Older adult entrepreneurs as mentors of young people neither in employment nor education and training (NEETs). Evidences from multi-country intergenerational learning program

Abstract

Population aging is exacerbating the loss of competences in the workforce and simultaneously young people neither in employment nor in education and training (NEETs) are struggling to be reengaged in employment. These issues, which are deemed priorities for the European policy agenda, could be addressed by triggering active aging dimensions, valuing and exploiting older adult entrepreneurs' knowledge for enhancing youngsters' entrepreneurial attitudes, through mentoring. This paper reports the results of a study based on an intergenerational learning program, carried out in 2018 in Germany, Italy and Slovenia. The study was aimed at developing and testing one training on mentoring addressing 41 older adult entrepreneurs (55 and over), and two intergenerational learning trainings aiming at boosting entrepreneurial competences of 33 NEETs (aged 18-29). The impact of the program on older adult entrepreneurs and NEETs was assessed through a pre and post-evaluation using qualitative and quantitative tools. Findings at country level were treated as national case-studies and then the latter were compared by considering them as a multiple embedded case-study. Results indicated that, to different extent in the study countries, mentors learned and enhanced mentoring competences, e.g. active listening and the capability of orienting, improved well-being and self-esteem, social inclusion and active aging attitude. Moreover, NEETs acquired entrepreneurial and socio-relational competences by benefiting from the full exploitation of mentors' know-how and the trust relationship with them. Companies, trade unions, educational and voluntary organizations should cooperate to adopt intergenerational learning programs as good practices for older adults and NEETs' lifelong learning promotion.

Intrapreneurial Fit and Misfit: Enterprising Behavior, Preferred Organizational and Open Innovation Culture

“…This is reflected in the focus of empirical studies, e.g., [87]. Although entrepreneurs may adopt coaching and mentoring roles in later years, e.g., [88], the respondents in this sample are in the early stages of the "entrepreneurial process", i.e., in the early stages of development as an entrepreneur/intrapreneur.…”

Towards a Global Entrepreneurial Culture: A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of Entrepreneurship Education Programs

“…The quasi-experimental studies, mixed-method study design, and pre-post study [63,65,67,70,71,78,80,84,85,[87][88][89] revealed consistent statistical results on the interventions' gains. There were global improvements between pre-and post-intervention.…”

“…These studies are focused on programs that specifically target the development of ES [62,63,65,66,87], the development of business plans and models [73,74,78,91], and the promotion of skills within the scope of social entrepreneurship and sustainability [64,81,82] in the scope of agriculture [77,88] and of technologies [63,87,90]. Some specific competences also stand out, such as teamwork [63,67,73,81,86,89], self-efficacy [64,70,72,74,78,84], leadership [86,88], self-confidence [64,73,81], proactivity and initiative [64,66,84], innovation [64,66,68,84], problem solving [66,72,86], empathy [64,81], self-esteem [8...…”

“…Most studies had teachers as the only facilitators of the programs (66%) (n = 19), but in addition to teachers, some studies presented the collaboration of local entrepreneurs [76,87], volunteers [80], mentors and coaches [85,88], professional internships supervisors [87], and community specialists such as lawyers and military personnel [70].…”

The Development of a Coding Scheme for Intergenerational Learning and Its Application to the Patterns of Intergenerational Collaborative Communication

“…There has been accumulating attention paid and efforts made to investigate the advantages of having older and younger generations learn together across different countries (e.g., Boström, 2014 ; Franz and Scheunpflug, 2016 ; Spiteri, 2016 ; Gerpott et al, 2017 ; McKee and Scheffel, 2019 ; Sun et al, 2019 ; Yin et al, 2019 ; Santini et al, 2020 ). For example, Santini et al ( 2020 ) conducted an intergenerational learning program in Germany, Italy, and Slovenia focusing on the field of organization and employment. During the program, the senior adults acted as mentors, and their entrepreneurial knowledge was valued for fostering the youngsters' entrepreneurial attitudes.…”