Does management training help entrepreneurs grow new ventures? Field experimental evidence from Singapore

Does growth training help entrepreneurs to scale-up new ventures? Our field experiment answering this question uses a sample of 181 startup founders from the population of Singapore based entrepreneurs in 2017. The treatment consisted of classroom sessions conducted in workshop and lecture formats that provided content in growth-catalyst tools comprising of effective business model design, building effective venture management teams and leveraging personal networks, that help in entrepreneurial resource mobilization. Also, participants received individualized business coaching addressing their venture’s issues and challenges in these domains. Our results show that entrepreneurs that received training in the three growth-catalyst tools achieved higher sales and employee growth for their ventures. In addition, entrepreneurs with higher educational attainment, higher prior work experience and higher growth goals benefited much more from the training intervention.

This research has now been published.