Improving Business Practices and the Boundary of the Entrepreneur : A Randomized Experiment Comparing Training, Consulting, Insourcing and Outsourcing
Many small firms lack the finance and marketing skills needed for firm growth. The standard approach in many business support programs is to attempt to train the entrepreneur to develop these skills, through classroom-based training or personalized...
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/377351608212969114/Improving-Business-Practices-and-the-Boundary-of-the-Entrepreneur-A-Randomized-Experiment-Comparing-Training-Consulting-Insourcing-and-Outsourcing http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34979 |
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okr-10986-349792022-09-20T00:10:13Z Improving Business Practices and the Boundary of the Entrepreneur : A Randomized Experiment Comparing Training, Consulting, Insourcing and Outsourcing Anderson, Stephen J. McKenzie, David BUSINESS SUPPORT BUSINESS PRACTICE FIRM GROWTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP OUTSOURCING INSOURCING BUSINESS SERVICES MARKET Many small firms lack the finance and marketing skills needed for firm growth. The standard approach in many business support programs is to attempt to train the entrepreneur to develop these skills, through classroom-based training or personalized consulting. However, rather than requiring the entrepreneur to be a jack-of-all-trades, an alternative is to move beyond the boundary of the entrepreneur and link firms to these skills in a marketplace through insourcing workers with functional expertise or outsourcing tasks to professional specialists. A randomized experiment in Nigeria tests the relative effectiveness of these four different approaches to improving business practices. Insourcing and outsourcing both dominate business training; and do at least as well as business consulting at one-half of the cost. Moving beyond the entrepreneurial boundary enables firms to use higher quality digital marketing practices, innovate more, and achieve greater sales and profits growth over a two-year horizon. 2021-01-07T14:25:40Z 2021-01-07T14:25:40Z 2020-12 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/377351608212969114/Improving-Business-Practices-and-the-Boundary-of-the-Entrepreneur-A-Randomized-Experiment-Comparing-Training-Consulting-Insourcing-and-Outsourcing http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34979 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9502 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 |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
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Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English |
| topic |
BUSINESS SUPPORT BUSINESS PRACTICE FIRM GROWTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP OUTSOURCING INSOURCING BUSINESS SERVICES MARKET |
| spellingShingle |
BUSINESS SUPPORT BUSINESS PRACTICE FIRM GROWTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP OUTSOURCING INSOURCING BUSINESS SERVICES MARKET Anderson, Stephen J. McKenzie, David Improving Business Practices and the Boundary of the Entrepreneur : A Randomized Experiment Comparing Training, Consulting, Insourcing and Outsourcing |
| relation |
Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9502 |
| description |
Many small firms lack the finance and
marketing skills needed for firm growth. The standard
approach in many business support programs is to attempt to
train the entrepreneur to develop these skills, through
classroom-based training or personalized consulting.
However, rather than requiring the entrepreneur to be a
jack-of-all-trades, an alternative is to move beyond the
boundary of the entrepreneur and link firms to these skills
in a marketplace through insourcing workers with functional
expertise or outsourcing tasks to professional specialists.
A randomized experiment in Nigeria tests the relative
effectiveness of these four different approaches to
improving business practices. Insourcing and outsourcing
both dominate business training; and do at least as well as
business consulting at one-half of the cost. Moving beyond
the entrepreneurial boundary enables firms to use higher
quality digital marketing practices, innovate more, and
achieve greater sales and profits growth over a two-year horizon. |
| format |
Working Paper |
| author |
Anderson, Stephen J. McKenzie, David |
| author_facet |
Anderson, Stephen J. McKenzie, David |
| author_sort |
Anderson, Stephen J. |
| title |
Improving Business Practices and the Boundary of the Entrepreneur : A Randomized Experiment Comparing Training, Consulting, Insourcing and Outsourcing |
| title_short |
Improving Business Practices and the Boundary of the Entrepreneur : A Randomized Experiment Comparing Training, Consulting, Insourcing and Outsourcing |
| title_full |
Improving Business Practices and the Boundary of the Entrepreneur : A Randomized Experiment Comparing Training, Consulting, Insourcing and Outsourcing |
| title_fullStr |
Improving Business Practices and the Boundary of the Entrepreneur : A Randomized Experiment Comparing Training, Consulting, Insourcing and Outsourcing |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Improving Business Practices and the Boundary of the Entrepreneur : A Randomized Experiment Comparing Training, Consulting, Insourcing and Outsourcing |
| title_sort |
improving business practices and the boundary of the entrepreneur : a randomized experiment comparing training, consulting, insourcing and outsourcing |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2021 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/377351608212969114/Improving-Business-Practices-and-the-Boundary-of-the-Entrepreneur-A-Randomized-Experiment-Comparing-Training-Consulting-Insourcing-and-Outsourcing http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34979 |
| _version_ |
1764482077634330624 |