Sustaining Efficient Relations in Startup Mentoring

We recently noted a rapid development of startup acceleration programs worldwide. Startup mentoring lies at the heart of these activities (Plummer et al., 2016; Cohen et al., 2018) and represents a third-party association where non-founders can potentially have a significant impact on startup performance and growth (Huang & Knight, 2017). Yet, it is unclear how entrepreneurs and mentors work together to sustain efficient relations because of mixed, scarce, and incomplete empirical evidence (Ozgen & Baron, 2007; Cohen et al., 2018). Existing literature offers one-sided accounts of either entrepreneurs or stakeholders, foregoing the bidirectional nature of relationships, emphasizes mutual attraction and path dependence in their development, and focuses on their two discrete stages: the beginning and the end. Aligned with the social network and social exchange theories (Blau, 1964; Larson, 1992) and drawing upon the mentoring literature (Haggard et al., 2011), we explore the strategies that entrepreneurs and mentors jointly use to sustain efficient mentoring relations.