Mentoring in Family Firms: A Reflective Analysis of Senior Executives' Perceptions

Abstract

This study is a reflective analysis of the perceptions of senior executives in family businesses that relate to their personal experiences of having been mentored. The study presents an overview of the topic of mentoring, defines key terms, and identifies questions addressed in the research. The rationale for this study rested on two facts.First, mentoring in non-family businesses constitutes the majority of the literature. That literature supports the importance of mentoring. Secondly, mentoring in family businesses has not been researched.A thorough review of research literature related to mentoring constitutes the second chapter. With the absence of research relating specifically to mentoring in family businesses, this was a worthy topic to explore, and will make a significant contribution to the mentoring literature. It also provides family businesses with a practical tool for the selection of appropriate mentoring methodologies.The third chapter identifies the specific qualitative research methodology, that was used to complete the study. Central to this methodology were 76 personal interviews of senior executives who had been mentored. A pilot study was conducted to determine the appropriateness of the interview questions. The interviews were conducted with executives selected from an existing data base at Baylor University's Institute for Family Business.The findings from this research reveal that those who have experienced mentoring believe it is a vital tool for success. The data indicated a strong belief that the selection of the mentoring technique should be dependent on the parties to be involved, and the situation surrounding the mentoring. This selection includes examining whether the mentoring should be done formally or informally, and whether it should be accomplished by a family member or a non-family member.There are six recommended topics for further research on mentoring in family businesses presented in the final chapter. Along with these recommendations, the author gives some insight into the practical application of the data that has been compiled. MENTORING IN FAMILY FIRMS:A REFLECTIVE

Educating Succeeding Generation Entrepreneurs in Family Businesses – The Case of Slovenia

“…For this reason, different research studies address the role of career development, outside work experiences, apprenticeship, on-the-job training, formal education, and the role of training programs in the process of preparing and developing a competent leader (for references, see [41]). The role of mentoring and the selection of mentoring techniques in family firms were explored by [4]. [47] addressed the issue of training of the next-generation family members after they joined the management team; their findings indicated that involving next-generation family members in the strategic planning process brings benefits to their development.…”

Knowledge Creation in Family Businesses and Its Importance for Building and Sustaining Competitive Advantage during and after Succession

“…These findings suggest that many knowledge creation processes and activities during the succession are going on informally and spontaneously or even blind. Such informal processes have clearly certain benefits (e.g., flexibility and establishing caring relationship), but on the other hand the lack of clear objectives and agenda can lead to lower level of productivity (e.g., Boyd et al, 1999). This confirms the need of preparing written plan of succession where the major part should cover successor's training and his/hers involvement in the organizational knowledge creation process within a family business.…”

“…In our research in only one case (the case no.4) the mentoring was done by the external expert indicating the preference of family business leader's mentoring. Boyd et al (1999) found strong preference of informal mentoring by a family member in family businesses. This kind of mentoring has numerous strengths (e.g., flexibility, unforced, unstructured, opening up communication and establishing caring relationship).…”

“…Mentoring and supervising relationships is found by family businesses leaders to be a suitable way of widening successor's knowledge because they believe that the close interactions between them and their successors is a superior form of experience supporting development of tacit knowledge by successors (Boyd, Upton, & Wircenski, 1999;Cabrera-Suárez et al, 2001;Chirico, 2008). According to Swap et al (2001) mentoring is an effective way of transferring critical skills (i.e., technical and managerial), knowledge on managerial systems (especially of informal managerial systems), norms of behavior and firm's values.…”

“…However, the weakness should are also detected such as the absence of objectives or an agenda, the presence of emotion and lack of feedback or review. Therefore, Boyd et al (1999) recommend including positive sides of formal mentoring like the goal setting and review and the recognition of milestone events. Strong preference of informal mentoring can be traced also in our research since in many cases (cases no.…”