Impact evaluation of the women’s leadership in small and medium enterprises activity in India

The evaluation used a quasi-experimental design, comparing four randomly assigned treatment groups to a matched comparison group across four outcome measures: business growth, entrepreneurial leadership, networks, and business knowledge and practices. The activity targeted 210 cashew-processing microenterprises and SMEs owned and managed by women in the Panruti block of Tamil Nadu State. After a baseline survey was conducted on eligible applicants, the sample was randomly assigned to four treatment groups. To avoid contamination, the comparison group was not randomized from the same sample as the treatment arms. Instead, it was randomly selected from a list of similar SMEs located in a geographically removed part of the Panruti block. The endline survey took place in May and June 2017, six months after the WLSME activity ended. The short-term findings are encouraging, primarily the entrepreneur leadership outcomes. Whereas most outcomes related to business growth, networks, and business knowledge and practices do not show a statistically significant link to the WLSME activity, the data show significant effects of sizable magnitude with respect to entrepreneur leadership.