A model for student mentoring in business schools

The essence of management education lies in preparing and enabling the students to evolve cognitively, affectively and behaviorally into capable ones equipped to meet and manage challenges from within and outside their organisations or workplaces. Mentoring, as pedagogy, results in enhancing effectiveness of B‐schools (Institutions offering MBA program) in ensuring the transformation of students into professionals. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the formal and teacher‐initiated student mentoring in B‐schools in Kerala in terms of the designated activities, to establish effectiveness of mentoring as outcomes of faculty‐related antecedents and mentoring activities, and to demonstrate the effectiveness in terms of the psycho‐social changes of students.

This research employed a conclusive approach that combined the features of descriptive and explanatory research designs. The respondents of the study comprised 141 permanent teachers, 327 first‐year students and 318 final‐year students enrolled in the management programs of 19 B‐schools in Kerala that had minimum five years of existence and approval of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE).

The study revealed that less than half of the B‐schools had implemented a mentoring program as part of their pedagogy. A structural equation model using the partial least square technique validated the conceptual model and the findings revealed that socio‐demographic characteristics, mentoring activities (teach the job, provide challenge, teach politics, career help, sponsor, career counseling and trust) influenced effectiveness of mentoring.

The study was conducted only among B‐schools, hence the research results may lack generalization. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed model further.

The paper includes a conceptual framework employed for bringing about effectiveness of mentoring, proven to be valid and may be considered by B‐schools that are institutionalizing mentoring as an element of the pedagogy.

The paper bridges the perceptible lack of theoretical and empirical bases to explain the dynamics of student mentoring in management institutes in the country and will be an eye‐opener to management institutions which have not incorporated mentoring as part of their pedagogy.