Abstract:

Literature reviews, bankruptcy statistics and our previous experiences from our work with young entrepreneurs at Budapest Business School University of Applied Sciences (Hungary) show and prove as an evidence, that some kind of intervention is needed to improve performance of SMEs. That is also not a newly recognized fact, that for the concept of lifelong learning to become a reality it is necessary to get people to learn. This learning process, aka the so-called intervention could appear in different forms: teaching, counselling, coaching, advising or mentoring.

Mentoring is a unique one, as it is the most intimate of learning approaches. Its primary focus is not the development of technical competence but on the acquisition of the largely intuitive skills that make people capable of operating effectively at higher levels of management or in a different situation (Clutterbuck 2007). Dynamism and dyadic approach of the mentoring appears in different sources, but all are the same in that way, which emphasizes the improvement of the mentee. In certain cases, articles flash the question, what must be observed to ensure proper connection, but that is almost nowhere discussed, how the mentor is improving, however ‘trust’ and its synonyms appear almost all cases.

As it is highlighted by more resources the more the mentee put into the process, the more the mentor will be dedicated and so it is the self-reinforcing process. Very often the question of frames, the determination of timing, frequency and length of the process and the mentors required skills are squared up. Our literature review introduces this aspect of mentoring.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship, mentoring, skill development.