The Relationship between Mentorship and Team Innovation in Novice Designers

Sarah Asio, Jennifer Cross

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

has been reported as a critical success factor for collaborative innovative projects. Frequent periods of mentoring during execution of design projects are hypothesized to contribute to team innovation. This study investigates the relationship between mentorship and team innovation in engineering design teams. Data was collected for a one-year period from 207 teams of engineering students engaged in design projects. 41 percent of the students were under some form of mentorship while 59 percent were not. The results, which are only exploratory in nature, indicate that there is no significant correlation between team innovation and mentorship and there is a nonsignificant relationship between team innovation and the interaction term between mentorship and leadership. Nonetheless, the importance and benefits of mentorship cannot be ruled out. Recommendations for mentorship programs and directions for future research are proposed.

Original languageEnglish
StatePublished - Oct 2014
Event2014 35th International Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management - Entrepreneurship Engineering: Harnessing Innovation, ASEM 2014 - Virginia Beach, United States
Duration: Oct 15 2014Oct 18 2014

Conference

Conference2014 35th International Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management - Entrepreneurship Engineering: Harnessing Innovation, ASEM 2014
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityVirginia Beach
Period10/15/1410/18/14

Keywords

  • Engineering design and education
  • Leadership
  • Mentorship
  • Novice designer
  • Team innovation

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