The role of storytelling in the formal mentoring program
by Kaj U. Koskinen, Janne Vartia
International Journal of Strategic Change Management (IJSCM), Vol. 3, No. 1/2, 2011

Abstract: This article addresses the question of what sort of role storytelling plays in the formal mentoring program. Firstly, individual's personal competence which is divided into knowledge and socially based competencies, and how this competence alters in the course of individual's working life is illustrated. Secondly, due to the fact that the mentor's competence is transferred from his or her worldview to the mentee's worldview, the concept of worldview is described. Then the discussion deals with the main content of the article – namely, mentoring and storytelling, and the characteristics of knowledge transferred through these activities. Because of the need to attain a better understanding of the knowledge transferred through mentoring and storytelling, some results of an empirical study conducted on a formal mentoring program in a large Finnish technological manufacturing company (i.e., comments of interviewees) are picked up in brief and included in the article. The article ends with the conclusion according to which knowledge transferred through the formal mentoring program differs from the knowledge transferred through an ordinary storytelling practice, and therefore, the storytelling plays only a weak role in the formal mentoring program. However, the situation depends upon characteristics of the mentor and mentee.

Online publication date: Sat, 28-Feb-2015

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