The impact of training programs on entrepreneurship development

Abstract

As a developing country, unemployment problems, poverty, inflation, are major issues in Sri Lanka. Entrepreneurship development is essential for economic development of a country. Since there is a huge impact on entrepreneurship, any country has to take action to develop entrepreneurs. Training programs are conducted by different organizations for developing entrepreneurs. Since a large amount of resources is being reserved for training programs, it is necessary to investigate the effects of entrepreneurship development. This investigation focuses on the effects training programs have on entrepreneurship development. The main objective of the investigation is to take necessary steps to increase the effectiveness of the programs while identifying the weaknesses, and the things that have to be reconsidered in prevailing training programs. Through this research, the relationship between entrepreneurship development with respect to training programs in selected training organizations was examined. The research methodology was a survey approach where entrepreneurs were questioned from 3 quality institutes. They were Small Industry Development Sector, Lanka Industrial Development Board and Agromart Foundation. Interviews, questionnaires and direct observations were used to collect the data. Minitab 14 was used to analyze the data. This study is also important due to increasing effectiveness of the training program and the increasing efficiency of the training program. There was a direct relationship between entrepreneurship development and training programs. Furthermore, there were several areas to be reconsidered in the training programs. Although training programs seem to be basically good, there is not enough feedback activity as follow up. In terms of gender, women face different problems in entrepreneurship training. Also, training programs as well as changing attitudes are important for entrepreneurship development. As a result of this investigation, there are some suggestions to develop entrepreneurs. Universities and other higher educational institutes should add entrepreneurship as a subject in their degree programs. When the institute arranges a training program, analysis of entrepreneur perceptions for training programs is very important.