scholarly journals Employment Growth of Small, Medium, and Large Firms: Evidence from Zambia

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Yordanos Gebremeskel

We have used the World Bank Enterprise Survey data and examined the relationship between size, age and employment growth of 720 small, medium and large firms from four cities in Zambia. These firms have between 1-2010 full-time employees and operate in services, retail, and manufacturing sectors. The employment growth is defined as a difference in logarithm of full-time employees between two years and divided by the age of the firm. Our estimation shows that there is a strong relationship between employment growth, size, and age of firms. We find that younger firms but not smaller size are more important in creating employment growth.

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-487
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Mohammed ◽  
Alhassan Bunyaminu

PurposeThis paper aims at identifying the major obstacles to business enterprise in an emerging economy and how these obstacles are associated with different characteristics of the enterprises.Design/methodology/approachThe study relied on the World Bank Enterprise Survey data on Ghana and applied binary and ordinal probit regression techniques to estimate the associations between the characteristics of the enterprises and the identified obstacles. Significance testing of the associations is also conducted.FindingsThe five main obstacles perceived by most of the enterprises in the study are access to finance, electricity, access to land, customs and trade regulations and tax rates. These obstacles are associated in different ways to growth rate (high vs low growth), scale (small and medium vs large), age, size of employees, the experience of the top manager and ownership (wholly domestic vs foreign ownership).Research limitations/implicationsAs a cross-sectional study focusing on Ghana, the findings are informative about the major obstacles facing business enterprises in an emerging economy; however, the ecological validity of these findings may be limited to factors specific to Ghana.Originality/valueGiven the representativeness of the Enterprise Survey, policymakers can rely on these findings to formulate useful policies to promote the operations of business enterprises.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 715-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Hong ◽  
Chongyang Zhou ◽  
Ruicheng Wang

Purpose The emergence and rapid expansion of global value chains (GVCs) have profoundly changed and reshaped the global trade regime. Although many determinants of GVC participation of enterprises have been discussed extensively in extant literature, the important influence of local institutional profile on GVC participation is often neglected. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of local institutional profile on GVC participation. Design/methodology/approach Taking the World Bank Enterprise Survey as the empirical sample, it is used an econometric method (propensity score matching technique) to test the relationship between local institutional profile and GVC participation. Findings Local institutional quality is positively related to GVC participation. Moreover, GVC participants display better innovation performance than non-participants. Innovation benefit from GVC participation is contingent upon the abilities of the participants, namely, absorptive capacity and research and development collaboration experience. GVC participants who only either export or import is compared with those who export and import; the findings show that the latter benefits more than the former. Originality/value This study offers researchers and practitioners a detailed view of local institutional profile and GVC participation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 71-81
Author(s):  
A. Mthimkhulu ◽  
M. Aziakpono

In the past two decades, considerable efforts have been made to promote small and medium enterprises as a catalyst for job creation in many countries, including South Africa. However, globally a growing body of evidence shows that only a small segment of small and medium enterprises in an economy accounts for 50 to 70% of net new jobs. Using the World Bank Enterprise Survey and logit and quantile regressions, this paper empirically explores the characteristics of high growthfirms in South Africa. The study finds that firms that are less than 6 years create more jobs than the average firm in the sample. The results further suggest that the typical high-growth firms are black-owned.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Oluseye Samuel Ajuwon ◽  
Sylvanus Ikhide ◽  
Joseph Oscar Akotey

This study uses the World bank enterprise survey data for Nigeria to examines Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) productivity rate in the Nigerian economy. The study explores factors that constrain MSMES output growth in Nigeria. Some of the factors identified include huge infrastructural gap, inadequate institutional support and low access to credit. The resultant effect is a low investment commitment amongst MSMEs thus hampering the productivity of MSMEs in the Nigerian economy. The MSMEs productivity growth rate was measured using annual sales of firms from the World bank enterprise survey data for Nigeria. This research employs the non-parametric variance estimation using the locally-weighted scatterplot smoothing (LOWESS) method on three sets of two-points data (2006 and 2003, 2008 and 2002, and finally 2012 and 2009) of annual fiscal sales for each category of firms comprising micro, small, medium and large firms. The result shows that the small businesses have a negative productivity growth rate in Nigeria. This in line with IFC (2013) which found that small businesses have the least productivity growth rate amongst firms of all sizes. However, this study departs from IFC findings which states that small businesses’ low productivity growth rate is tenable across all the sectors of the economy. The study found that small businesses actually recorded high productivity growth rate in some subsectors of the economy that specializes in product customization such as garment and furniture. Therefore, this study validates the flexible specialization theory that emphases the economic importance of MSMEs in the post-industrial era where product customization is the new order of production. The policy implication of this study is that any targeted intervention in the MSMEs sub-sector of the economy designed to increase productivity, should be channeled into the subsector with the most employee specialization as well as product customization.Keyword(s): MSMEs, small business, Output, Productivity, JEL Classifications: P42 M13 O55


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 2050014
Author(s):  
COLIN C. WILLIAMS ◽  
BRUNILDA KOSTA

It is widely assumed that informal sector enterprises have a harmful impact on the performance of formal enterprises. This paper aims to provide an evidence-based evaluation of whether this is the case. To do so, it reports World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data collected from 360 formal enterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2019. The finding is that formal enterprises viewing informal competition as a severe obstacle do not witness significantly lower sales growth, employment growth or productivity growth. Indeed, such enterprises witness significantly higher sales growth than those who do not view informal sector competitors as a severe obstacle. The theoretical and policy implications are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (02) ◽  
pp. 2050010
Author(s):  
COLIN C. WILLIAMS ◽  
BRUNILDA KOSTA

This paper evaluates critically the relationship between starting-up unregistered and firm performance. The widespread belief across all the dominant theories of informal entrepreneurship is that unregistered start-ups experience poorer future firm performance than those registered from the outset of their operations. To evaluate this poorer performance thesis, this paper reports World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data on 377 enterprises in Albania collected in 2019. After controlling for other determinants of firm performance, the finding is that formal enterprises that started-up unregistered have significantly higher annual sales growth than enterprises that registered from the outset. To explain this, the argument is that in weak institutional environments, such as Albania, the advantages of operating unregistered at the outset outweigh the benefits of registration. The result is a call to re-theorize firm performance in the informal sector and for policy to shift toward a more facilitating approach that enhances benefits of registration.


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