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 brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>Programs targeting micro businesses have become increasingly common in developing countries, particularly because micro enterprises employ a substantial fraction of individuals in these economies (about 47 percent in Mexico) and because the majority of these micro enterprises tend to stay small and have low productivity Many programs aimed at fostering the growth of micro and small businesses have focused on providing credits or offering business and financial training, since access to credit and lack of managerial skills are believed to limit the success of this type of businesses (Bruhn et al. 2011). The evaluation of this pilot, would provide evidence on an innovative approach to business-trainings, which is a combination of training on “hard skills” (traditional managerial skills) and “soft skills”(personal initiative training, aiming at promoting self-starting behavior, future orientation, and persistence against obstacles, helping entrepreneurs to preserve and gain competitive advantage in order to be one step ahead of competitors). This project will allow to estimate the added value of the “soft skills” approach to traditional business training packages for female micro entrepreneurs. </p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links 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 What is the added value of adding “soft skills” training to traditional business training packages for female micro entrepreneurs? Sample Trial population and sample selection All female entrepreneurs who approached a training center and completed a survey Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Female-led small and medium enterprises are offered a combination of traditional managerial skills ("hard") and personal initiative skills ("soft") trainings to assess how the diverse components impact firm performance. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Weekly profits, sales, number of clients, number of products, investments, management behavior, changes in strategic behavior for setting up prices, using accounting methods, and financial planning. </p> Results <p>Pending</p> Intervention costs Cost benefit ratio Reference Iacovone, L. (forthcoming). 'Impact Evaluation of a Large Scale Female Entrepreneurship Program in Mexico'. Ongoing research. Citation for use in academic references
