The Effects of Coaching Methods on Entrepreneurial Behavior of Nascent Entrepreneurs in Accelerator Centers

People’s behavior change facilitates their goals achievement. Interventions targeting people’s behavior change are generally implemented through diverse types of education. With increasing use of coaching systems in accelerator centers, the question then arises as to whether the methods used by educators can affect the behavior of nascent entrepreneurs and change their behavior in a more entrepreneurial way. In this paper, we have attempted to answer this question using a quasi-experimental approach to investigate the behavior change of nascent entrepreneurs. For this purpose, 18 accelerator centers were selected in Tehran province, in which 188 nascent entrepreneurs were selected as statistical sample at the beginning of the acceleration period. 114 nascent entrepreneurs of all selected ones contributed also at the end of the period. Investigation of the questionnaires and Paired T-Test indicate that entrepreneurial behavior of nascent entrepreneurs during the acceleration period turn out to be more entrepreneurial. In addition, the regression test showed that this change in behavior is the result of educational, relational and experiential approaches used by the centers’ instructors and the effectiveness of the mentioned methods is 0.28, 0.55 and 0.21 respectively. Therefore, coaching methods affect behavior change of the nascent entrepreneurs. Relational methods are more effective compared to educational and experiential approaches for coaching nascent entrepreneurs.