"This report is the first follow-up to the impact evaluation of the Kyrgyzstan Women's Leadership in Small and Medium Enterprises (WLSME) activity commissioned by the Office of Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (GenDev) in the United States Agency for International Development's Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment (USAID/E3). The report summarizes the data collection and analysis methods and provides initial findings and conclusions based on baseline and post-intervention data collection and analysis of the Kyrgyzstan WLSME activity. The impact evaluation plans to collect two more follow-up rounds at 12 months and 24 months post-intervention; thus, this report contains only initial findings that could be observed at the end of the activity."

"Corporate venturing has gained much attention due to challenges and changes that occur because of discontinuous innovations - which seem to be promoted by digitalization. In this context, open innovation has become a promising tool for established companies to strengthen their innovation capabilities. While the external opening of the innovation process has gained much attention, the internal opening lacks on investigations. Especially new organizational forms, such as Internal Corporate Accelerators, have not been investigated sufficiently. This study, which is based on 13 interviews from two German tech-companies, contributes to a better understanding of this new form of corporate venturing and the resulting effects on the organizational renewal."

"The objective of this "Environmental Policy Toolkit for SME Greening" is to help governments in the European Union's Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) to design and implement key instruments to promote environmental compliance and green business practices among SMEs using the existing good practices in EU and other OECD countries.

The Toolkit focuses predominantly on environmental policy instruments to promote green behaviour of SMEs. It covers three categories of instruments: regulatory simplification and incentives, information-based tools (which comprise both providing advice and guidance to businesses and providing their customers and the public at large with information about their green practices), as well as financial and economic incentives."

"This study is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on the effects of mentoring on SMEs in Norway. We aim to get a better understanding of firm development and dynamics in the presence of public interventions. Does mentoring affect firm performance and firm-survival? Does it matter what type of state aid a firm is granted; mentoring versus the financial equivalent of the service?"

"Innovative start-ups are often considered to be a key source of innovation and job creation. As such they are the subject of several types of supportive public policies. This study examines the short-term and long-term effects of business incubators on the performance of innovative start-ups in terms of sales revenues and job creation. A large sample of N-¯=-¯2544 innovative Italian start-ups, of which 606 were incubated, was followed over a period of up to six years. Tobit and Poisson regressions and propensity-score matching analyses point towards a significant negative effect of incubator tenancy on sales revenues and no significant effect of incubation on job creation. Findings also suggest that the initially negative effect of incubation on sales revenues turns into a positive effect in the long term. The effects of incubator characteristics, in terms of ownership, certification, and size on the growth of tenant start-ups were further analysed, but these effects were found to be negligible. The study contributes to the literature on the evidence-based evaluation of business incubation performance. It suggests that public policy makers should lower their expectations regarding the numbers of new jobs created by business incubation support."

"Recent research has suggested that the reduction of entry regulation can promote firm entry and job creation, but little is known about the quality of firms and jobs created through these reforms. To shed light on this question, we employ data from Portugal, a country which implemented one of the most dramatic and thorough policies of entry deregulation in the industrialized world. The impact of these major changes can be traced with a matched employer-employee database that provides unusually rich information on the quality of founders and employees associated with the new firms.

Our assessment indicates that the short term consequences of the reform were just as one would predict with a standard economic model of entrepreneurship: The reform resulted in increased firm formation and employment, but mostly among "marginal firms" that would have been most readily deterred by existing heavy entry regulations. These marginal firms were typically small, owned by relatively poorly-educated entrepreneurs, operating in the low-tech sector (agriculture, construction, and retail trade). These firms were also less likely to survive their first two years than comparable firms that entered prior to the reform. The social impact of entry deregulation may be limited by the quality of the firms it creates."

"Market Systems Development (MSD) is an approach to poverty reduction that aims to create long-lasting and large-scale change by stimulating more inclusive growth. To achieve a systemic change vision, market systems programmes often partner with the private sector to introduce new or improved business practices, products and services. Understanding the mechanics of these business models is at the heart of programme success. This paper presents a framework for assessing the efficacy of business models. To help future practice be grounded in reality, we have included detailed business model cases studies from market systems programmes in Afghanistan, Zambia, Kosovo and Nigeria. The paper ends by extracting five key lessons for implementers to improve the way in which they engage with the private sector in building 'win-win' models."

"This report describes the landscape of business incubators and accelerators in the UK, exploring the scale and distribution, both geographically and sectorally."

"To identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of business incubator models and their potential use in worldwide. Methodology: We studied two international cases: (a) United States, (b) United Kingdom. Findings: The results highlight the similarities and differences between the countries. It adds knowledge for both academics and practitioners who are interested in business incubation. Value: This paper is the first to utilize the SWOT technique to analyze the business incubation field and provides recommendations to implement successful adoption of the incubator's strengths. The potential of Business Incubators who act as models in worldwide and their contribution to the economy, the active role they play in the local, regional and national economic development are discussed. Implications: Adaptation of a Business Incubator Model leads to (1) the support of diverse economies, (2) the commercialization of new technologies, (3) job creation and (4) increases in wealth, given that weaknesses can be overcome."

"This report sets out to establish how well social enterprise addresses gender inequality and women's empowerment in the UK. It is part of a series of reports commissioned by the British Council to look at the link between social enterprise and women's empowerment across five countries: Brazil, India, Pakistan, the UK and the USA. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of social enterprise as a mechanism for empowering women and considers different ways it is being used for this end. It also examines the idea that social enterprise as a business model might advance women's empowerment even when that is not a specific objective."