十年后，集团咨询继续使企业受益：来自哥伦比亚汽车零部件公司的实验证据

Policy Research Working Paper Group Consulting Continuesto Benefit Firms after a Decade Experimental Evidence from ColombianAuto Parts Firms Leonardo IacovoneDavid McKenzieWilliam Maloney Policy Research Working Paper11278 Abstract A randomized experiment tested the effectiveness of indi-vidual and small group–based consulting services on firmsin the Colombian auto parts industry, finding improve-ments in management and firm performance over three higher employment, and have increased sales and profitsby approximately 50 percent. This longer-term growthappears to in part come through increased exporting aswell as persistent management improvements. The more Group Consulting Continues to BenefitFirms after a Decade:Experimental Evidence from Colombian Auto Parts Firms Leonardo Iacovone,World BankDavid McKenzie#,World BankWilliam Maloney,World Bank Keywords:Management, Consulting, Jobs, Firm Performance, Exporting.JEL Codes:O14, O32, L2, M2. 1.Introduction Policy makers worldwide seekeffective policiesto support small and medium enterprises(SMEs) to become more productiveand profitable, create more jobs, and increase exports.A growing body of evidence highlights the central role of management practices in drivingfirm performance.Recent experimental studies (Bloom et al, 2013; Bruhn et al, 2018; Iacovone et al. 2022) and non-experimental analysis (Giorcelli 2019; Bianchi and Giorcelli, There are competing views in the literature and among management professionals abouthow sustained we should expect the impact of consulting to be. One view is that newmanagementpractices are a form of long-term behavior change,and once initialenthusiasm and effort wears off,people return to ingrained old ways of doing things,particularly during times of stress or when new challenges arise.As a result, Boston Conversely, there are several channels through which impacts may persist or even grow overtime. The kaizen approach of continuous improvement posits a virtuous cycle in which initialsystems put in place enable firms to then implement further improvements.Historicalevidence from Giorcelli (2019) and Bianchi and Giorcelli (2022) shows that managementtraining in Italy in the 1950s and the U.S. in the 1940s led to growing performance gains overa decade.Better management may be particularly important in helping firms surviveshocks This paper tests these competing hypotheses using a long-term follow-up of a randomizedexperiment in Colombia’s auto parts sector. The original intervention compared twoconsulting models: intensive individual consulting ($29,000 per firm) and a novel group-based approach ($10,000 per firm), where consultants worked withgroups of 4–6 firms. We use administrative records in Colombia to track these firms up to 8-10 years post-intervention, through to 2024. This covers a period that includes the Covid-19 pandemic andrecovery, as well as increasing competition from Chinese imports.We find large and increase by over $1 million (55%), and annual profits by $475,000 (48%). Although noisilymeasured, firms appear to have created more jobs, with a 28% increase in employmentconditional on survival.Treated firms are also 10 percentage points more likely to export,and they continue to havesignificantly better management practices.In contrast, the long- 2.Experimental Design and Intervention The Colombian technological extension program was a government program launched in2012 to offer assistance in improving management productionpractices in the auto partssector. This sector is made up of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that producecomponents used in vehicle manufacturing like fenders, tires, paints, metal, rubber, and 2.1Experimental Design and Sample Firms were well-established single plant firms that had been in businessfor a median of 23.5years. They had a mean (median) of 59 (40) employees, averaged $2.3 million in sales in2013, and 45 percent had exported in 2013.The 159 firms were matched on size, geographic 2.2The Intervention: Individual and Group-Based Consulting Firms in all three groups received a diagnostic in the second half of 2013 (see timeline inappendix A), in which consultants assessed the existing state of management practices inlogistics, human resources, finance, marketing and sales, and production, ending with asuggested plan for improvement. The diagnostic and subsequent consulting was provided Thegrouptreatmentaimed to lower costs and potentially generate benefits from peerinteraction by having consultants from CNP work with small groups of 3 to 8 firmslocated inthe same region. Meetings were frequently held in local hotel facilities rooms, with thestaff This group approachshares some similarities as well as differences with the peer networkinginterventions of Cai and Szeidl (2018) and Asiedu et al. (2025), which found positive impactson management practices and profits overone year. As in those interventions, it encouragesfirms to share knowledge and experiences