Personal initiative training for small business owners

•Personal initiative training leads to long term growth of German firms.•Personal initiative is important in entrepreneurship.•The intervention taught proactive, self-starting approach to planning, innovation, time management and goal-setting and the ability to overcome barriers.•Generalization study.

Research shows that personal initiative is important for small business owners' success (Frese, 2009). An intervention study in Germany evaluated a 3-day personal initiative intervention program for small scale business owners. This intervention consisted of a training that taught a proactive, self-starting approach to planning, innovation, time management and goal-setting and the ability to overcome barriers. A before-and-after design was used for the training group (N=36); the dependent variable was employment growth which we also measured in a comparison group (N=97). Measures were ascertained before the intervention, directly afterwards and 1 year after the training. We found positive changes after the training and the participants of the training group employed about 20% more employees after the training than before or than existed in the comparison group. Positive effects occurred on all four of Kirkpatrick's (1975) evaluation levels: reaction, learning, behavior-based, and success measures.