Mentoring and Coaching in Transport and Logistics Higher Education: Issues and Challenges

Mentoring is widely accepted as a developmental process for personal growth and career advancement. Its functions are often carried out within the context of a long-term, continuous and supportive relationship between a skilled or more experienced person (mentor) who serves as a role model to teach, sponsor, encourage and counsel and a less experienced individual (mentee). Although some evidence exists to support the idea that, where mentoring practices are applied in higher education, students tend to perform better as scholars and experience higher confidence and morale, mentoring is still under-utilised when used as a way to help support individuals’ personal and professional development. Meanwhile, larger organisations tend to invest significant resources on talent management activities, as a means to identify how such activities are being utilised to develop current assets within organisations, develop leadership, support change or bridge the gap of insufficiently qualified graduates in industry.
This paper presents a structured literature review on mentoring and coaching including similarities and differences in each approach and their appropriateness in transport and logistics higher education. It provides an understanding of each concept and suggests relevant applications as an effective means of maximising the potential of existing and prospective students and employees. Finally, it discusses the extent to which “mentoring and coaching” can be used in transport and
logistics higher education as a developmental approach to provide students with a competitive edge when entering the workplace.