Deliberate practice and individual entrepreneurial orientation training retention: a multi-wave field experiment

Abstract

Individual entrepreneurial orientation training is a promising psychological intervention based on the Theory of Action Regulation that has contributed to the success of small business owners of developing countries. However, training transfer literature warns about the decay in trained behaviour and business outcomes over time. The factors that help in the maintenance of post-training effects are still not extensively researched leaving a huge question mark on acclaimed outcomes. We employed a rigorous combination of an experimental and longitudinal approach for testing the impact of individual entrepreneurial orientation training among 1189 small business owners (Training group = 587, Control group = 602) in Pakistan across multiple follow-up waves (T0 = before training, T1 = at training, T2 = 1 month after training, T3 = 6 months after training, T4 = 20 months after training). We specifically examined the role of deliberate practice development in post-training behaviour maintenance as well as the subsequent business success. Time-lagged mediation, growth modelling, and mediated moderation analyses were done. The findings revealed that though an individual’s entrepreneurial orientation behaviour declined after training, however, deliberate practice development enhanced its maintenance. Moreover, the small business owners who had a positive trend in the development of deliberate practice over measurement waves had higher success rates through the display of individual orientation behaviour.

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