Purpose - This paper assesses the efficacy of the 18 small business development centers (SBDCs) located throughout the state of Pennsylvania during 2013–2016 as a proxy for publicly funded, small business consulting services in general. Design/methodology/approach - The paper compares the sales growth of SBDC clients, as reported in postconsultation surveys, to comparable growth measures for the corresponding business population using one- and two-sample Findings - The results show that respondent clients with existing businesses clearly outperform the broader population following consultation, both in aggregate and when decomposed by region and industry. Research limitations/implications - Although the best available data, the results are tempered by low response rates and self-reporting. Originality/value - The paper empirically demonstrates that SBDC clients experience higher growth in sales and employment following their consultation than the broader business population. The net benefit of such services is, however, impossible to determine.

中文翻译：

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我来这里度过一天吗？重新评估互联网时代小型企业开发中心的功效

目的-本文评估了2013-2016年整个宾夕法尼亚州的18个小企业发展中心（SBDC）的效力，这些中心通常是公共资助的小企业咨询服务的代理。设计/方法/方法-本文使用一和两个样本调查结果，将咨询后调查中报告的SBDC客户的销售增长与相应业务人群的可比增长衡量进行了比较-结果表明，具有现有业务的受访客户显然总体而言，以及在按地区和行业分解之后，咨询后的总体表现均优于广大人口。研究的局限性/意义-尽管可获得最佳的数据，但由于响应率低和自我报告，结果受到了限制。原创性/价值-该论文从经验上证明，与其他企业相比，SBDC客户在咨询后的销售和就业增长更高。但是，无法确定此类服务的净收益。