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 A randomized controlled trial of short-term management training for small manufacturers was conducted in two study sites in Vietnam and collected follow-up data repeatedly for two years to assess longer-term impacts than the existing studies of management training. A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>A randomized controlled trial of short-term management training for small manufacturers was conducted in two study sites in Vietnam and collected follow-up data repeatedly for<br /> two years to assess longer-term impacts than the existing studies of management training.<br /> The training programs introduced participants to Kaizen, a common-sense approach to production management. In both sites, many participants started to recognize the importance of learning about management and improved their management skills. The impacts on management skills were statistically significant two years after the programs. The results<br /> suggest that the training program increased participants’ value added in one of the two<br /> study sites, likely because they learned how to eliminate wastes in production</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283480440_Sustained_Impacts_of_Kaizen_Training 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 How sustainabile are innovative management practices? Sample Trial population and sample selection Owners (or their adult children) of small and medium manufacturing firms that produce either rolled steel construction materials or knitwear garments. 57% of the participants are men and average schooling is around seven years. Most participants have never received training before, and only a few are willing to pay for it. The average steel firm has 19 workers and annual sales of about USD 1.6M. The average 22 knitwear firm has 22 workers and annual sales around USD 270,000. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Participants are taught elementary Kaizen management along with standard business training contents, such as basic accounting, marketing, and business strategy in a classroom environment. Four participant firms are used by the instructor (a local consultant previously trained by a Kaizen expert) as a model to showcase Kaizen practices: how to streamline the workshop layout, properly maintain the machinery, how to sort and store materials, etc. On-site training: begins with a one-day seminar, in which the owners or managers of the model enterprises give presentations to explain the enterprises’ physical changes that have resulted from implementing Kaizen practices, the responses from their workers and their own opinions. Then, the local consultants make two to three visits to each participant firm to demonstrate how to encourage workers to improve their work environment, productivity, and product quality. 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 The baseline survey recorded management practices, business performance, and willingness to pay for training participation, even though the training was provided for free. Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Kaizen score, willingness to pay for the training program and firm's added value.</p> Results <p>For firms in the knitwear industry, both the in-class training and on-site visits alone led to higher adoption of Kaizen practices two years later, with those receiving the two components not showing greater adoption than those getting only one of the two. For firms in the knitwear industry, the higher adoption of Kaizen practices only led to increases in value added for those that got on-site visits, regardless of whether they also got the in-class training or not.The increase in value added seems to be driven by a reduction in overproduction, as the dead output decreases in firms that had access to the consulting sessions. The effects on the value added for firms in the knitwear industry did not show immediately after the training, but two years later. For firms in the steel industry, only the combination of the two components (in-class training and on-site visits) led to sustained improvements on the adoption of Kaizen practices.The larger take-up of Kaizen practices did not translate into higher value added for firms in the steel industry.For all firms, access to the programme increased their willingness to pay for similar o ne in the future, with this effect being stronger for the knitwear firms (consistent with the programme being more suited for them)</p> Intervention costs Not available. Cost benefit ratio Reference Higuchi, Y., Nam, V. H., & Sonobe, T. , 2015.. Sustained impacts of Kaizen training. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 120, 189-206. Citation for use in academic references
