Dean, and Dillard 2006). The two complemen-tary goals of enhancing both business projectconformity and differentiation therefore regu-late the overall functioning of entrepreneurialmentoring dyads.

In this context, mentors’ communicationalstrategies are strategically employed so as topersuade nascent entrepreneurs to progres-sively adjust to market expectations, throughmeeting formal demands of project presenta-tion such as business plan, as well as to bringevidence about a pre-existing social demandfor their future products or services, whilealso displaying creativity and innovation inorder to improve or radically transformcurrent products, services, or processes. Entre-preneurial mentors therefore embrace adouble mission, helping entrepreneurs toregulate their decisions and behaviors accord-ing to both market conformity and market dif-ferentiation objectives.

In business school incubators, entrepre-neurial mentors organize their activity so as toreach two objectives: building students’autonomy and environment control capacity(for an extensive taxonomy of counsellinggoals and methods, see Frey and Raming1979). In order to support autonomy, mentorsneed to focus on students’ feelings, percep-tions, and evaluation, which is acting on theirdifferentiation ability (Rogers 1951). In orderto increase environment control capacity, theyneed to help students to meet the demands ofthe society or market, which is acting on theirconformity ability (Dreickurs 1967). As the


support relationship progresses, mentorsmake use of various communication strate-gies, which either emphasize existing prac-tices and norms or promote a transformationof the student and her/his entrepreneurialproject. Throughout their daily practices,mentors make diagnostics and formulate rec-ommendations about the viability (Loucks1988), the feasibility (Wyckham and Wedley1990), and the value creation of new busi-nesses (McMullan, Wayne, and Graham 1986)in order to help students’ advance towardbetter conformity and enhanced differentiation(Chrisman 1989). To sum up, entrepreneurialmentoring may be analyzed as purposefuldyadic communication, whereby mentors stra-tegically regulate their interventions with theaim to achieve two main influence goals:increased conformity and differentiation asregards to existing norms and expectations.This leads us to state the following hypothesisconcerning the intended effects of mentoringcommunicative actions:

H1: Entrepreneurial mentors use specific com-municational strategies with the aim toenhance the viability and feasibility (marketconformity), and added value creation(market differentiation) of the protégé’sbusiness project.

Matching Communicational Strategies to Busi-ness Support Situations. St-Jean (2011)emphasizes nine interactional functions ofmentors in entrepreneurial business supportsettings: psychological functions (“reflector,”“reassurance,” “motivation,” “confidant”),career-related functions (“integration,” “infor-mation support,” “confrontation,” “guide”), androle model function (“model”). The definitionsprovided by St-Jean (ibid.) in order to explainthe functional dynamics of mentoring relation-ship suggest that these functions may triggereither consensual or conflictual interactionsbetween the mentor and the protégé. Theauthor indicates that each function may be ful-filled through specific communicative actions,such as providing guidance and direction, inte-gration and motivation when engaged in con-sensual mentoring interactions and, at theopposite, providing critical feedback, shock,and surprise when engaged in conflictual men-toring interactions.

Providing guidance and direction may becharacterized as being a persuasion strategy

(Bandura 2006). Integration and motivation areclassical engagement strategies (GaillardGiordani 2005; Joule, Girandola, and Bernard2007; Lewin 1947). Providing critical feedbackmay be qualified as being a critical strategy(Habermas 1987; Maesschalck 1994) aiming tochange the protégé’s social representations ofthe market and his/her business project. As forchallenging, providing shock and surprise, theymay be conceptualized under the umbrella ofprovocative strategies (Bakhtin 1981; Ducrotand Carel 1999; Jankélévitch 1964) aiming tochange the nascent entrepreneurs’ self-representation (see Table 1).

Entrepreneurial mentors may differentlyfulfill relational functions according to the busi-ness support learning situation. For instance, atthe very beginning of the mentoring relation-ship, when helping nascent entrepreneurs todevelop their business concept and their busi-ness model, mentors may need to fulfill morefrequently the functions of informationsupport, guiding, and reassurance than the con-frontation function. At the opposite, at the endof the mentoring relationship, when helpingnascent entrepreneurs to prepare their businessplan and their fund-raising strategy, mentorsmay use more frequently the confrontation andthe reflector functions. From a communica-tional standpoint, when using persuasion andengagement strategies mentors may try toachieve an optimal adjustment of nascent entre-preneurs to the economic, cultural, and socialenvironment, through generating an impact onentrepreneurial actions. At the opposite, whenusing criticism and provocation, mentors maycall into question the pre-defined objectives ofentrepreneurial action and encourage studententrepreneurs to reinterpret and negotiateshared norms in their attempt to develop anoriginal offer. In sum, while persuasion andengagement strategies may be effective inhelping nascent entrepreneurs in their adaptiverelation with the world, criticism and provoca-tion may help nascent entrepreneurs to rein-force their motivation to act in a critical mannervis-à-vis commonplace norms, beliefs, andvalues, so as to innovate. This leads us to statethe following hypothesis concerning the fre-quency of use of mentoring communicativeactions:

H2: Entrepreneurial mentors use specific com-municational strategies according to thebusiness support situation.


The Outcomes of EntrepreneurialMentoring Communicationand Relationship

The multidisciplinary meta-analysis con-ducted by Eby et al. (2008) identified six maincategories of mentoring outcomes: behavioral,attitudinal, health-related, interpersonal, moti-vational, and career outcomes. Evidence existsthat work-related mentoring triggers careersuccess through increasing desirable behavior,positive attitudes and motivation (Chao, Walz,and Gardner, 1992), as well as learning andskill development (Hezlett 2005; Lankau andScandura 2002).

Communicational impact at the individuallevel. According to Yukl and Tracey (1992),interpersonal communicational strategies maygenerate three main kinds of outcomes at theindividual level: compliance, commitment, andresistance. At the root of Yukl and Tracey’sdistinction among compliance and commit-ment, one finds the work of Kelman (1958) oncompliance vs. internalization: complianceoccurs when an individual accepts to do arequested action without modifying her/hisunderlying attitudes and beliefs; internalization,or commitment, occurs when an individualagrees internally with the reasons of carrying ona requested action, because of a change inunderlying attitudes and beliefs (Falbe and Yukl1992, pp. 639–640). Furthermore, resistance

occurs when an individual rejects a requestedaction (Knowles and Linn 2004). When adopt-ing consensual communicational strategies suchas providing guidance and direction (persua-sion), or motivation and integration (engage-ment), mentors may trigger compliance andcommitment in their protégés. At the opposite,when using conflictual communicational strate-gies such as challenging and providing criticalfeed-back (criticism), or providing shock andsurprise (provocation), there is a risk to triggerresistance in their protégés. However, conflict-ual communicational strategies can be achievedat the discursive level by using both verbalaggression (Wrench and Punyanunt-Carter2005), or humor and irony (Wrench andRichmond 2004), which may generate eitherpositive or negative reactions in protégés. Thisleads us to the following hypothesis concerningthe achieved effects of communicative actions atthe protégé level:

H3: Entrepreneurial mentors’ communica-tional strategies produce commitment,compliance, or resistance in studententrepreneurs.

Communicational impact at the enterpriselevel. Entrepreneurial literature identifiesseveral positive outcomes of mentoring relation-ship at the enterprise level: increased sales andimproved profitability (Bisk 2002; Wikholm,

Table 1Mentoring functions and communicational strategies

Mentoring Functions(St-Jean 2011)

Communicational Strategies

Information supportGuide Reassurance

Providing guidance and direction(Levesque et al. 2005; St-Jean 2011)Persuasion

Consensual interaction

Integration MotivationModel Confidant

Providing integration and motivation(Levesque et al. 2005; St-Jean 2011)Engagement

Consensual interaction

Reflector Providing critical feed-back(Levesque et al. 2005; St-Jean 2011)Criticism

Conflictual interaction

Confrontation Challenging, providing shock andsurprise(Levesque et al. 2005)Provocation

Conflictual interaction


Henningson, and Hultman 2005), growth anddevelopment (Florén 2003; Hezlett 2005;Priyanto and Sandjojo 2005), enhanced market-ing and financial planning (Gravells 2006).However, according to Chao et al. (1992) andWanberg, Welsh, and Hezlett (2003), theseeffects may be difficult to assess, as they arerarely instantaneous and they may become moreapparent a year or more after the end of thementoring relationship. The business schoolincubator we researched aimed at improving thebusiness launching rate and the fund-raisingresults of student entrepreneurs’ new enter-prises at the end of the incubation period.Specific business support learning situationswere designed by the incubator managementteam in order to target business launching andfund-raising. This leads us to the followinghypothesis concerning the achieved effects ofmentoring communicative actions:

H4: Entrepreneurial mentors’ communica-tional strategies impact business launchingand fund-raising of student entrepreneurs’new enterprises.

Moderating variables. Among the most citedmoderating variables of mentoring relationship,one may find individual differences in personalinvolvement (Wang, Tomlinson, and Noe2010), personality characteristics (Turban andLee 2007) and gender (Levesque et al. 2005;McKeen and Bujaki 2007), as well as relationaldifferences in trust (Echterhoff et al. 2008).

In formal mentoring settings, mentors andprotégés may initially experience less involve-ment in the mentoring relationship becausethey do not yet know each other (Baugh andFagenson-Eland 2007). They may experiencegreater intensity in informal mentoring rela-tionships, because both are intrinsically moti-vated in a relationship that often extendsacross many life domains. According to Raginsand Verbos (2007), high-quality mentoringrelationships are characterized by relatedness,reciprocity, interdependency, and mutuality.Among them, the key feature of a successfulformal mentoring relationship seems to be thatof mutuality (Allen, Eby and Lentz 2006),underlying the development of a complemen-tary relationship that responds to the needsand aspirations of both the mentor and theprotégé. Mentoring relationships may thus gen-erate a successful learning process in theprotégé when the two partners are personally

involved in the relationship and establish aninteraction based on “reciprocal altruism,” withboth mentor and protégé ready to commit tosharing experiences and trying to understandthe other’s point of view. This leads us to statethe following hypothesis:

H5a: Individual differences in personalinvolvement moderate the impact of entre-preneurial mentors’ communicational strat-egies at the individual and enterprise levels.

Gender composition of mentoring dyads is akey factor of mentoring relationship and out-comes (Levesque et al. 2005; O’Neill andBlake-Beard 2002; Ragins and Cotton 1993;Ragins 1997). Ragins and Scandura (1997)found no significant difference between menand women in mentoring experience.However, several studies indicate that thegender composition of mentoring relationshipsimpact both mentoring functions and out-comes. Ragins and McFarlin (1990) identifieddecreased reports of social interaction forfemale protégés in cross-gender mentoringrelationships. Reich (1986) discovered thatfemale mentors provide more psychosociologi-cal functions than male mentors, whereas malementors may provide more career-relatedsupport (Allen and Eby 2004). Ragins andMcFarlin (1990) found that female protégés insame-gender mentoring relationships reportedmore role modeling than with any other gendercombination. Matching role models on gendermay not be yet equally important for maleprotégés. Since men are less likely to face nega-tive career stereotypes, it may be less importantfor them than for women to have a same-gender mentor. Sosik and Godshalk (2000) dis-covered that female protégés were more likelyto identify with and emulate female mentors,whereas male participants reported less rolemodeling of same- than cross-gender mentors.

Social identity theory (Tajfel 1978) and thesimilarity-attraction paradigm (Byrne 1971)predict more perceived similarity and identifi-cation in same-gender relationships. Moreover,gender matching of mentor and protégé may beespecially important for women, because of alack of female role models in non-traditionalbusiness careers (Quimby and DeSantis 2006).The more similar the mentor, the greater theprobability that the protégé will engage in imi-tative responses, using the similar other as avaluable source of information so as to adjust


his/her behavior and cognitions (Schunk andZimmerman 1996). This “mirror effect” pro-vides protégés with the opportunity to improveself-knowledge and to challenge their habitualways of thinking and doing (Cull 2006; Hegartyand Styles 2008). Additionally, research alsoindicates that men and women have differentpreferences for communicational styles andstrategies (Tannen 1990). This leads us to statethe following hypothesis:

H5b: Individual differences in gender moder-ate the impact of entrepreneurial mentors’communicational strategies at the indi-vidual and enterprise levels.

Another key variable that was showed to playan important role in dyadic mentoring commu-nication is interpersonal trust. The role of trustis particularly important in formal mentoringrelationships (Pratt and Dirks 2006; Rymer2002; Wang, Tomlinson, and Noe 2010).According to Lewicki and Bunker (1995), theeffectiveness of a mentoring relationship isenhanced when mentors and mentees trusteach other, with trust conceptualized as “theextent to which a person is confident in, andwilling to act on the basis of, the words,actions, and decisions of another” (McAllister1995, p. 25). Evidence exists that individualsare likely to artificially distort attitudes andbehaviors when interacting with people theydistrust (Ragins, Cotton, and Miller 2000). Thisleads us to state the following hypothesis:

H5c: Relational differences in trust level mod-erate the impact of entrepreneurial mentors’communicational strategies at the indi-vidual and enterprise levels.

Research Designand Methodology

We conducted a five-year longitudinal fieldresearch in the major business school incubatorof the Paris area, France, to study 50 mentoringdyads of confirmed entrepreneurs and graduatestudent entrepreneurs involved in an experien-tial learning mentoring program designed totrigger business launching and fund-raising. Wedeveloped a two-stage mixed methods researchdesign. First, we identified and characterizedthe main interpersonal communicational strat-egies that mentors use in order to influencestudent entrepreneurs’ behavior in dyadic com-munication relationships. Then we assessed the

impact of these communicational strategies atboth individual and enterprise levels. At theindividual level, we measured the impact ofcommunicational strategies in terms of commit-ment, compliance, or resistance. At the enter-prise level, we measured the impact ofcommunicational strategies on business launch-ing and fund-raising. The rationale for choosinga mixed methods design is becausewe neededboth qualitative and quantitative methods totest our hypotheses. According to Creswell andPlano Clark (2006, p. 9), quantitative researchmay generate biased data interpretations and isweak in “generalizing findings to a largegroup.” A mixed methods design may thusallow researchers to “answer questions thatcannot be answered by qualitative or quantita-tive approaches alone” (ibid.).

MethodMixed Methods Design. Mixed methodsconsist in “the collection, analysis, and integra-tion of quantitative and qualitative data in asingle or multiphase study” (Hanson et al.2005). Rarely used in entrepreneurship andcounseling research (Haverkamp, Morrow, andPonterotto 2005), mixed methods research hasacquired legitimacy in social sciences (Creswell2002, 2003). We used a sequential exploratorydesign with qualitative data collected first, fol-lowed by quantitative data. Data analysis andinterpretation linked qualitative to quantitativeinformation. We decided to elaborate a sequen-tial exploratory design that has been proveduseful for testing new emerging hypothesesand theories (Hanson et al. 2005, p. 229).

Data Collection Procedure. During the firstresearch phase, we did three-year field research(2005–2008) with participant observation andsemi-structured interviews to identify commu-nicational strategies in business support situa-tions. During the second research phase, weconducted additional two-year field research(2008–2010) in the same business school incu-bator. We did quantitative survey (self-administrated questionnaires) to assess theimpact of communicational strategies at theindividual (commitment, compliance, resis-tance) and enterprise levels (business launch-ing and fund-raising).

Sample. Fifty dyads of mentors and graduatestudent nascent entrepreneurs participated inthe research phases 1 and 2, which represent a


total number of 100 individuals—35 female and65 male participants (50 mentors and 50nascent entrepreneurs). To exclude industrybiases, we selected only enterprises in servicesectors, both for mentors and student entrepre-neurs. Mentors were all successful and recog-nized founders or owners of their companies.Willing to share their experience, they commit-ted themselves to spending time with theirmentees. Not paid for exercising this role, theywere not authorized to invest in their protégé’scompany during the counseling relationshipand for a period of two years following theclosure of this relationship (see Table 2).

Data Coding and Analysis. During theresearch phase 1, we conducted participantobservation and semi-structured interviews.Participant observation was designed to allowidentification of the communicational strategiesused by mentors in entrepreneurial counselingdyads. According to Friedlander (1982, p. 425),the counseling discourse is to be studied notonly as structure (or form and content), but alsoas it reflects “intended functions of counselors’messages in performing actions.” Therefore,one may decide to analyze three distinct typesof categories—content based, relational, andextra linguistic. Each of these categories can beanalyzed through two different coding strate-gies, “classical” and “pragmatic.” Classicalcoding refers to the internal characteristics ofthe discourse, whereas pragmatic coding takesinto account the characteristics of the speaker,his/her intentions or internal states. Pragmaticcoding therefore relies on the “principle ofunequivocal recognizability of communicativeintention” (Dore 1977, p. 230), with inferencesbeing based on social context. We built anobservational analysis grid with 12 relationalcategories, as our research level is dyadic com-munication: encouragement/approval/ reassur-ance, providing information, reflection/restatement, evaluation/interpretation, direct

guidance/advice, confrontation/provocation,legitimating/appeal to authority, personalappeal/proposal, demand/reminding, warning,illustration/exemplifying, humor/irony. Thechoice of these 12 relational categories is basedon Friedlander’s (1982) work on counselingdiscourse as speech event, on Yukl et al. (Yukland Tracey, 1992; Yukl, Kim, and Falbe, 1996)taxonomy of influence tactics in organizations,and on Brock’s (2010) contribution on humor,jokes, and irony as communicative activities.Participant observation data were then prag-matically coded. Three Ph.D. students wereinvolved in data collection and coding. Theywere instructed to use all available linguisticand social cues in order to interpret theintended effects of mentors’ communications.The coding scheme comprised two main cat-egories: communicative actions’ interactioninfluence objectives or goals, and discoursetopics or targets. The goals were market con-formity and market differentiation. The targetswere the project, the entrepreneur, the mentor,and the environment. Data collected with par-ticipant observation were expanded through 10semi-structured interviews with mentors, so asto elaborate a pragmatic model of dyadic com-municational strategies in entrepreneurshipsupport situations.

During the research phase 2, we conducteda quantitative survey in order to assess theachieved effects of communicational strategiesat the individual and enterprise levels. Fiftystudent entrepreneurs filled in a 16-item ques-tionnaire to indicate, first, the impact of com-municational strategies in terms ofcommitment, compliance, or resistance. Then,they indicated if they actually launched theirbusiness and raised funds during the incuba-tion period. Participants were also asked toindicate their level of personal involvement inthe counseling relationship and their level oftrust in the mentor. Measures were five-pointLikert scales for all items. To control responses,

Table 2Data Collection: Timetable and Sample

Phase 1 2005–2008 Participant observation of mentoring dyads 50 dyads2008 20 semi-structured interviews with mentors 10 mentors

Phase 2 2008–2010 Quantitative impact survey (self-administratedquestionnaires for nascent entrepreneurs)

50 nascent entrepreneurs


enterprise data were collected to check theenterprises that had succeeded in fund-raisingand launching. Survey data were then analyzedwith STATA software (StataCorp LP, CollegeStation, Texas, USA).

FindingsResearch Phase 1

Consistent with H1, we identified severalparticular communicational strategies thatmentors were using so as to enhance the fea-sibility, viability, and the added value creationof business projects. Participant observation inthe Paris area business school incubator wascrucial in indicating that entrepreneurial coun-seling dyads articulated their daily interactionsaccording to market conformity and differentia-tion objectives. The targets of their dialogueswere the business project, the entrepreneur,the environment, and the mentor. We system-atically observed dyadic interpersonal commu-nications in eight business support situations,

whereby mentors were pursuing two mainenterprise outcomes: business launching andfund-raising.

In order to test H1, we examined the articu-lation of goals and targets of the communica-tional strategies, according to concrete businesssupport situations. We discovered that businesslaunching was prepared mainly in three specificbusiness support situations: business conceptelaboration, business model elaboration, andbusiness meeting simulations. Fund-raising wasset up in two specific contexts: business planelaboration and fund-raising training sessions.Mentors articulated conformity and differentia-tion goals according to the situation and thediscursive target under examination (seeTable 3). For instance, through the counselinginteraction aiming to positively impact businesslaunching behaviors, the incubator’s mentorstried to enhance the feasibility and viability ofbusiness projects during the business modelelaboration, whereas they rather tended to

Table 3Mentors’ Communicative Goals and Targets in Entrepreneurial

Support Situations

EnterpriseOutcomes

Business SupportSituations

Targets Goals

Conformity (Feasibilityand Viability)

Differentiation(Added Value)

BusinessLaunching

Business concept Project XEnvironment XProtégé XMentor X

Business model Project X XEnvironment X XProtégé xMentor X

Business MeetingSimulation

Project XEnvironment XProtégé xMentor X

Fund-raising Business Plan Project XEnvironment XProtégé xMentor X

FundraisingTraining

Project XEnvironment XProtégé xMentor X


increase the added value of business projectsduring the business concept elaboration.

Then, in order to test H2, we examined ifentrepreneurial support situations were mat-ched with particular speech acts. We observedthe entire sample of 50 dyads during five coun-seling sessions for each entrepreneurial supportsituation previously identified. According toBateson (1968), one may expect an average of10 changes of major linguistic postures duringan interpersonal interaction in a trainingcontext. Therefore, for each dyad, we collected10 speech acts data during five counseling ses-sions in six entrepreneurial support situations.Table 4 indicates that the total number of occur-rences of speech acts in counseling dyads inter-actions varies with entrepreneurial supportsituations. For instance, encouragement andapproval speech acts are mostly used in busi-ness concept elaboration sessions, along withdemand and reminding speech acts.

In order to elaborate a taxonomy of commu-nicational strategies in entrepreneurial supportsituations, we divided speech acts into fourcategories, as suggested by prior research oninfluence tactics (Yukl and Tracey 1992) andinfluence goals (Dillard 2008). We labeledthese communicational strategies as persuasion,engagement, criticism, and provocation. Persua-sion is a communicational strategy that focuseson changing the business project’s form andcontent so as to enhance its perceived coherencewith commonly shared norms and social expec-tations. While using persuasion, mentors aim toincrease the entrepreneur’s ability to adjust tosocial expectations concerning business viabil-ity, feasibility, and business added value.Engagement is a communicational strategy thatfocuses on increasing the nascent entrepre-neur’s involvement in his/her business projectand contributes to the construction of entrepre-neurial social identity. While using engagement,mentors aim to increase the nascent entrepre-neur’s ability to demonstrate willingness to takeresponsibility for his/her business, and to carryon requested actions in order to launch, finance,and develop it further. Criticism is a communi-cational strategy that focuses on screening andexplaining business project’s errors and omis-sions, and advising about alternative solutions.While using criticism, mentors aim to increasethe nascent entrepreneur’s ability to assess theviability, feasibility, and added value of his/herbusiness project. Provocation is a communica-tional strategy that focuses on challenging the

Tab

le4

Num

ber

of

Occ

urr

ence

sof

Spee

chA

cts

inEntr

epre

neu

rial

Support

Sit

uat

ions

Tota

lSpee

chA

cts

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sions

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yads

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OV

INFO

REF/

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AL/

INT

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WA

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UM

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C/A

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EA

S

Busi

nes

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unch

ing

Busi

nes

sco

nce

pt

10¥

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015

219

220

954

5580

9980

8730

542

376

4B

usi

nes

sm

odel

2,50

024

841

328

934

745

126

265

9293

7129

140

Busi

nes

sM

eeting

Sim

ula

tion

2,50

013

212

510

795

108

107

426

278

177

254

241

250

Fund-r

aisi

ng

Busi

nes

sPla

n2,

500

316

279

276

229

317

338

116

121

120

127

131

130

Fund-r

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ng

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inin

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500

281

325

291

308

309

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109

134

9913

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taken-for-granted protégé’s personal and pro-fessional objectives, and self-image. While usingprovocation, mentors aim to increase thenascent entrepreneur’s ability to question per-sonal beliefs, representations, and self-image(see Table 5).

In order to assess the prevalence of eachcommunicational strategy in business supportsituations, we calculated the total number ofoccurrence of speech acts, as presented inTable 6. Consistent with H2, the frequency ofcommunicational strategies varies according tobusiness support situations. Engagement isprevalent in business concept elaboration ses-sions, as well as in business meetings simula-tions, and in development plan preparationcontexts. Persuasion is mostly used in busi-ness model elaboration sessions and in fund-raising training. Criticism occurs mainly inbusiness model and business plan elaborationmeetings, and in fund-raising training. Provo-cation is primarily employed in businessmeeting simulations.

During the first phase of this study, we alsoaimed to identify the moderating variables thatmediate the impact of communicational strate-gies at the individual and enterprise levels.Audet and Couteret (2005) had previously put

emphasis on the following individual and rela-tional variables of entrepreneurial mentoringprocess: involvement, trust, gender, age, edu-cation, and professional experience. We did 10semi-structured interviews with 10 mentors inorder to identify the most important moderat-ing variables of entrepreneurial support rela-tionships, as perceived by protagonists. Amongthe six factors aforementioned, respondentsstressed mostly the importance of personalinvolvement. A mentor observed that “beingrespectful and serious is a source of mutualconfidence”; while another mentor noticed that“both entrepreneurs and mentors have tobelieve that their consulting sessions are of theutmost importance; if only one session ismissed or treated superficially, one cannot fullybenefit of the coaching assistance.” Participantsalso emphasized the importance of trust: “trustis the basis of being able to ask the goodquestions.” A mentor noticed that truststrengthens the learning outcomes for nascententrepreneurs. Several respondents, mainlyfemale mentors, also observed that gender wasa significant variable in their mentoring prac-tice. One female mentor, for instance, statedthat “same-sex interactions are easier tomanage in a mentoring relationship; it is a

Table 5Communicational Strategies in Entrepreneurial Support Dyads

Strategy Definition Goal

Persuasion Communication that focuses on changingbusiness project’s form and content soas to enhance its perceived coherencewith commonly shared norms andsocial expectations

To increase the entrepreneur’s abilityto adjust to social expectationsconcerning business viability,feasibility, and added value

Engagement Communication that focuses onincreasing the entrepreneur’sinvolvement in his/her business projectand contributes to the construction ofentrepreneurial social identity

To increase the entrepreneur’s abilityto demonstrate willingness in takingresponsibility for his/her business,and to carry on requested actions inorder to launch, finance, anddevelop it further

Criticism Communication that focuses onscreening and explaining businessproject’s errors and omissions, andadvising about alternative solutions

To increase the entrepreneur’s abilityto assess the viability, feasibility,and added value of his/her businessproject

Provocation Communication that focuses onchallenging the taken-for-grantedentrepreneur’s personal andprofessional objectives, and self-image

To increase the entrepreneur’s abilityto question personal beliefs,representations, and self-image


challenge to a female mentor to become thementor of a male nascent entrepreneur.”

Research Phase 2Consistent with H4, communicational strate-

gies differed in their effective impact at theindividual level. The means and standard devia-tions for the four strategies are shown inTable 7, along with the results of the univariateF-tests. Significant differences were identifiedamong the four communicational strategies interms of attitudinal responses. Nascent entrepre-neurs declared similar responses to persuasiveattempts: compliance was the significant effectof this strategy (mean = 4.7; p < .04). Engage-ment speech acts were successful in producingcommitment (mean = 4.1; p < .3). As for criti-cism and provocation, they generated mixedresults, with both strategies uniformly produc-ing compliance, commitment, and resistance.

We used the MANOVA technique in order toidentify potential moderator effects of gender,trust, and personal involvement, and we foundsignificant results. Personal involvement andgender were positively correlated with compli-ance (0.54) and commitment (0.63), and nega-tively correlated with resistance (-0.66). Animportant finding is the moderator role of trustand personal involvement on the impact ofcriticism and provocation. High personalinvolvement and trust positively correlated withcompliance responses to criticism and provoca-tion (correlation coefficient of 0.48; p < .05),whereas low levels of personal involvement andtrust were positively correlated with resistanceresponses (correlation coefficient of 0.42;p < .05). Gender was positively correlated withresistance responses to provocation (correlationcoefficient of 0.35): female nascent entrepre-neurs were higher in resistance responses toprovocation (mean = 4.5) as compared withmale nascent entrepreneurs (4.2). Consistentwith H5a, H5b and H5c, individual differencesin gender and personal involvement, and rela-tional differences in trust level moderated theimpact of communicational strategies at theindividual level.

In order to assess the specific contribution ofpersuasion, engagement, criticism, and provo-cation on business launching and fund-raising,additional analysis was carried out using hier-archical multiple regression analysis. In theanalysis, the four communicational strategieswere independent variables, along with gender,trust, and personal involvement, whereas

Tab

le6

Num

ber

of

Occ

urr

ence

sof

Com

munic

atio

nal

Str

ateg

ies

inEntr

epre

neu

rial

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tici

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cati

on

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emen

t

Busi

nes

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unch

ing

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nes

sco

nce

pt

10¥

5¥

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2,50

055

318

926

614

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usi

nes

sm

odel

2,50

095

010

6025

024

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nes

sM

eeting

Sim

ula

tion

2,50

036

431

088

174

5

Fund-r

aisi

ng

Busi

nes

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n2,

500

871

884

357

388

Fundra

isin

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500

897

867

252

394

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plify

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NF/

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WA

RN

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HU

M,

hum

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PA

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per

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business launching and fund-raising weredependent variables. A multiple regressionanalysis was conducted, with a sample of 50nascent entrepreneurs. During Step 1 of theregression, the four communicational strategieswere entered into the model. During Step 2, weadded gender, trust, and involvement variablesin order to examine their potential moderatingeffects on counseling communication outcomesat the enterprise level.

The summary of hierarchical regressionanalysis presented in Table 8 indicates thatengagement accounts for a significant propor-tion of variance in business launching (b = 0.56,p < .05).

Provocation accounts for a very significantpart of variance in fund-raising (b = 0.81,p < .0001). Gender, trust, and personal involve-ment play an important role in predicting fund-raising. Gender is negatively correlated withfund-raising (b = -1.12, p < .006), with womenbeing less able to raise money at the end of theincubation process than men. Trust and per-sonal involvement are both positively corre-lated with fund-raising (b = 0.52, p < .004 andb = 0.64, p < .001). The strong correlationamong provocation, trust, and personalinvolvement (correlation coefficient of 0.54)supports H5a, H5b, and H5c concerning themoderating role of individual and relationalmeditational variables on the impact of com-municational strategies, here provocation, atthe enterprise level (see Table 9).

The results confirm that the communica-tional strategies that mentors use with nascententrepreneurs have specific impacts at the indi-vidual and enterprise levels (H3 and H4 con-firmed). Moderating variables, such as gender,trust, and personal involvement, play a signifi-cant role in interaction with communicationalstrategies (H5a, H5b, and H5c confirmed).

DiscussionWe identified four major communicational

strategies that mentors use throughout theirrelationship with student entrepreneurs and wemeasured their impact at the individual andenterprise levels. The underlying premise of thisresearch is that mentors have the ability to builda beneficial interpersonal relationship with theirmentees while also aiming to manage the psy-chological and action-oriented effects producedthrough their speech. This research contributesto a better understanding of the discursivedimension of experiential learning within entre-preneurship education. Kyrö and Carrier (2005,p. 29) stressed that entrepreneurship educationshould allow students to circulate within anentrepreneurial environment conceptualized asan “open environment” (ibid.). Ideally, this openenvironment may be organized as a pedagogicalsetting where there would be no boundariesbetween the classroom and the surroundingreality, or between academic disciplines andeconomic actors. However, we think there is a

Table 7The Impact of Communicational Strategies at the Individual Level

Compliance Commitment Resistance p

PersuasionM 4.7 4.2 2.8 .05S.D. 0.96 0.82 1.03

EngagementM 3.6 4.5 2.9 .03S.D. 0.87 0.62 0.91

CriticismM 3.7 2.9 3.9 nsS.D. 0.66 0.54 0.78

ProvocationM 4.0 3.9 4.3 nsS.D. 0.75 0.76 0.83

ns, nonsignificant; S.D., standard deviation.


Table 8Summary of Multiple Regression Analysis Predicting

Business Launching

Step 1 Step 2

R2 0.24 R2 0.30Sigma error 1.76 Sigma error 1.90F-test (6, 50) 2.67 (p < .03) F-test (6, 50) 2.52 (p < .02)

Predictor/Step Standardized b t-ValueStep 1

t-ValueStep 2

p-ValueStep 1

p-ValueStep 2

1st Step 2nd Step

1. Persuasion 0.24 0.14 0.76 0.46 .452 .647Engagement 0.56 0.41 1.95 1.41 .058 .166Criticism 0.53 0.57 1.56 1.70 .125 .097Provocation 0.39 0.17 1.66 0.69 .104 .495

2. Trust 0.27 1.19 .242Personal involvement 0.42 1.77 .084Gender 0.07 0.14 .888

Note: Boldface entries indicate statistically significant results.

Table 9Summary of Multiple Regression Analysis Predicting Fund-raising

Step 1 Step 2

R2 0.43 R2 0.61Sigma error 1.76 Sigma error 1.90F-test (6, 50) 6.56 (p < .0001) F-test (6, 50) 9.11 (p < .00001)

Predictor/Step Standardized b t-ValueStep 1

t-ValueStep 2

p-ValueStep 1

p-ValueStep 2

1st Step 2nd Step

1. Persuasion 0.38 0.21 1.38 0.91 .175 .368Engagement 0.22 0.02 0.89 0.11 .381 .916Criticism 0.10 0.15 0.36 0.61 .717 .545Provocation 0.81 0.46 3.96 2.39 .000 .022

2. Trust 0.52 3.08 .004Personal involvement 0.64 3.61 .001Gender -1.12 -2.91 .006

Note: Boldface entries indicate statistically significant results.


risk to conceptualize experiential learning pro-grams as some kind of “utopia,” that is, toimplement them outside the traditional educa-tional environment which is the classroom(Gosen and Washbush 2004). The businessschool incubator we researched developed anexperiential learning program that makes exten-sive use of various communicational strategiesso as to help student entrepreneurs to developan original and sustainable enterprise. Theirefforts are effective within an open educationalenvironment, where mentors, along with profes-sors and tutors, allow undergraduate and gradu-ate business students to find their way betweenthe classroom and the business incubator.Within this open educational environment, stu-dents perceive the classroom as a space dedi-cated to knowledge and certainty acquisition,whereas the business incubator is rather empha-sized as a territory of confrontation with theunknown and the uncertainty. Learning in suchan open environment could therefore consist in“increasing and supporting competences forenjoying and acting in complexity and insecurityand recognizing as well as creating opportuni-ties involved in it” (Kyrö and Carrier 2005,p. 28).

Experiential learning consolidates tacitknowledge relative to entrepreneurial behavior,and evidence exists that mentoring plays a majorrole in developing student entrepreneurs’ tacitknowledge and reflexivity (Gosen andWashbush 2004). At the same time, in order toenhance the effectiveness of mentoring prac-tices, confirmed entrepreneurs along with peda-gogical teams also need to improve their abilityto elaborate a coherent and reflexive experien-tial learning program (Sullivan and Kolb 1995).

A Dialectical Use ofCommunicational Strategies

Mentors of the business school incubator weresearched use persuasion, engagement, criti-cism, and provocation, in order to impact thenascent entrepreneurs’ ability to conform tosocial expectations and to build an originalbusiness project. The choice of a particularcommunicational strategy depends on twofactors: the goal that mentors pursue in thebusiness support situation (market conformityor differentiation) and the targets or the refer-ential objectives they bring into discussion withnascent entrepreneurs. These targets are eitherexternal to the counseling relationship, that is,the project and the environment, or internal to

the relationship, that is, the mentor and thenascent entrepreneur. Thus, when the focus ofthe interpersonal interaction is on the businessproject and the environment, mentors tend touse persuasion in order to encourage nascententrepreneurs to advance toward enhanced con-formity with market expectations. Conversely,in this business support context, they also usecriticism in order to help nascent entrepreneursto progress toward increased business differen-tiation. On the other side, when the focus of theinterpersonal interaction is on the mentor or thenascent entrepreneur themselves, mentors tendto use engagement in order to encourage entre-preneurs to advance toward enhanced confor-mity in terms of acquiring and securing anentrepreneurial social identity. Conversely, inthis business support context, they also useprovocation in order to prompt nascent entre-preneurs to progress toward increased personaldifferentiation or distinctiveness.

Results of research phase 2 indicate thatpersuasion and engagement have a positiveimpact on nascent entrepreneurs’ attitudes,with persuasion mainly generating complianceresponses, and engagement mainly commit-ment responses. Criticism and provocation pro-duced mixed results at the individual level.Results indicate that mentors may effectivelyuse criticism and provocation if the level oftrust in the mentor is important, and thenascent entrepreneur has a high personalinvolvement. At the enterprise level, engage-ment is a useful strategy for sustaining businesslaunching, whereas provocation is valuable intriggering fund-raising, especially for malenascent entrepreneurs. In order to be fullyeffective, provocation needs trust and personalinvolvement, moderating variables which arepositively correlated with fund-raising.

The Discursive Dimension ofExperiential Learning in aMentoring Context

During our field study, we observed thatmentors of the business school incubator weresearched aimed to play an “initiator” functionas regards to business launching. However, theneed to alternatively employ the four commu-nicational strategies indicates that mentors arefacing complex interactional issues: the issue ofnorm conformity and that of norm transgres-sion, as well as the issue of business durability.The mentoring relationship helps nascentstudent entrepreneurs to learn about oneself


and the other while developing an originalentrepreneurial project. The somewhat simulta-neous processes of project development andself-transformation seemed to articulate causaland effectual action strategies. More concretely,when using persuasion and engagement,mentors aimed to trigger causal behavior instudent entrepreneurs (Politis 2005), whereaswhen they used provocation and criticism theyaimed to help students act within an effectualparadigm (Gabrielsson, Tell, and Politis 2010).In other words, persuasion and engagementare goal oriented, whereas provocation andcriticism are first and foremost deconstructivestrategies that help student entrepreneurs tofocus on resources so as to progressively elabo-rate future action. Persuasion and engagementtherefore help students build self-confidence intheir ability to enhance the feasibility of theirbusiness project (Radu and Redien-Collot2008), whereas criticism and provocationstimulate their motivation to explore theunknown and to accept uncertainty. A mentordescribed the reaction of a student towardprovocation: “Well, I was a little bit aggressivewhen I told him that his market study wasrather irrelevant; but as he trusted me, wemanaged to imagine together a more appropri-ate market study so as to test his product ideas.I think irony and humor ultimately helped himfind some new incremental innovations that hedidn’t identify in previous market studies . . .”

The incubator seemed to function as a spaceof both causal and effectual thinking andaction, with provocation and criticism helpingstudent entrepreneurs to think critically aboutthemselves and their project. Mentors contrib-uted to open student entrepreneurs toward awider environment and helped them elaboratericher and more reality-based business oppor-tunities. A mentor confessed: “I don’t know ifthe students we welcome here are trulyengaged to become entrepreneurs. I havedoubts about it because I think they are notenough exposed to various entrepreneurial rolemodels, and they don’t know many thingsabout success and failure. I feel like I have toinstill more conviction in them while at thesame time make them more aware and criticalabout their assumptions concerning theirproject and their personal self-representation.”

ConclusionThe business school we researched offers a

genuine open environment for entrepreneurial

learning, with student entrepreneurs navigatingbetween the known and the unknown, underthe supervision of mentors, professors, andtutors. If classroom entrepreneurial educationseems to deal with the known and the world-as-it-is, mentors in the business school incuba-tor seem to rather deal with the unknown andthe world-as-it-may-be. Student entrepreneursbuild their project as a mix of both known andunknown territories. The confrontation withthe mentor through dialogue facilitates the rec-ognition of otherness as a key lever for devel-oping both a unique entrepreneurial projectand entrepreneurial identity.

Specifically, this research indicates that per-suasion and engagement are employed inorder to encourage nascent entrepreneurs todevelop a coherent and successful businessproject, and to build or strengthen an entre-preneurial social identity. The focus of persua-sion is first and foremost the relation ofnascent entrepreneurs to their businessprojects; the focus of engagement is first andforemost the relationship between the mentorand the nascent entrepreneur as members ofthe same social category, thus sharing similarsocial identities, constraints, and opportunities.Persuasion and engagement thus aim toincrease the nascent entrepreneurs’ ability todemonstrate the validity and feasibility of busi-ness projects, along with demonstrating theirpersonal credibility as reliable and consistententrepreneurs. On the contrary, criticism andprovocation are employed in order to convincenascent entrepreneurs to step back from, andreassess, their business projects. Nascent entre-preneurs are encouraged to take a fresh look athow appropriate and coherent their previouslyheld views of their projects and themselves associal and economic actors really had been. Insuch cases, criticism and provocation canproduce a momentary rupture of meaning forthe entrepreneur, therefore creating opportuni-ties for improvisation and intuition, and foster-ing the habit of deconstructing andreconstructing business models and plans. Thefocus of criticism is first and foremost on therelation of nascent entrepreneurs to the envi-ronment, whereas the focus of provocation isfirst and foremost on the relation of protégésto themselves. Entrepreneurs in mentoringdyads need all these four communication strat-egies in order to invent, launch, keep alive,and develop a new firm. Entrepreneurialsupport relationships, which alternatively


feature persuasion, engagement, criticism, andprovocation, are connecting different actors ina variety of contexts, helping student entrepre-neurs to familiarize with the task of both con-forming to social expectations and elaboratingan original offer.

This research has several limitations. Themain one is that mentoring interactions articu-late sequences of speech acts, and thussequences of communicational strategies thatare employed together rather than in isolationfrom one another. In the future, additionalresearch is needed in order to identify thesequences of communicative acts mentors usein order to impact student entrepreneurs. Thiscould help to integrate an explicit temporaldimension into the research design, and there-fore potentially identify cycles in entrepreneur-ial mentoring relationships. Another limitationof this research is that we have studied unidi-rectional influence of mentors on nascententrepreneurs. Although entrepreneurship lit-erature emphasizes that mentoring relation-ships are asymmetrical, in the sense that onepartner—that is, the mentor—influences morethe other than the opposite, it could be inter-esting to assess the reciprocal influence ofmentors and nascent entrepreneurs in counsel-ing dyads. Also, this research takes intoaccount a number of individual (gender, per-sonal involvement) and relational (trust) mod-erating variables. Supplementary research isrequired in order to assess the moderating roleof other business and environmental variables,such as the type of business support program,and the type of business project and businesssector.

We think that our research contributes to theunderstanding of communicational processesand impact of counseling dyads within an expe-riential learning process fully integrated to anopen environment of entrepreneurship educa-tion. Also, it may help business support andassistance programs and organizations toimprove their mentoring practices, by takinginto account the particular goals, targets, andoutcomes of communicational strategies andtheir impact on the consolidation of studententrepreneurs’ reflexivity as regards to entre-preneurial action. Moreover, in order to con-solidate the discursive dimension withinexperiential learning, we think that there is aneed to better train mentors in oral communi-cation techniques, along with sensitizing man-agers of incubators and business support

programs and organizations to the role of men-toring discourse in achieving successful busi-ness launching and fund-raising.

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