Full Esteem Ahead? Mindset-Oriented Business Training in Ethiopia

Alibhai, Salman; Buehren, Niklas; Goldstein, Markus; Papineni, Sreelakshmi; Wolf, Kathrin

doi:10.1596/1813-9450-8892

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…However, the quality of the trainers may matter even more for psychologybased training programs than for hard skills training. Alibhai et al (2019) report on an experiment with 2,001 women in Ethiopia, where personal initiative training was taught through a government program at a lot lower cost (only $30 per firm), with no significant impacts on either sales or profits after 1.5 years (the point estimate on profits is a 1.2 percent increase, 95% C.I. : -11.0, +13.3).…”

Section: Using Psychology To Dimension Alternative Dimensions Of Entrepreneurial Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small business training to improve management practices in developing countries: re-assessing the evidence for ‘training doesn’t work’

McKenzie

2021

Oxford Review of Economic Policy

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Despite the popularity of business training among policy-makers, its use has faced increasing scepticism. Most of the first randomized experiments could not detect statistically significant impacts of training on firm profits or sales. I reassess the evidence for whether small business training works, incorporating more recent results. A meta-analysis of these estimates shows that training increases profits and sales on average by 5–10 per cent. This is in line with what is optimistic to expect, but impacts of this magnitude are too small for most experiments to detect. I then discuss five approaches for improving the effectiveness of traditional training by incorporating gender, kaizen methods, localization and mentoring, heuristics, and psychology. The challenge is then how to deliver a quality programme on a cost-effective basis at a much larger scale. Three possible approaches to scaling up training are discussed: using the market, using technology, or targeting and funnelling firms.

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Section: Using Psychology To Dimension Alternative Dimensions Of Entrepreneurial Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small business training to improve management practices in developing countries: re-assessing the evidence for ‘training doesn’t work’

McKenzie

2021

Oxford Review of Economic Policy

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“…While the initial study on personal initiative (PI) training in Togo had very encouraging findings, follow-on work has found more disappointing impacts. Alibhai et al (2019) evaluate the same PI curriculum in Ethiopia, focused on female microentrepreneurs. Their study also evaluates a second variant of psychological training, focused on self-esteem and entrepreneurial spirit.…”

Section: Business Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microentrepreneurship in Developing Countries

Jayachandran¹

2020

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This article reviews the recent literature in economics on small-scale entrepreneurship ("microentrepreneurship") in low-income countries. Major themes in the literature include the determinants and consequences of joining the formal sector; the impacts of access to credit and other financial services; the impacts of business training; barriers to hiring; and the distinction between self-employment by necessity and self-employment as a calling. The article devotes special attention to unique issues that arise with female entrepreneurship.

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“…By comparison, in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) both training programs did not generate any impact on psychological outcomes, and consequently on firm performance outcomes, including profits, probably because of trainers' limited exposure to business world. Indeed, there is a statistically significant association between trainees' psychological outcomes and the trainer having an entrepreneurship history (Alibhai, et al, 2019).…”

Section: Content Of Training: What To Train On?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These profit gains occurred mainly through reductions in costs -arising from suppliers switching -rather than increases in sales, changes in product quality or more profitable changes in product mix (Brooks et al, 2018). The null effects of PIT in Addis Ababa may also be attributed to poor quality of mentorship delivered due to lower entrepreneurial experience among trainers (Alibhai et al, 2019). The marginal impact of mentorship was, however, less especially from the enhanced version with on-site visits (Bardasi et al, 2017).…”

Section: Modality Of Training: How To Train?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries

Grover¹,

Imbruno²

2020

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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Policy Research Working Paper 9461Countries design programs for supporting firms, with varying levels of success. Firm growth is constrained by several factors, such as low firm capabilities (e.g. management), availability of finance, and access to markets. Based on the available experimental evidence on firm support programs in developing countries, this paper makes three broad observations. First, there are huge knowledge gaps in understanding the success of instruments that alleviate firm constraints. Various instruments, such as early-stage equity finance, incubators, and accelerators, remain untested due to the lack of good design, results framework, or monitoring and evaluation systems and so on. Second, since these interventions are expensive, policy makers expect such programs to be designed more effectively to pursue their objectives. However, evidence provides little guidance on the criterion for firm selection because the existing evaluations of instruments reveal little information on the heterogeneous impact by firm characteristics, such as the age, size, sector, and location of firms. Third, most interventions seek to address only one of the broad constraints faced by firms. To this end, the paper concludes with a novel proposal for a firm support program that attempts to sequentially address multiple constraints to firm growth. This program will be implemented in Malawi through the "Financial Inclusion and Entrepreneurship Scaling" project.

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Full Esteem Ahead? Mindset-Oriented Business Training in Ethiopia

Cited by 16 publications

References 13 publications

Small business training to improve management practices in developing countries: re-assessing the evidence for ‘training doesn’t work’

Small business training to improve management practices in developing countries: re-assessing the evidence for ‘training doesn’t work’

Microentrepreneurship in Developing Countries

Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries

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