Does a Growth Mindset Employee lead to a more Productive MSME Unit?

Abstract

How much does the Mindset of an Employee make an employee productive for an MSME unit? This was the research question that we set out to empirically find through our study of the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) segment business units in India. This Research study validates the role played by the mindset and thereby, hopefully, sets out a new area of research, while understanding the relevance of the role of the mindset of employees, especially in encountering challenges that they face, obstacles that they encounter, and the efforts that they are supposed to put, their ability to deal with the success of others and finally, their ability to handle criticism, exclusively in MSME unit. This paper begins with the relevance of mindset and the respective research done to date in this field, especially from an organizational context. Then, with the substantial support of Carol Dweck’s theory on Mindset, we empirically test the Growth Mindset on 5 critical Variables using regression analysis, namely, the way employees handle the major identified constructs such as challenges, obstacles, efforts, the success of others and criticism in MSME set-up. The Results indicate the relevance of the Growth Mindset among employees of MSME organisations, especially while dealing with challenges, failures and criticism in their own respective domains and thereby lead to definite implications for a MSME unit to be cognisant of the Mindset of an employee, especially during the stages of recruitment, performance appraisal and thereby helping to build a new Culture within the MSME set-up