TY - JOUR

T1 - The impact of soft-skills training for entrepreneurs in Jamaica

AU - Ubfal, Diego

AU - Arráiz, Irani

AU - Beuermann, Diether W.

AU - Frese, Michael

AU - Maffioli, Alessandro

AU - Verch, Daniel

N1 - The trial is registered in the American Economic Association's registry for randomized controlled trials (ID AEARCTR-0001208). We are grateful to the Jamaican Business Development Corporation (JBDC) for their support in implementing the project. In particular, to Nellisa Thompson and Lisa Taylor-Stone for their excellent supervision and coordination, and to the trainers of the course. Mattia Chiapello provided outstanding research assistance. We also thank Ramiro Flores Cruz from Sistemas Integrales Ltda. for excellent data quality supervision. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from NESTA (IGL network), Development Bank of Jamaica, The Inter-American Development Bank (Technical Cooperation Project JA-T1132), and the IDB Lab from the Inter-American Development Bank (Grant JA-M1037). This project received ethical approval from the ethics committee of Bocconi University (Diego Ubfal conducted this project while he was at Bocconi University). The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, IDB Invest or the Inter-American Development Bank and their affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of IDB Invest, the Inter-American Development Bank or the World Bank or the governments they represent. Data are provided through Dataverse at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/C5SDO8 (Ubfal et al. 2020).

PY - 2022/4/1

Y1 - 2022/4/1

N2 - There has been growing interest in approaches to business training that incorporate insights from psychology to develop soft skills associated with successful entrepreneurship. The empirical evidence on the causal effects of these approaches on entrepreneurs’ business outcomes is encouraging, but still not substantial enough to be conclusive. This study contributes to this literature by designing and evaluating two training programs, which are adapted to the Jamaican context. The first program provides soft-skills training on personal initiative, including the development of a proactive mindset and perseverance after setbacks. The second program combines soft-skills training on personal initiative with traditional training on hard skills aimed at changing business practices. Both programs are evaluated using a randomized controlled trial involving 945 entrepreneurs in Jamaica. Entrepreneurs are randomly assigned in equal proportion to one of the two training programs or to a control group. The research develops three survey instruments to collect information from entrepreneurs: a baseline survey, a short-term follow-up survey conducted 3 months after the intervention, and a second follow-up survey conducted 12 months after the intervention. Findings indicate statistically significant effects of the intensive soft-skills training, but not of the training combining soft and hard skills, on business outcomes in the short-term survey. The analysis of the data suggests that the main channel through which the intensive soft-skills training improves short-term business outcomes is an increased adoption of business practices. The positive short-term effects of the soft-skills training are concentrated among men and are not significant for female entrepreneurs. Neither the effects on business practices nor those on business outcomes are statistically significant in the second follow-up survey. However, the soft-skills training has persistent effects on targeted soft skills, which are measured with both self-reported and incentivized measures. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the paper.

AB - There has been growing interest in approaches to business training that incorporate insights from psychology to develop soft skills associated with successful entrepreneurship. The empirical evidence on the causal effects of these approaches on entrepreneurs’ business outcomes is encouraging, but still not substantial enough to be conclusive. This study contributes to this literature by designing and evaluating two training programs, which are adapted to the Jamaican context. The first program provides soft-skills training on personal initiative, including the development of a proactive mindset and perseverance after setbacks. The second program combines soft-skills training on personal initiative with traditional training on hard skills aimed at changing business practices. Both programs are evaluated using a randomized controlled trial involving 945 entrepreneurs in Jamaica. Entrepreneurs are randomly assigned in equal proportion to one of the two training programs or to a control group. The research develops three survey instruments to collect information from entrepreneurs: a baseline survey, a short-term follow-up survey conducted 3 months after the intervention, and a second follow-up survey conducted 12 months after the intervention. Findings indicate statistically significant effects of the intensive soft-skills training, but not of the training combining soft and hard skills, on business outcomes in the short-term survey. The analysis of the data suggests that the main channel through which the intensive soft-skills training improves short-term business outcomes is an increased adoption of business practices. The positive short-term effects of the soft-skills training are concentrated among men and are not significant for female entrepreneurs. Neither the effects on business practices nor those on business outcomes are statistically significant in the second follow-up survey. However, the soft-skills training has persistent effects on targeted soft skills, which are measured with both self-reported and incentivized measures. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the paper.

KW - Business Training

KW - Entrepreneurship

KW - Soft skills

KW - Management studies

KW - Business psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85123575112&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/6989511a-22cc-36a2-9260-d21ff4e75af4/

U2 - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105787

DO - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105787

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85123575112

VL - 152

JO - World Development

JF - World Development

SN - 0305-750X

M1 - 105787

ER -