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 This particular management training was successful at improving knowledge and intangible skills that translated into successful organisational medium- to long-run outcomes for small businesses. A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>This study seeks to contribute to evidence-based teaching for management by providing an example of translating a theory into an evidence-based intervention by developing action principles; moreover, our work here shows how such an intervention affects the success of firms by way of changing managers’ actions. The concept of action principle is central to this intervention, and this concept is described with the help of action regulation theory. A randomized controlled field intervention with a theory-based 3-day program was conducted to increase personal initiative (using a pretest–posttest design and a randomized waiting control group). The sample consists of 100 small business owners in Africa (Kampala, Uganda). The intervention increased personal initiative behavior and entrepreneurial success over a 12-month period after the intervention. An increase in personal initiative behavior was responsible for the increase of entrepreneurial success (full mediation). Thus, the training led to an entrepreneurial mind-set and to an active approach toward entrepreneurial tasks.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2013.0234 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 Can management knowledge and more abstract/intangible management skills be taught, and if so, does this translate into business success? Sample Trial population and sample selection Participants were business owners operating in Kampala, capital city of Uganda. To be eligible candidates were: business owners and managed the firm on a day-to-day basis; had been operating for at least a year; had between 1-50 employees; had sufficient grasp of English judged by an interviewer. Random samples were recruited to participate from the memberships of the Ugandan Small Scale Industry Association (USSIA), the Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Association Ltd., the Katwe Metal Fabricators Cluster Association and the Ugandan Chamber of Commerce. To include businesses from the informal sector they choose two streets in typical Kampala markets to recruit owners from. Overall, 109 businesses met the description. 56 were randomly assigned to the training and 53 to control. Prior to the training, 9 individuals assigned to training withdrew for reasons unrelated to the intervention, leaving the treatment group with 47 participants. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups 47 business owners Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Free 3 day training session designed to increase personal initiative (using a pretest–posttest design and a randomised waiting control group), given by trainer experienced in doing business in Africa and Europe. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Personal meetings gathered data on age, gender, type of industry, location, age of business, membership in business associations, formal/informal sector, self-efficacy, proactive personality, cognitive ability (via questionnaire) Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Success Measures: Sales level, number of employees, failure rate 1 year after training, overall success index. Knowledge Measure: Personal initiative knowledge. Personal Initiative Behaviour: Initiative behaviour, initiative for product/marketing, overcoming barriers.</p> Results <p>The training increases the personal initiative behaviour of participants. One year after the program, firms that received the personal initiative training showed higher sales and number of employees than those that did not. These effects seem to be fully driven by the higher personal initiative behaviour.</p> Intervention costs Not available. Cost benefit ratio Reference Glaub, M., Frese, M., Fischer, S., & Hoppe, M., 2014. 'Increasing Personal Initiative in Small Business Managers or Owners Leads to Entrepreneurial Success: A Theory-Based Controlled Randomized Field Intervention for Evidence-Based Management'. Academy of Management Learning & Education, September, Vol. 13(3), pages 354. Citation for use in academic references
