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Evaluating the world's largest entrepreneurship education program
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Moremong-Nganunu, Topoyame Cunningham, E. G. Hindle, Kevin G. |
| Copyright Year | 2008 |
| Abstract | Focus of the paper An entrepreneurial training program called Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) is supported by the International Labour Organization. SIYB is a United Nations program developed in Sweden with the aim of developing entrepreneurial and business skills. It operates in more than 80 countries and is arguably the largest and longest lived such program in history (Samuelsen, 2003). However, there is no rigorous empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of this program. Botswana is one of the many countries running the SIYB program. SIYB was introduced in Botswana in 1983 but has only been evaluated once – and poorly in 1993. So, the world’s largest entrepreneurial training program continues to run in Botswana at great expense despite the absence of hard evidence concerning its efficacy. Due to a number of factors including an excellent database Botswana provides the ideal test environment for assessing the efficacy of both the specific SIYB program and a range of generic issues pertaining to entrepreneurship education in developing countries. The study articulated in this abstract forms part of a research project that seeks to examine the efficacy of the SIYB program in the wider context of understanding the issues relevant to entrepreneurship education in developing, as distinct from developed, countries. Methodology According to Westhead and Storey (1996), the relationship between participation in management training and small firm performance has not been established. The present study is part of a larger research project that involves multiple evaluations of the effectiveness of the SIYB programme. Various techniques have been used to ascertain whether SIYB participants performed better than nonparticipants and this paper presents the results of group comparison results conducted using MANOVA techniques. Procedure Questionnaires were developed, pre-tested and refined. Many of the questions were formulated based on the SIYB training materials. A self-efficacy measure was adapted from Jerusalem and Schwarzer (1992). The questionnaire addressed the following measures: entrepreneurial cognition, enabling business environment, achievement of business skills and business performance. Two initial groups were identified for participation in the study. The first group consisted of entrepreneurs who participated in SIYB program. The sample was selected randomly and a total of 91 responses were useable. The second group consisted of 110 useable randomly selected non-SIYB participants. AGSE 2008 |
| Starting Page | 83 |
| Ending Page | 83 |
| Page Count | 1 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/items/86ca6938-cb4c-4251-ad46-c0fafc54045a/1/PDF%20(Published%20version).pdf?.vi=save |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
