"The DCED Standard is a practical framework for private sector development programmes to monitor progress towards their objectives. It comprises seven elements, listed in the box to the right, which are the minimum required for a credible results measurement process. By adopting these elements, programme managers can understand what is working and why, and use monitoring information to improve the effectiveness of their work."

"This article evaluates the effect of the Argentinean Support Program for Organizational Change on employment and wages. The program aimed at increasing small and medium-sized enterprises' competitiveness by co-financing technical assistance to support process and product innovation activities. Although employment is not usually the main objective of these types of programs, they are always implemented assuming that they create - or at least do not destroy-employment opportunities. We use a unique data set with information for the population of firms in Argentina from 1996 to 2008 to test this important assumption. Using a combination of fixed effects and matching, we find that both process and product innovation support increased employment and wages, with a higher impact on employment. In addition, we find that product innovation support had a larger effect on wages than process innovation support."

"This paper explores the effectiveness of goal setting and accountability within group-based entrepreneurship initiatives in creating human capital. The study uses a randomized cluster trial to compare the experimental and control groups of entrepreneurs. The results suggest that frequent goal setting and accountability in group settings provides a greater number of learning experiences and human capital development opportunities available to entrepreneurs than those that did not engage in the same level of goal setting."

"Job creation is one of the most important aspects of entrepreneurship, but we know relatively little about the hiring patterns and decisions of start-ups. This study investigates the determinants of taking the leap from a nonemployer to employer firm among start-ups. Using data from the largest random experiment providing entrepreneurship training in the United States ever conducted, we do not find evidence that entrepreneurship training increases the likelihood that nonemployers hire their first employee."

"This research was conducted in 2015 - 16 with three primary goals: to go beyond anecdotal evidence and explore the experiences shared by intermediaries in-depth; to understand the variety of talent challenges these organisations face; and to determine possible solutions both for the organisations individually and for the social impact sector as a whole. This report should serve as a starting point for the social impact sector to begin discussing their talent challenges openly. It is a call for joint action."

"We assess whether imperfect knowledge of labor regulation hinders job creation at small and medium-sized firms. We partner with a labor law expert that provides information about labor regulation via newsletters and access to a specialized website. We randomly assign 1800 firms to get access to this service for a 21-week period. Six months later, the average employment level at treatment firms was 12% higher than at control firms. The intervention decreased the perception that labor regulation is a constraint to hiring and increased optimal employment level."

"This note explains how two tools - the DCED Standard for Results Measurement (the Standard) and the Impact Management Project's impact dimensions can be used to develop impact management systems. Each tool originated in different communities - the Standard in international development community, specifically related private sector development, and the Impact Management Project for investors and with input from a wide range of organisations. Both communities seek to learn and share experiences with others to continually improve impact. The DCED Standard for Results Measurement (Standard) is a comprehensive practical framework to manage for impact."

"The purpose of this study is to explore how do the characteristics of technology business incubators (TBIs), their chief executive officers, selection process and incubation process influence their research and development (R&D) contributions to the national economy.

These research questions are probed based on primary data gathered from 65 TBIs located in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, 3 of the leading start-up hubs of India comprising 9 accelerators, 31 incubators and 25 co-working spaces. Stepwise (backward elimination) regression method has been applied for six regression models for the analysis of research objectives."

"The DCED Standard is a practical framework for private sector development programmes to monitor progress towards their objectives. It comprises seven elements, listed in the box to the right, which are the minimum required for a credible results measurement process. By adopting these elements, programme managers can understand what is working and why, and use monitoring information to improve the effectiveness of their work."

"This study estimates that social enterprises could create more than 1 million additional jobs by 2030 in the 12 focus countries that have been analyzed. Overall, this would result in a total of approximately 5.5 million direct jobs in social enterprises in 2030. These jobs would be created in existing markets, but also for new markets, thus creating new value chains and many more indirect income opportunities in these countries. The implementation of the interventions recommended in this report are thus an important action to prepare the African continent on future demographic dynamics. In addition, they can also be seen as an important contribution to preserve jobs that have been put at risk because of COVID-19."