Throughout history, entrepreneurs have
been seen as the drivers of economic growth and prosperity. Their
contribution to the human capital of nations has
been significant. The contribution of entrepreneurs to the growing financial
and trade linkages has come to account for somewhere between one-quarter and
one-half of global growth over the last five
years. In the present day quest to continually innovate and create knowledge,
the entrepreneur as a source of human capital emerges as one of the most
important resources for a country. In the light of
this widespread interest in identifying and nurturing entrepreneurs, the concept
of `entrepreneur coaching' has received widespread interest.
At its broadest level, coaching is generally defined as a "process of equipping
people with the tools, knowledge, and
opportunities they need to develop them and become more effective." (Peterson & Hicks,
1995: 41). This notion of coaching as
a developmental activity for effective job performance is well understood
in management literature. However, in the entrepreneurial context, it has been
argued that given the need to make decisions with little or no historical trends,
information or previous levels of performance in the
face of great degrees of uncertainty, coaches
would be highly beneficial to entrepreneurs. They could help in a number of ways, such
as selecting an appropriate business target, securing appropriate technical
support, building networks and alliances, and
helping to de-link personal failure and
organizational failure. While business coaching,
specifically for executives, has long been a widely
adopted strategy by large corporations to deal
with similar issues, entrepreneur coaching has only recently gained recognition. |
