Are Firm Capabilities Holding Back Firms in Mozambique ?

Gemechu A. Aga, Francisco Campos, Adriana Conconi, Elwyn Adriaan Robin Davies and Carolin Geginat

No 9724, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Firm capabilities—the abilities and practices to operate and innovate—are considered important drivers of firm performance. While the analysis of their importance is well established in developed countries, its study in the African context is more recent. The paper uses a new representative sample of enterprises in Mozambique comprising data on management and organizational practices, as well as skills, to study the importance of firm capabilities in Mozambique. The analysis suggests that the private sector in Mozambique scores below other developing countries in all dimensions of firm capabilities. Enterprises engaging in more contractual relationships demonstrate stronger firm capabilities. Firm capabilities are key drivers of performance; controlling for other input factors, firms in Mozambique with better firm capabilities perform better. The relationship is robust to various measures of performance and to including various firm and manager characteristics. The analysis finds that for smaller firms, non-exporters, and female-owned enterprises, their gap in business performance can be explained by differences in management practices. The results suggest Mozambique should explore mechanisms of expanding firm capabilities in targeted types of firms.

Keywords: Common Carriers Industry; Food&Beverage Industry; Pulp&Paper Industry; Plastics&Rubber Industry; Business Cycles and Stabilization Policies; General Manufacturing; Textiles; Apparel&Leather Industry; Construction Industry; Educational Sciences; Financial Sector Policy; Hydrology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-06-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-cse
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/28491162 ... ms-in-Mozambique.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9724

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().