THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MENTORSHIP AND TEAM INNOVATION IN NOVICE DESIGNERS

摘要

Mentorship has been reported as a critical success factor for collaborative innovative projects. Frequent periods of mentoring during execution of design projects are hypothesized to contribute to team innovation. This study investigates the relationship between mentorship and team innovation in engineering design teams. Data was collected for a one-year period from 207 teams of engineering students engaged in design projects. 41 percent of the students were under some form of mentorship while 59 percent were not. The results, which are only exploratory in nature, indicate that there is no significant correlation between team innovation and mentorship and there is a nonsignificant relationship between team innovation and the interaction term between mentorship and leadership. Nonetheless, the importance and benefits of mentorship cannot be ruled out. Recommendations for mentorship programs and directions for future research are proposed.