The perceived capabilities and willingness of South African small business owners to act as business mentors

摘要

In this paper, it was determined whether South African small business owners have the capabilities to act as business mentors to potential or inexperienced entrepreneurs. Secondly, the willingness of South African small business owners to act as business mentors was determined. The literature study revealed that in order to perform the role of a successful business mentor requires particular personal, relational and professional capabilities. Willingness to act as a business mentor is influenced by a number of factors that need to be considered when deciding to perform such a role. The purpose of this paper was to provide an opportunity for interested groups to utilise small business owners as a source of business mentors to assist and guide inexperienced entrepreneurs through the difficult process of starting and growing a business. A measuring instrument was developed to field the perceptions of eighty respondents regarding their business mentoring capabilities and willingness to mentor. Factor analysis was conducted and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed. The relationships between the respondents’ rating of their mentoring capabilities (personal, relational and professional) and: their willingness to act as mentor; their previous engagement as a mentee; and their previous engagement as a mentor was determined.