Pathways to Profits : Identifying Separate Channels of Small Firm Growth through Business Training

This paper identifies separate and unique pathways to profits among small businesses in South Africa that are exposed to marketing or finance training in a randomized control study. The marketing group achieves greater profits by adopting a growth...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Anderson, Stephen J., Chandy, Rajesh, Zia, Bilal
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2016
Subjects:	business training firm performance job creation entrepreneurship randomized control trials
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26610927/pathways-profits-identifying-separate-channels-small-firm-growth-through-business-training http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24855

id	okr-10986-24855
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-248552021-04-23T14:04:27Z Pathways to Profits : Identifying Separate Channels of Small Firm Growth through Business Training Anderson, Stephen J. Chandy, Rajesh Zia, Bilal business training firm performance job creation entrepreneurship randomized control trials This paper identifies separate and unique pathways to profits among small businesses in South Africa that are exposed to marketing or finance training in a randomized control study. The marketing group achieves greater profits by adopting a growth focus on higher sales, greater investments in stock and materials, and hiring more employees. The finance group achieves similar profit gains but through an efficiency focus on lower costs. Both groups show significantly higher adoption of business practices related to their respective training program. Consistent with a growth focus, marketing/sales skills are significantly more beneficial to firm owners who ex ante have less exposure to different business contexts. In contrast and in line with an efficiency focus, entrepreneurs who have been running more established businesses prior to training benefit significantly more from finance/accounting skills. 2016-08-09T21:56:24Z 2016-08-09T21:56:24Z 2016-07 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26610927/pathways-profits-identifying-separate-channels-small-firm-growth-through-business-training http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24855 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7774 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper South Africa
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	business training firm performance job creation entrepreneurship randomized control trials
spellingShingle	business training firm performance job creation entrepreneurship randomized control trials Anderson, Stephen J. Chandy, Rajesh Zia, Bilal Pathways to Profits : Identifying Separate Channels of Small Firm Growth through Business Training
geographic_facet	South Africa
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7774
description	This paper identifies separate and unique pathways to profits among small businesses in South Africa that are exposed to marketing or finance training in a randomized control study. The marketing group achieves greater profits by adopting a growth focus on higher sales, greater investments in stock and materials, and hiring more employees. The finance group achieves similar profit gains but through an efficiency focus on lower costs. Both groups show significantly higher adoption of business practices related to their respective training program. Consistent with a growth focus, marketing/sales skills are significantly more beneficial to firm owners who ex ante have less exposure to different business contexts. In contrast and in line with an efficiency focus, entrepreneurs who have been running more established businesses prior to training benefit significantly more from finance/accounting skills.
format	Working Paper
author	Anderson, Stephen J. Chandy, Rajesh Zia, Bilal
author_facet	Anderson, Stephen J. Chandy, Rajesh Zia, Bilal
author_sort	Anderson, Stephen J.
title	Pathways to Profits : Identifying Separate Channels of Small Firm Growth through Business Training
title_short	Pathways to Profits : Identifying Separate Channels of Small Firm Growth through Business Training
title_full	Pathways to Profits : Identifying Separate Channels of Small Firm Growth through Business Training
title_fullStr	Pathways to Profits : Identifying Separate Channels of Small Firm Growth through Business Training
title_full_unstemmed	Pathways to Profits : Identifying Separate Channels of Small Firm Growth through Business Training
title_sort	pathways to profits : identifying separate channels of small firm growth through business training
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2016
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26610927/pathways-profits-identifying-separate-channels-small-firm-growth-through-business-training http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24855
_version_	1764457830740393984

Pathways to Profits : Identifying Separate Channels of Small Firm Growth through Business Training

Similar Items