25 cards
14 out of 38 practices had a 0% drop rate once adopted (e.g., preventive machine maintenance, defect-wise recording, yarn aging monitoring), whereas visual displays and daily monitoring meetings suffered high drop rates (up to 100% dropped for displayed written procedures and 64% for daily updated visual aids).
Baseline practice prevalence in 2008 was a statistically significant positive predictor of practice retention from 2011 to 2017 (coefficient = 0.095, p<0.05), demonstrating that standard industry practices persist while novel, advanced practices revert.
Role model sessions significantly increased participant rates of applying for public seed funds and registering business operations formally with tax authorities, contributing to a US$30–US$50 (~15%) increase in monthly household income.
Borrowers with a two-month grace period were 11.3 percentage points more likely to sell to customers on credit (43.2% control vs 54.5% treatment, p < 0.01), 10.7 percentage points more likely to accept customer pre-orders (39.5% control vs 50.2% treatment, p < 0.01), and offered 6.05 additional types of goods and services (p < 0.05).
Consulting increased business literacy by 0.3 questions on a 4-question quiz (0.52 standard deviations, p < 0.05), but generated an average stated income change of only 0.90 GH¢ (upper bound 95% CI of 41 GH¢ / 28% increase), which is negligible relative to the $75/hour consultant cost. Participants expressed a mean willingness-to-pay of only 5.9 GH¢ (US $4) per hour for continued consulting.
Treated firms significantly increased marketing practice adoption by 2017 (+2.965 points on a 10-practice scale, p=0.068) and increased paid commercial consulting usage (+2.491 log days, p=0.098), proving cross-domain expansion of structured management frameworks.
A reduction in director managing time caused 3.6% of all management practices to be dropped across study plants (representing nearly 30% of the total 12.4% dropped practices), as directors reallocated hours to marketing, finance, or external real estate ventures.
Role model interventions yielded substantially larger income and growth impacts for younger businesses with less experienced owners, whereas individualized technical assistance delivered greater benefits for highly educated owners with mature businesses [14-16].
Establishing formalized storage systems and inventory norms reduced material search delays and excess working capital, contributing to a 16.6% productivity increase within twelve months.
Treatment branches experienced an 18% increase in new loan sourcing and a 10% increase in loan renewals during the first two weeks of the month (~1 additional loan per branch in weeks 1–2, p < 0.10) and a 12% reduction in distance from ideal monthly task distribution (gap indicator decreased by 6.6 to 9.8 points, p < 0.05) without increasing delinquency rates.
Four months post-training, the curriculum successfully increased hours worked across all trained participants, with business plan formulation and sales growth expanding significantly when coupled with peer support.
Generated a US$30–US$50 (~15%) increase in monthly household income after 1 year, alongside statistically significant improvements in final exam scores, revenue calculation accuracy, and business analyses conducted [4, 9, 12].
Low-tech manufacturing factories in low- and middle-income countries face turnover rates exceeding 75 percent annually.
Record-keeping adoption among consulting recipients surged by 45 percentage points at 6 months (Round 3, p < 0.01) and remained 26 percentage points higher at 12 months (Round 7, p < 0.05), but declined to a statistically insignificant 12 percentage point difference (with only 28% maintaining records) by 24 months (Round 8), 11 months after consulting ceased.
New business formation was 2.0% among regular contract clients versus 4.58% to 4.68% among grace period clients (a 2.58 to 2.68 percentage point increase, p < 0.05), representing more than double to nearly triple the rate of new venture creation.
Implementing systematic defect tracking reduced quality defects by roughly 50%, enabling plants to drastically reduce the 19% labor overhead previously wasted on checking and mending.
Increased monthly household income by US$30–US$50 (~15% increase) 1 year post-program at 1/10th the cost of individual consulting, while significantly raising rates of tax registration and seed fund applications [4, 5, 9, 10].
Implementing routine machine maintenance successfully reduced unscheduled machine downtime, helping drive a 9.4% increase in factory output and an annual profit increase of approximately US$325,000 per plant.
Grace period clients expanded their product offerings by 6.05 additional types of goods and services relative to the control mean of 5.607 (p < 0.05), enabling entrepreneurs to capture wholesale volume discounts and expand customer reach.
Longitudinal tracking of individual production line output alongside standardized psychological evaluations to determine the direct economic returns of mitigating loneliness.
Implementing systematic defect categorization and daily record analysis generated a roughly 50% reduction in quality defects, substantially lowering checking and mending overhead.
Providing a 15-day structured diagnostic analysis and tailored recommendations established the baseline performance database required to drive a subsequent 16.6% total factor productivity increase.
Combining systematic metrics collection with consulting recommendations drove a 9.4% increase in plant output and a 16.6% overall increase in factor productivity within twelve months.
93 proposals moved to concrete investor follow-up, with up to 30 proposals funded or actively followed up by November 2018. Treatment effects on reaching Stage 2 were positive and significant for Face-to-Face ($\beta = 0.079, p < 0.10$) and Virtual-Within ($\beta = 0.026, p < 0.05$ in Large Countries), but conditional on reaching Stage 2, investor quality scores showed no differential treatment effect ($\beta = -0.081, p > 0.10$), indicating strong alignment between stage-1 ecosystem ratings and stage-2 investor criteria.
Standardizing floor tidiness and material movement pathways helped reduce workplace accidents and contributed to a 9.4% output increase and a 16.6% total factor productivity gain within twelve months.