Beyond business creation: Evaluating entrepreneurial support through professional networking and entrepreneurial difficulties

Abstract

This empirical study addresses the limited evidence on intermediate relational and practical outcomes of public entrepreneurial support in Morocco. It examines whether participation in structured programmes, mainly FORSA and the National Initiative for Human Development (INDH), is associated with professional networking and selected difficulties experienced during and after business creation. The study draws on cross sectional questionnaire data from 108 active entrepreneurs recruited from several Moroccan regions, with a majority located in Casablanca-Settat. The analysis combined exploratory chi square tests with adjusted binary logistic regressions for the three outcomes retained after initial screening. Age, gender and firm size were controlled for in the networking and legal difficulties models, while a parsimonious specification was used for entrepreneurial isolation because only 22 positive cases were observed. Participation in support was positively associated with professional networking (OR = 3.917) and negatively associated with legal difficulties during business creation (OR = .203). A negative association with post creation entrepreneurial isolation was also observed in the parsimonious model (OR = .294), but this estimate was fragile; Firth penalised logistic regression produced a similar result (OR = .324). The findings concern associations rather than causal programme effects. They suggest that public support may perform relational, informational and advisory functions that are not fully captured by conventional indicators of firm survival or growth. By distinguishing networking, creation-stage legal difficulties and post creation isolation, the study provides a more differentiated basis for evaluating entrepreneurial support in Morocco.

JEL Classification: L26, M13.

Paper type: Empirical research paper; exploratory study.