Field:

Promote Women’s Entrepreneurship

– Evaluation of the Business Development Projects for active enterprises

Growth Analysis has been given a special commission by the Government to evaluate its Promote Women's Entrepreneurship programme. This study, Evaluation of the Business Development Projects in Promote Women’s Entrepreneurship, is a part of that task.

The Government allocated an annual amount of SEK 45 million between 2011 and 2014 to co-finance business development and innovation projects aimed at women entrepreneurs. This study is an assessment of the impact of business development and innovation projects targeted at women who manage active firms two years after completion of projects. The target outcomes are value added, turnover, employment and survival.

The business development and innovation projects varied considerably in size and content. For the purposes of this study, all projects were considered to be equal and the treatment in question was participation in a project, irrespective of project size or the content of projects.

Impact was calculated as the difference in estimates, comparing the outcome among participant firms with the outcome in a matched sample of comparison firms. The projects were found to have a positive impact on value added and survival. Firms that had participated in a project had an average of 9 per cent higher growth in value added and 7 per cent higher growth in productivity than firms in the comparison group. Participating firms had a 7 per cent higher probability of survival than comparison firms.

An impact evaluation with a longer follow-up period and additional participants is planned for 2018.