Policy Briefing

Skills, management practices and productivity in SMEs.

ERC Policy Briefing

Associated Themes
  • Management and Leadership
  • Productivity and performance

Public policy related to the performance and growth of existing small firms has focused on improving access to finance and more recently on reducing regulatory burdens. However, there has also been an increasing recognition of the importance of management knowledge, skills and the adoption of best management practices. In this paper we match survey data on management skills and practices in a large group of SMEs with longitudinal data on productivity to examine the causal links between skills and management practices in 2014 and productivity performance in 2017. Our focus is on a group of firms led by a single entrepreneur or owner-manager.

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