Exploring formal mentoring relationships in a nascent entrepreneurial context: functions, interactions, emotions, behaviour, and agency

Formal mentoring programmes are an important support available to nascent entrepreneurs during venture formation, emergence and growth. This form of support has received little theoretical or empirical attention in the entrepreneurship and mentoring literature. Given that an entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team is the primus inter pares of emerging, growing, and established ventures, the development of the venture is intertwined with the competence and capability of the entrepreneur(s). To advance scholarship on formal nascent entrepreneurial mentoring relationships, this research reviews existing entrepreneurship and mentoring literature, and links social support theory to this research context. The literature review provides insight into five areas that remain under researched in the context of nascent entrepreneur and mentoring, namely, functions, interactions, emotions, behaviour and entrepreneurial agency, and as a result a multilevel model of nascent entrepreneurial mentoring is proposed and utilised as a foundation for the empirical research. An analysis of the research is provided including implications for research, policy and practice. This thesis makes a number of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions. It proposes a multilevel model of the entrepreneur-mentor relationship highlighting the multiple contexts that impact the relationship, and a model of the relationship between emotions and entrepreneurial agency. Finally, it explores the positive emotions derived through functions and mentor interactions reinforce particular behaviours that can enhance dimensions of entrepreneurial agency.