An assessment of a venture creation programme: the case of Shell LiveWIRE

Abstract

This paper examines the problems inherent in assessing the role of venture creation programmes. It suggests that there are, in particular, two areas to be considered. First, any assessment is contingent upon the evaluation context. In other words, not only are the objectives of any particular venture creation programme important, but also so are the objectives of the evaluation. Following on from this, it is also apparent that a simple input-output (‘black-box’) assessment is unlikely to fully capture the discontinuities or ambiguities inherent in the entrepreneurial process. To address these issues, an assessment instrument is developed to estimate the equivocal nature of the venture creation process. This 4-fold instrument suggests considering individuals in four states: individuals who use a programme but do not subsequently consider entrepreneurship to be appropriate (NO WISH); those who would countenance entrepreneurship in the future (POTENTIALS); those currently attempting to become entrepreneurs (NASCENTS); and those who are entrepreneurs (ACTUALS). Subsequently, this assessment instrument is used to consider the case of Shell LiveWIRE, which is a dedicated provider of enterprise support to young people in the UK. Based upon a sample of over 1000 young people, a probit and ordered probit analysis show that ‘soft’ forms of support (signposting and information provision) were of little value in moving individuals towards entrepreneurial activity. The research also found that the more likely an individual was to be engaged in entrepreneurial activity, the less their expressed value of LiveWIRE services.

Keywords:

• evaluation
• enterprise support programmes
• venture creation
• young people

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Shell LiveWIRE and Shell UK plc for their support and co-operation. Any views ‐ or errors ‐ expressed in this paper are those of the authors.

Notes

1.	There is a wide range of examples of such programmes: Women Entrepreneur's Loan Programme (Western Canada); Indigenous Small Business Fund (Australia); Start-up Loan Guarantees for Young People (Taiwan); Law 44 (Italy); Prince's Trust (UK), the Mentor Network (Ireland) and SCORE (US).
2.	Shell LiveWIRE also has a third delivery mechanism that did not form part of the assessment. This mechanism is a national competition ‐ with local and regional heats ‐ to find successful young entrepreneurs. To enter this competition, individuals need to be aged between 16‐30 years; to have completed a business plan; and to be currently running a new business (not necessarily set up with Shell LiveWIRE support) of between 3 and 18 months old. Cash prizes are provided to the winner, together with considerable publicity coverage in newspapers, specialist magazines, radio and television.
3.	We recognize that the time frame may vary from one country to another given the variation in educational systems and the degree of mobility amongst young people.
4.	As this study was principally focused upon an assessment rather than an evaluation of the ‘additionality’ of Shell LiveWIRE, wider comparisons, say with age of respondents who started up new ventures in the UK were not conducted. It is likely, anyway, that the population of Shell LiveWIRE respondents would be atypical: in the UK individuals are most likely to set up new businesses in their thirties (Cressy 1998).
5.	The sample was constructed across the four available dimensions. Chi-square tests were conducted for three of these: year of contact (χ2 : 0.365; 2 df; significance = 0.833); gender (χ2 : 1.074; 1 df; significance = 0.300); and previous employment status (student, employed, unemployed and self-employed) (χ2 : 0.290; 3 df; significance = 0.962). A t-test was conducted on the fourth dimension, age (t statistic: 1.161; 992 df; significance = 0.246).
6.	In an ideal world, we would have liked to consider other factors such as intentionality, liquidity and the heterogeneity and density of network relationships (Aldrich 1999) but, due to data limitations, this was not possible.