Growth Impact Pilot

Last registered on August 20, 2018

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Growth Impact Pilot

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0000488

Initial registration date

March 23, 2015

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

March 23, 2015, 11:19 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated

August 20, 2018, 7:30 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Region

England

Primary Investigator

Name

James Phipps

Affiliation

BIS

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Caroline Booth

PI Affiliation

Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy

Contact Investigator

PI Name

George Watkins

PI Affiliation

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Adam Johnson

PI Affiliation

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Khalid Khan

PI Affiliation

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

On going

Start date

2014-04-01

End date

2018-09-01

Keywords

Finance & Microfinance

Additional Keywords

Enterprise, Business Support, Business Advice, GrowthAccelerator, coaching

JEL code(s)

D2, H43

Secondary IDs

Abstract

The Growth Impact Pilot, launched in April 2014, is a research project on the impact of business advice (coaching), supported by the UK Government. The Growth Impact Pilot will assess whether the provision of GrowthAccelerator coaching is the reason why firms on the service achieve high rates of growth, or whether this growth would have happened anyway. It is designed to assess the impact of coaching by comparing two groups:

Group 1: who receive a matched funding grant to spend on leadership and management training.
Group 2: who receive a leadership and management grant AND specialist business coaching services.

Once recruited, businesses will be divided into one of the two groups by a process of random selection. By comparing the performance of the two groups, it will be possible to identify whether coaching really makes a difference for the assisted businesses.

We anticipate that the average intervention will be completed within 4-6 months. It may take several years for the economic impact of the trial to emerge, but monitoring and evaluation will be undertaken at earlier stages.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Booth, Caroline et al. 2018. "Growth Impact Pilot." AEA RCT Registry. August 20. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.488-4.0

Former Citation

Booth, Caroline et al. 2018. "Growth Impact Pilot." AEA RCT Registry. August 20. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/488/history/33235

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The Growth Impact Pilot gives all participating businesses access to match funding of up to £2,000 for every senior manager to undertake leadership and management training within a choice of the following key areas, including:
- Developing an effective personal leadership and management style
- Leading and managing high performance
- Planning and developing an effective organisation
- Sustaining growth and continuous improvement
- Embedding a culture of innovation
- New market entry

In addition, one-in-two businesses are then randomly selected to receive the additional offer of specialist coaching through GrowthAccelerator, tailored to the needs and barriers that exist within each business. This coaching support will typically involve getting help in one of three areas: access to finance, business development coaching or innovation.

Intervention Start Date

2014-04-01

Intervention End Date

2015-10-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

The effects of business coaching will be assessed on a range of indicators:
1. Turnover;
2. Employment;
3. Gross Value Added;
4. A range of behavioural indicators on management skills and practices.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

There is a three stage survey approach to assessing impacts, as follows:
- Wave 1: 3 months, establishing the existing management behaviours before the policy intervention.
- Wave 2: 9 months, assessing changes in impacts and behaviours. Also seeking to attribute changes to to intervention.
- Wave 3: 18 months, assessing economic outcome as a result of the intervention.

Following the surveys, actual outcome data will be tracked.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

400 businesses are expected to be recruited for this trial. To be eligible, businesses need to have turnover between £250,000 and £2 million, and employ between 1 and 249 employees. Using stratified block randomisation, businesses will be assigned into two groups of similar profile with the knowledge and agreement of the business.

The control group will only receive a matched funding grant to spend on leadership and management assistance for its senior management team. The treatment group, in addition to that, will receive specialist business coaching, as well as access to other elements of the GrowthAccelerator service (e.g. workshops and access to a network of their peers). The support will be fully subsidised for both groups, except for the VAT of the service (which can be reclaimed by most participants).

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomisation will be done at weekly (occasionally fortnightly) intervals by a team at the University of York, completely independent of the Growth Impact Pilot Project Team and the operational Consortium delivering the Pilot.

Randomization Unit

Stratified block randomisation will be used for the trial. Unit of randomisation is the firm, stratified by three variables:
- Turnover band
- Number of full-time employees
- Region

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

2 groups of firms.

Sample size: planned number of observations

400 businesses.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

200 businesses treatment, 200 businesses control.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

With 400 businesses recruited, it will be possible to detect an additional impact of 9 percentage points on treated firms' turnover 3 years after the firms complete the support.

Supporting Documents and Materials

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

IRB