Business Commons^™

The Ties That Blend: Social Capital And Family Firm Innovation, Dustin L. Odom

Theses and Dissertations

The research project empirically assesses the influence of an under-researched aspect of social capital on the family firm’s entrepreneurial behaviors. Specifically, blending social capital, which consists of bonding social capital and bridging social capital that develops between family firms and external family stakeholders, is considered in examining the family firm’s engagement in innovation efforts. Additionally, familial tie strength and outside business ownership of external family stakeholders are argued to moderate the proposed relationship between blending social capital and family firm innovation. The surveying methods for assessing the hypothesized relationships included conducting a two-wave study with adapted, modified, and validated scales. …

Local Label: Why Localism Matters And A Business Plan To Address It., Sydnie Wilson

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

The use of technology within business is evolving and increasing in necessity. As large businesses and corporations invest in research and development, innovations, and data analytics, the ability to serve customers more effectively and efficiently increases substantially. Local Label is a solution for this need.

Local Label is a mobile retail app that connects local consumers to all accessories, shoes, and clothes available at local retailers. The app would be a hub for local retailers to promote their apparel and accessories. Local Label leverages its marketing to be in sync with local events, special occasions, and holidays. The app’s front-face …

Feasibility Of Funding Construction-Related Projects With Cryptocurrencies, Farbod Pourdehmobed

Construction Management

The current method of acquiring funds for construction projects consists of loans and/or a board of investors. With the emergence of the cryptocurrency industry in the past five to ten years, an influx of cash has been inserted into the market and is simply being held captive by government regulations. With development and construction being an attractive investment for most anyone, these "crypto billionaires" are insistent on financing possible projects. The issue lies within the construction industry and the possibly outdated financial system and whether it is capable of adhering to certain requirements that come with the usage of crypto …

Entrepreneurial Leadership Strategies For Catalyzing Innovation Performance, Jason D'Souza

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Inadequate innovation performance has the potential for adverse business outcomes. Business leaders are concerned with inadequate innovation performance, as innovation is a significant driver of business growth. Grounded in entrepreneurial leadership, the purpose of this qualitative multi-case study was to explore entrepreneurial leadership strategies that some healthcare business leaders used to catalyze innovation performance. The participants were six business leaders within three healthcare sectors who contributed to strategic healthcare innovation decisions using entrepreneurial leadership strategies within the last 5 years. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of organizational strategy documents and websites. Through thematic analysis, six themes …

Entrepreneurial Leadership Strategies For Catalyzing Innovation Performance, Jason D'Souza

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Inadequate innovation performance has the potential for adverse business outcomes. Business leaders are concerned with inadequate innovation performance, as innovation is a significant driver of business growth. Grounded in entrepreneurial leadership, the purpose of this qualitative multi-case study was to explore entrepreneurial leadership strategies that some healthcare business leaders used to catalyze innovation performance. The participants were six business leaders within three healthcare sectors who contributed to strategic healthcare innovation decisions using entrepreneurial leadership strategies within the last 5 years. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of organizational strategy documents and websites. Through thematic analysis, six themes …

Blackstone Launchpad University Of Montana Strategic Analysis/Jacob Treece Honors Capstone Report, Jacob R. Treece

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

No abstract provided.

Insomnovation – Natural Sleep Solutions Business Plan, Nikolas Limperis

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

Currently, 70 million Americans suffer from some sort of sleep issues from trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, and daytime drowsiness. However, the sleep solutions on the market today are either highly artificial or only address the symptoms of sleep issues rather than the underlying cause. This is what Insomnovation seeks to address. By providing supplementation to seven key vitamins and minerals, Insomnovation hopes to bring a natural solution to put the issue of sleep disorders to rest.

Predicting Success And Failure Factors Of Thai Start-Ups: An Empirical Study Of Start-Up Success And Its Determinants In Thailand, Ajjaree Limpamont

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Innovation is crucial to economic growth in both developed and emerging countries across the world. Its benefits creates impact on individuals, corporate and government stakeholders in improving quality of lives, increasing income levels and boost up economics. While innovations are important, where, and how they are best conceived of, managed, executed, and brought to the society has been of great debate and has attracted a great deal of scholarly inquiry. There have been numerous research findings discussing the wisdom and impact of each of these pathways. While the business start-up is an effective organizational form for harnessing resources and creating …

In Search Of Unicorns: An Analysis Of Japan's Startup Ecosystem, Kaito Komoriya

CMC Senior Theses

While Japan previously dominated global consumer markets in innovative electronic products, the economy has failed to live up to this performance since the burst of the asset price bubble in 1992 and the subsequent lost decades. In the modern economy, startup companies have become synonymous with innovation. Most of these companies have emerged from Silicon Valley, as well as other startup hubs around the globe. However, critics have criticized Japan for the limited number of notable startup companies from the country.

My thesis seeks to answer the two following questions: First, what is the current state of Japan’s startup ecosystem? …

Strategies For Increasing The Sustainability Of Small Restaurant Business, Sahara J. Givens-Evans

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small business owners who operate in the restaurant industry face many challenges and sometimes succumb to failures. Identifying solutions to avoid failure is important and will strengthen this community of entrepreneurs and help in terms of creating sustainability strategies. Grounded in Richard Cantillon’s entrepreneurship theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies small business owners in the restaurant industry use to sustain business beyond 5 years. Participants included six small restaurant business managers who survived beyond 5 years and specialized in fast-casual food service within Chicago. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and participant reflections. …

Strategies To Generate Innovation For Profit Gains Of U.S.-Based Global Retailing, Kazue Goto

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ineffective innovation strategies can negatively affect profit gains of U.S.-based global retailing companies (USGRC). Leaders in the retailing industry who fail to use strategies to generate innovation for profit gains can experience decreased profitability. Grounded in the dynamic theory of strategy, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies that leaders of USGRC use to generate innovation for profit gains. Participants included six USGRC leaders in California, who used strategies to generate innovation for profit gains. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, company documents and analyzed using thematic data analysis. Three themes emerged: customer-centric opportunity identification …

Entrepreneurial Strategies For The Survival Of Small Business Enterprises In Uganda, Rita Kabatunzi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Only 46% of small businesses in Uganda survive beyond 5 years, yet some small business owners lack entrepreneurial leadership strategies to innovate and sustain their businesses. The failure to sustain businesses can lead to employee loss of jobs and degrade individuals’ economic prosperity. Grounded in the strategic entrepreneurship model, the purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore entrepreneurial leadership strategies small business owners in the travel and tourism industry in Kampala, Uganda use to innovate and sustain their businesses for more than 5 years. The participants comprised 5 small business owners who successfully sustained their businesses beyond 5 …

The Ecosystem Of Startups In Greece: An Explorative Study, Stamatios Koulouris

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Given that technology and innovation are rapidly rising the last few decades at excessively high rates, people tend to become more creative, searching for new ideas that, through their entrepreneurial spirit, transform into businesses, known as startups. This process of transforming an idea into an actual business that becomes productive and profitable sets the basis for entrepreneurship. Being interested in startups and the idea of creating an enterprise from scratch, I decided for my senior project to focus on these new well-known enterprises and, more specifically to zoom in on the startup ecosystem of Greece, which seems to have great …

Entrepreneurial Strategies For The Survival Of Small Business Enterprises In Uganda, Rita Kabatunzi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Only 46% of small businesses in Uganda survive beyond 5 years, yet some small business owners lack entrepreneurial leadership strategies to innovate and sustain their businesses. The failure to sustain businesses can lead to employee loss of jobs and degrade individuals’ economic prosperity. Grounded in the strategic entrepreneurship model, the purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore entrepreneurial leadership strategies small business owners in the travel and tourism industry in Kampala, Uganda use to innovate and sustain their businesses for more than 5 years. The participants comprised 5 small business owners who successfully sustained their businesses beyond 5 …

The Impact Of Digitalization On International Expansion: A Study On Market Entry Strategy Based On The Integration-Responsiveness Framework, Thian Kiang Tan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Digitalization has accelerated the growth and creation of new business models. There are more unicorn companies (a non-public company valued at more than US$1B) in the last 10 years than the decades before it. The use of digital technologies presents new opportunities for digitally active firms to capture growth in a new market. This paper studies how digitalization influences the internationalization process of the firm and its mode of entry into a foreign market. Drawing on existing literature on digitalization, this paper creates a novel approach to study the effect of digitalization by classifying firms based on their market business …

Barriers And Enablers To Building Entrepreneurial Ecosystems As Perceived By Change Agents In The Workplace, Shanda Barrett

Dissertations

This study explores factors that influence entrepreneurial ecosystems. Clifton (2010, 2015) recommends entrepreneurship, better business models, and new business startups as a solution for economic renewal in the United States and specifically identifies disengaged workers and low-energy workplaces as the starting point. The recommendation does not address how to make workplaces conducive to entrepreneurial activity, nor does the recommendation address how to engage entrepreneurial employees.

Existing literature outlines the known tensions between theory, anecdotal evidence, and the professional practice of building entrepreneurial ecosystems. To date, the term entrepreneurial ecosystem exists as a metaphor in the extant literature. While scholars have …

Factors Contributing To Innovation Orientation Of Singapore Technology Small And Medium Enterprises (Smes), Kok Beng Neo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

As Singapore transitioned from economy that was primarily dependent on foreign direct investments (FDI) to a knowledge-based economy driven by indigenously developed science, technology and innovations, it became critical for the local firms to grow and internationalize. The government has thus invested heavily (of $19 billion from 2016 to 2020, and $25 billion from 2021 to 2015) in science and technology research and development. The Committee of Future Economy (CFE) concluded that in an era of rapid technological change where innovation cycles have shortened, one of economic strategy is to support our “high growth” enterprises to “scale up”. However, the …

Entrepreneurial Strategies To Mitigate The High Failure Rates Of Small Retail Businesses, James A. Latour

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The high rate of business failures within the first 5 years negatively affects half of startup business owners. Small retail business owners who fail to develop innovative entrepreneurial strategies experience high failure rates within the first 5 years of operation. Grounded in self-determination theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore entrepreneurial strategies small retail business owners use to support long-term sustainability. Participants were five small retail business owners from Southern Illinois who successfully used entrepreneurial strategies to reduce high failure rates. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and internal documents relevant to reducing high failure …

Relationship Between Leadership Style And Innovation Performance In Small-To-Medium-Scale Enterprises In Nigeria, Emmanuel Chukwuemeka Ossai

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe Global Innovation Index recently indicated that Nigeria lags several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in innovation inputs and outputs. It is uncertain whether leadership style in place in Nigerian enterprises is a factor in this situation. Innovation performance is the contribution of product and process innovations to profits and growth in an enterprise. The purpose of this correlational, cross-sectional, survey study was to understand the relationship between leadership style and innovation performance in small-to-medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria. The SME sector was selected because it is the engine of growth of the economy and the highest employer of labor, but …

A Nomological Network Analysis Of Innovation In Hospitality Education And Industry, Robert H. Rippee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The development of a theory of innovation for hospitality innovation finds heightened importance due to the COVID-19 Pandemic that has unleashed a devastating and sustained disruption on global hospitality and tourism. The problem for research is that the industry lacks a taxonomy for research on innovation in hospitality. This study addresses the gap in understanding the nomological relationship between innovation constructs and the observable manifestations of innovation in the hospitality industry. This study used an emergent basic qualitative design of a phenomenon through data collected in three phases. Two large samples of literature and a series of focus groups comprised …

The Importance Of Innovation And Entrepreneurship In China’S Social Transformation, Guo Jun Shen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

As world’s second largest economy, China has seen tremendous changes since its 1978 “open door and reform” policy. Different reformations in form of policies were planned and rolled out to release the potential of productivity. At the same time, social development also seen a huge progress. How the reformation been transformed to social development and in what degree? This is the question was answered in this dissertation. I studied four major reformations covering: State owned Enterprises (SoE), land, financial liberalization, and science and technology, and their impacts on the social development. At macro level, I identified mediation effects of entrepreneurship …

Outcomes Of Platform Openness In Complementary Markets, Franck Loic Soh Noume

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mobile platform ecosystems are hyper-competitive environments. They provide important entrepreneurial opportunities for businesses that develop mobile apps. Platform openness is foundational in mobile platform ecosystems as it enables interactions between complements and platform. Although there are several studies on the impact of platform openness, our understanding of the outcomes of platform openness remains limited. In this dissertation, we examine thoroughly underexplored facets of platform openness as well as understudied outcomes. In the first essay, we investigate the impact of platform openness on incumbent complements’ performance outcomes. We unravel important causal mechanisms related to competition dynamics between new entrants and incumbent …

Competitive Strategies To Improve Small And Medium Enterprise Sales, Adeola Oluwakemi Ogunyemi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractSmall and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the mainstay of both developed and developing countries by contributing to employment, revenue, and value added. SMEs, however, are not often able to grow because of a lack of appropriate growth strategies. Grounded in Porter’s dynamic theory of strategy, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies retail SME owners in Lagos, Nigeria, used to grow sales. The participants were a census of five retail SME business owners who successfully implemented strategies to grow sales. The data collection sources included semistructured interviews, direct observation, company documents, and reflective journals. Based …

Exploring The Strategies For Sustaining Small- To Medium-Scale Enterprises, Kingsley Onochie Umadia

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The lack of development and the continued survival of small- to medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) poses a challenge to SME practices in Nigeria. Using sustainability theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore the strategies that leaders use in sustaining SMEs in Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria. Ten SME leaders from the manufacturing sector, trading services, education, oil and gas service companies, and financial services sector provided comments during the interviews that addressed the research question. Data were analyzed by transcription, coding, categorizing and analysis of participants' responses using member checking. From the themes that emerged from the study, …

How Ties With Family Members Influence Professionals' Creativity In Family Businesses: The Role Of Hive Effect And Trust, Rameshwari Ramachandra

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Many Asian enterprises are family businesses. In recent years, there has been a growing body of research on creativity in Asian firms, but few studies on the creativity of the professionals working in Asian family businesses. Given the importance of creativity in family businesses for their continued success, I examined how a professional’s ties to family members in a family business influenced their creativity. I proposed that the number of family members in a professional’s network would positively predict the professional’s creativity, and that this effect would be mediated by the family members’ affective and cognitive trust in the professional. …

Innovate Within Product Lines Or Outside Of Them? An Ethnographic Study Of Corporate Innovation In A Corporate Venture Makerspace., Cole Joseph Crider

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Organizational forms firms use for innovating include R&D departments, corporate venturing, and open innovation. This dissertation examines a new form for corporate innovation—the corporate venture makerspace. Makerspaces are “shared production facilities,” and scholars suggest they are environments in which to create; yet few firms have adopted them as a means to innovate. This dissertation is an ethnographic study in which I examine why a large corporation with active R&D centers and limited resources also has a corporate venture makerspace as a secondary innovation mechanism when both organizations serve the same overarching function: explorative learning activities intended to generate innovative …

Strategies To Secure Sustainable Funding For The Successful Conclusion Of Infrastructure Projects, Ibrahim Adia

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Construction industry leaders who neglect to implement appropriate project funding strategies harm business operations and lose profits. Inadequate funding is also a significant cause of project failures in the global construction sector. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies construction project owners use to secure sustainable funding for the successful conclusion of infrastructure projects. The population comprised 5 leaders of organizations owning construction projects in the Middle Eastern Gulf Cooperation Council states, with successful strategies to acquire adequate funding for completing infrastructure projects. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with the business leaders and reports …

The Leadership Role Of Management Accountants As It Contributes To Innovation And Entrepreneurship In Start-Up Businesses In Southern California, Paula Edwards

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand and describe the leadership role of managerial accountants as it contributes to innovation in start-up businesses in Southern California.

Methodology: The methodology used to understand and describe the leadership role of managerial accountants as it contributes to the innovation and entrepreneurship in start-up businesses in Southern California was a qualitative study. The study participants included 12 entrepreneurs who had started a business in the last five years, had utilized a management accountant on a part-time, full-time or consultant basis and are located in the San Diego, Orange, or Los …

Understanding The Role Of Social Capital On Performance In Family Firms., Mahshid Jessri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One important form of social capital is family social capital, which is mainly the relationship among family members in family business. In this dissertation, we utilize two perspectives of innovativeness and network mobilization to study the relationship between family social capital and firm performance. In the first study, we examine family social capital as a multidimensional construct, and study the relationship between the three aspects of structural, cognitive, and relational family social capital. The relationship between relational social capital and performance is studied through the lens of network mobilization, and the model investigates how family firm identity alters this relationship, …

A Socioemotional Wealth Perspective On Innovativeness And Performance Of Family Businesses., Vasiliki Kosmidou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a theoretical and empirical examination of the relationships among socioemotional wealth, innovativeness, and performance in family firms. Building on the Behavioral Agency Theory’s predictions that socioemotional wealth of family firms may affect their strategic decision making both positively and negatively, this study theoretically develops and tests a research model that aims at understanding the nuanced influences of different socioemotional wealth dimensions on firm innovativeness and performance. Specifically, the study hypothesizes that a family’s socioemotional wealth affects the firm’s innovativeness and performance both negatively, in the case of internal socioemotional wealth and positively, in the case of external …