Some Problems in Using Subjective Measures of Effectiveness to Evaluate Entrepreneurial Assistance Programs

Abstract

Two samples of entrepreneurs and small business owners who received assistance from entrepreneurship training programs were used to Investigate the relationships between (1) subjective measures of client satisfaction, (2) perceptions of performance Improvements attributable to the programs, and (3) objective measures of post-assistance business performance. The results show that subjective measures are not correlated with either attributions of performance or actual performance. Clients’ attributions of the portion of performance improvements attributed to the programs are generally correlated with the objective measurements. An implication seems to be that program evaluations relying exclusively upon participants’ satisfaction or subjective judgments of program effectiveness may lead to erroneous conclusions about a program's impact on venture performance. Conversely, measures of attribution, used In conjunction with objective measures, may be useful to support claims for causal connections between assistance programs and subsequent client performance.