Assessing the importance of managerial and entrepreneurial experience in entrepreneurial training programs
通过意大利132家初创企业的现场实验，发现创业培训效果取决于创业者是否有管理或创业经验：无经验者更易终止无前景项目，有经验者则能提升早期收入。
Do entrepreneurs’ managerial and entrepreneurial experiences influence the effectiveness of the entrepreneurial training (ET) programs they receive? We address this question through a field experiment conducted within a pre-incubation program that involves 132 early-stage start-ups in Italy. Half of the participants received ET based on the scientific approach to decision-making, and the remaining received heuristic training. We exploit exogenous variation from the experiment to show that only entrepreneurs without any managerial or entrepreneurial experience see the effects of ET in terms of the termination of nonpromising projects and pivot decisions. Conversely, only entrepreneurs with previous managerial or entrepreneurial experience see the effects of ET in terms of superior early revenue generated. These findings highlight the importance of designing tailored ET programs according to the prior experience of entrepreneurs.