A Scientific Approach to Innovation Management

Start-ups receive 6x4h or 7x3h sessions of training (depending on the constraints of the different institutions that will host the RCT). However, the content of the training program is the same across RCTs/locations regardless of the number and length of the training sessions. These sessions include interactive lectures and coaching by qualified mentors/instructors each working with a subset of the start-up sample. The two different treated groups will receive the same amount of training on entrepreneurial decision making (on topics like business model canvas, customers' interviews, minimum viable products/services, prototype, etc.). The content of one treatment group (theory-driven) will emphasize both the theory and experimental elements within the scientific method. Specifically, this content includes the theory behind hypothesis development, rigorous test design processes, hypothesis testing, collection of evidence and disciplined evaluation. This will be referred to as the ‘theory-driven’ treatment group.
For the second treatment group (evidence-driven), greater emphasis will be devoted to hypothesis testing, collection of evidence and disciplined evaluation rather than the theory element.
A third set of participants, the ‘pure control’ group, will not receive any formal training but will be offered the opportunity to attend a set of informational events about entrepreneurial development and how to solve typical problems. These events will be open and available to entrepreneurs in all groups (at different times to avoid contamination). This will be done to keep up participants’ motivation and reduce the natural attrition that otherwise is likely to characterize this group.
Participants are assigned to the different treatment groups by simple randomization, or a stratified randomization in the locations where this would be needed (for example, where there is a need to offer training in multiple languages or in different locations within the same country).

2022-01-28

2022-07-01

Performance, pivot, project termination

• Degree of behavioural compliance with the treatment (scientific intensity)
• Number, diversity, distance and sequentiality of applications of the business idea identified by entrepreneurs
• The type of challenges perceived by the founder and perceived confidence in addressing those challenges
• Team dynamics (e.g., formation and changes in the composition of the entrepreneurial team)
• External evaluations of the entrepreneurial ideas

We conduct a series of 5 RCTs in different Countries (Italy, the UK, The Netherlands, Colombia,and Spain) with approximately 150 early-stage entrepreneurs in each location to understand the conditions under which different elements to decision-making sustain entrepreneurial actions. We will randomly assign entrepreneurs who participate in the RCTs in each location to three experimental arms, corresponding to different combinations of the components of the scientific approach (theory and experimentation, experimentation and a control group). The intervention consists in a three-month entrepreneurship training program, offered free of charge to participants. We will monitor the performance of these three groups over time. Firms in both treatment groups will learn how to collect and evaluate information about their entrepreneurial ideas, though the content of the training is different between the two groups:
1) The first treatment group will receive training focused on the ‘evidence-driven’ approach, in which greater emphasis will be devoted to the “evidence” element within the scientific approach rather than devoted to the theory element.
2) The second treatment group will receive training based on the ‘theory-driven’ approach that emphasizes both the theory and experimental elements within the scientific approach.
3) We also have a pure control group, which includes entrepreneurs who will not receive training
We will observe the impact these decisions have over time, as the data collection process will take place over the course of one year.

Participants are assigned to the different treatment groups by simple randomization (done in office by a computer using STATA), or a stratified randomization in the locations where this would be needed (for example, where there is a need to offer training in multiple languages or in different locations within the same country).

Individual

No

750 individuals

7500 individual- month observations

Allocation ratio= 1.5:1.5:1

We justify the size of the samples based on experimental power calculations conducted using G*Power 3.1 (command F-tests, ANOVA: repeated measures, within-between interactions). We assume we detect a very small effect size (f=0.1), which is in line with the data and the outcomes in Camuffo et al. (2020a). We assume standard type I and type II errors (α err prob = 0.05 Power (1-β err prob) = 0.95). Given the three arms of the RCT, about 10 observations per firm, and making standard assumptions about correlation among repeated measures (0.5) and correction for non-sphericity (ε = 1), we obtain a required total sample size of 150 firms, which is in line with the above-described target sample size. All in all with six locations, 150 firms per location and 10 data points, we aim at a panel dataset composed of 9000 observations This provides a comfortable buffer suggesting a sufficiently large power of the test even if, for some groups, the estimated effect sizes might be smaller than the anticipated effect used in this case.