Personal Initiative Training Leads to Remarkable Growth of Women-Owned Small Businesses in Togo
Standard business training programs aim to boost the incomes of the millions of self-employed business owners in developing countries, by teaching accounting, marketing and other basic business skills. However, research shows limited impacts of thi...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Brief |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/635311516194319062/Personal-initiative-training-leads-to-remarkable-growth-of-women-owned-small-businesses-in-Togo http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29168 |
| Summary: | Standard business training programs aim
to boost the incomes of the millions of self-employed
business owners in developing countries, by teaching
accounting, marketing and other basic business skills.
However, research shows limited impacts of this traditional
business training approach. Through an experiment in Togo,
we introduced the personal initiative training program, a
new and effective psychology-based entrepreneurship training
that outperforms traditional business training. The personal
initiative training increased firm profits in Togo by 30
percent relative to a control group, compared to no
significant impacts from a traditional business training.
Personal initiative training led to more than just a boost
in profits for micro entrepreneurs. After the training
business owners were more innovative, introduced new
products, borrowed more and made larger investments. The
personal initiative training was particularly effective for
female entrepreneurs, for whom traditional training has
often been in effective. Women who received personal
initiative training saw their profits increase by 40
percent, compared to 5 percent for traditional business.
This study’s findings make a strong case for the role of
psychology in better influencing how small business training
programs are taught in West Africa and beyond. It shows the
importance of developing an entrepreneurial mindset in
addition to learning the business practices of successful
entrepreneurs. Based on these promising results, the
personal initiative training is being implemented in
programs in Mozambique, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Jamaica, and Mexico. |
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