We examine how management quality is related to product market competition when firms are managed by their founders instead of hired managers. While the relationship between competition and managerial incentives is mostly found to be ambiguous in theory, testing it empirically has been challenged by the lack of robust quantitative data. Using a survey on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises from Burkina Faso, we measure management quality, building on the Management and Organizational Practices Survey, and find suggestive evidence that management quality increases with competition. Although the results are robust across a range of measures of competition and sub-indicators of management quality, no significant association is observed in larger firms.

Product market competition, management quality, SMEs, developing countries