"We document the presence of multiple and varied constraints to small and medium firm growth. This presents both a practical problem for business training programs and a challenge to academic economists trying to identify mechanisms through which these programs may affect outcomes. External validity needs theory. This pushes researchers to narrowly defined and highly selected sample frames, which limits the potential for clear, generalizable policy prescriptions. Ultimately, larger samples, multi-arm evaluations, process documentation, and narrowly-focused, theory-supported empirical work are all needed, but the complexity of the problem limits what we learn from any single study."

"This paper documents that ventures that are funded by two successful angel groups experience superior outcomes to rejected ventures: they have improved survival, exits, employment, patenting, web traffic, and financing. We use strong discontinuities in angel funding behavior over small changes in their collective interest levels to implement a regression discontinuity approach. We confirm the positive effects for venture operations, with qualitative support for a higher likelihood of successful exits. On the other hand, there is no difference in access to additional financing around the discontinuity. This might suggest that financing is not a central input of angel groups."

"As governments from El Salvador to Kenya to India enact strict measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus, what can development organizations do to help micro and small businesses survive? Drawing from TechnoServe’s past experience working with entrepreneurs in times of crisis, as well as early learnings from the response to the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve put together this quick guide of ideas for supporting these enterprises."

"Research on impact investing is often conducted from the perspective of the investor, failing to account for the perspective of the impact entrepreneur on the ground. In particular, little primary research has concentrated on those who applied for impact investment funding but were turned down.This report details the ways in which local impact entrepreneurs have experienced the impact investing process, including the expectations of and communications with investors."

"Accelerator programs are an increasingly important part of entrepreneurial ecosystems. While accelerators have core defining features—fixed-term, cohort-based educational and mentorship programs for startups— there is also significant variation amongst them. In this paper, we relate key variation in the antecedents, organizational design and operation of these programs to theories of firm-level entrepreneurial performance. We then document descriptive correlations between these design elements and the performance of the startups that attend these programs. In doing so, we probe the connections between design and performance in ways that integrate previously disparate research on accelerators and expand our understanding of startup intermediaries. Our findings delineate the building blocks as well as an agenda for future researchers to build upon not only our understanding of accelerators, but also our understanding of what new ventures need to survive and flourish."

"The aim of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of early entrepreneurship education. To this end, we conduct a randomized field experiment to evaluate a leading entrepreneurship education program that is taught worldwide in the final grade of primary school. We focus on pupils' development of entrepreneurship knowledge and a set of non-cognitive skills relevant for entrepreneurial activity. The results indicate that knowledge is unaffected by the program. However, the program has a robust positive effect on non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills. This is surprising since previous evaluations found zero or negative effects. Because these earlier studies all pertain to entrepreneurship education for adolescents, our result tentatively suggests that non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills are best developed at an early age. As the entrepreneurship program has various features besides its entrepreneurship content, we must leave it to future research to determine which specific element has the greatest impact on the development of non-cognitive entrepreneurial skills."

"A study from Zeppelin University and Siemens Stiftung provides for the first time data that evaluates the ability of social enterprises to satisfy the basic needs of poor populations. Focusing on Colombia, Mexico, Kenya and South Africa, the dynamics in the public, private, and third sectors were examined, and to what extent these influence the activities of social enterprises. The study includes concrete recommendations on how to increase the contribution of social enterprises to poverty alleviation."

"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."

"This paper attempts to assess the impacts of a management training program on the business performance of small enterprises in a metalworking cluster in Nairobi, Kenya. Based on the observed differences in management between successful and less successful enterprises, we designed a management training program featuring the basics of KAIZEN, an inexpensive, commonsense approach to management emphasizing the reduction of wasted work and materials, for the less successful enterprises.

This paper finds that business owners operating smaller enterprises tended to be self-selected into training participation. The training effects combined with the self-selection effect, which we estimate with panel data, were statistically significant and particularly stronger on profits than on sales revenues, while other training programs that did not teach KAIZEN had positive effects on sales revenues, not profits. As a result, the participants caught up with and overtook the non-participants in terms of average sales revenues and average profits, respectively."

"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."