Paying it forward: the relationship between mentoring and perceived ESE of Jewish South African entrepreneurs

Abstract

Mentoring is a crucial aspect of entrepreneurial training and education (Sullivan, 2000; Regis, Falk, & Dias, 2007) and it is entrepreneurial education that is perceived as the solution that will turn South Africans from job-seekers into job creators (North, 2002). It is also hoped that entrepreneurship education will contribute to the ideal of empowering as many people as possible in order to unleash the previously stifled human potential of all South Africans (Hanekom,1995). Unfortunately, South Africans suffer from a ‘dearth of entrepreneurial acumen’, and this has resulted in the frequent lack of growth and high failure rates of businesses (Nieman, 2006; van Aardt & van Aardt, 1997). In order to measure the relationship between mentoring and entrepreneurial self-efficacy, an online questionnaire was sent out to Jewish entrepreneurs who are clients of ORT JET, a non-profit organisation that offers mentoring to entrepreneurs of the South African Jewish community. This study found that while mentoring does not have a positive perceived effect on the entrepreneurial self-efficacy of entrepreneurs, other factors-such as GSE and a supportive community-may have more of a positive impact on entrepreneurial self-efficacy.