Transfer of entrepreneurship training to micro-small and medium enterprises in Tanzania: <i>rhetoric</i> or <i>reality</i> for human resource development?

Abstract

The growing importance of entrepreneurship globally has led to an exponential increase in the variety of entrepreneurship training programmes. However, there is an observed lack of standard and consistent interventions, which necessitates assessments fundamental to improving contents, objectives and methodologies of effective training of enterprise owners as a part of human resource development. Therefore, this study examines mainstream and entrepreneurship training evaluations to determine similarities and incongruities that affect training applications—i.e., training transfer— which is a crucial aspect of training effectiveness. This systematic desk review presents the dynamics between prominent transfer evaluation models and entrepreneurship training evaluations. Key findings reveal unavailability of systematic models for the assessment of entrepreneurship training transfer, bias towards results-oriented approaches to training evaluation, and a distinct lack focus on indicators of creativity and innovativeness in entrepreneurship training evaluation. The study culminates with a synthesized conceptual framework useful in the research on entrepreneurship training transfer.