Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary Unlike many other studies, this trial is an impact assessment of training programs that covered quality control and production management as the training topics in addition to entrepreneurship, marketing, and record keeping. A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>While entrepreneurs play a key role in industrial development, the managerial capacity of those in developing countries seems limited. A number of randomized controlled trials have been conducted to evaluate the impacts of management training, coaching, or consultation programs. These studies found that the interventions had positive impacts on management knowledge and management practices, but the impacts on business performance—measured in terms of sales revenue, value added, or profit—were often statistically insignificant. Such mixed results may be attributed to experiment designs, including training content and the time elapsed till the follow-up observation. The present study attempts to substantiate this hypothesis by means of a randomized controlled trial of management training in Tanzania that targets 113 small manufacturers. As in some recent studies, it extends the observation period to three years to examine the trajectory of training impacts. Unlike many other studies, it is an impact assessment of training programs that covered quality control and production management as the training topics in addition to entrepreneurship, marketing, and record keeping. The treated firms made adaptive efforts to select useful practices and modify them to fit their business operation. It finds that the training effects on business performance are large and statistically significant, particularly in the medium-run.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v114y2019icp220-236.html Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question Do less expensive training programs featuring Kaizen or lean production are effective for smaller-scale firms in the long term? Sample Trial population and sample selection Participants are owners or top managers of garment manufacturing firms in their mid 40s, most of them are women and their educational attainment is about 11 years of schooling, way above the average schooling in the country. More than 60% had received business training before, but all were unaware of the concepts of Kaizen before the programme. Their firms have, on average, a little more than five workers, all are part of a business association and are eager to expand their businesses’ size. They supply their products to the domestic market and occasionally export to neighbouring countries. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Some of the firms are only offered the in-class training, others the on-site sessions and a third group is offered both. A fourth group is offered none. Class-room training: two and a half hour daily sessions five days a week during three weeks. The training covers typical SIYB modules (marketing, accounting and bookkeeping) as well as basic Kaizen concepts on production management and quality control: coordinating the division of labour among workers, reducing wasteful use of materials and time, and preventive maintenance, among others. On-site consulting: it starts with a half a day seminar to explain the functioning of the on-site consulting and to assign each firm a trainer. The assigned trainer does an initial visit to the firm to spot inefficiencies and develops a plan with implementable solutions to improve efficiency and safety at work through the implementation of Kaizen principles. Both components are delivered by local consultants, who have been previously trained by an experienced Kaizen expert from Japan. The trainer's training covered essential knowledge of Kaizen and a method of teaching Kaizen principles to business owners and workers. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method During the baseline and follow-up surveys, the enumerators visited the sample firms and conducted personal interviews with the entrepreneurs to gather information on their background characteristics, management practices, and business performance. Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Management score and indicators of business performance.</p> Results <p>Having access to any of the three versions of the support scheme (only in-class training, only on-site sessions or both) led firms to adopt a higher number of good management practices, including Kaizen practices. Firms adopted a number of good practices at first, but within the following years they stopped using those that were found to be unuseful and adapted the remaining practices to their businesses’ realities. In spite of that, the higher rate adoption of good management practices persists for at least three years. The short run effects in terms of practices adoption are the highest for firms receiving both the in-class training and the on-site sessions, while three years later the rate of adoption is the highest for those that only received the in-class training. Within the first two years, none of the support schemes lead to increased sales or value added. However, large positive effects on sales and value added appeared during the next two years for the group of firms receiving both the in-class training and the on-site consulting sessions.Four years after the programme, firms that received both components have average annual sales 90 per cent higher than those that did not receive any support, while value added is about 65 per cent higher. For those firms that only received the on-site consulting sessions, sales and value added also increased in the medium run, being respectively about USD 13.000 and USD 10.000 higher compared to firms that did not receive any support. The returns in terms of value added compensate by far the cost of the programme for the only on-site consulting sessions (about USD 2.000) and the in-class training plus on-site sessions scheme (about USD 4.000)</p> Intervention costs The in-class training and the on-site sessions have a similar cost of approximately US$ 2000 per participating firm. So the cost of providing both components is around US$4000. Cost benefit ratio Reference Higuchi, Y., Mhede, E. P., & Sonobe, T. , 2019. Short-and medium-run impacts of management training: An experiment in Tanzania. World Development, 114, 220-236. Citation for use in academic references
