Business Commons^™

Building A Society Of Trust: Innovation And The Future Of Youth Employment In Jordan, Pierre Cativiela

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The word startup is perhaps an unlikely word that comes to mind when discussing shifting dynamics in the Middle East – this is rapidly changing. In the past two decades, Arab entrepreneurs have emerged from across the region as key players in the paradigm of national economic visions. Within these plans, innovation will become the epicenter for public-private partnerships. Such collaboration will contribute to tackling youth unemployment, the region’s most pressing contemporary problem, as well as diversifying local economies. The research delves into the complexities and history of entrepreneurship in Jordan as one of the region’s pioneering nations, examining the …

Experiential Learning: The Case Of Training Mba Students In An Asian School, Chiyachantana N. Chiraphol, Kuan Yong David Ding, Jack Jiajun Hong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Consulting for a startup company is an effective way for Master of Business Administration (MBA) students to learn about management consulting, and the ways and means of a startup company. This paper discusses the experience of an MBA startup project within the context of a core corporate finance course. The project requires the active engagement of several groups of stakeholders—MBA students, the university’s entrepreneurship incubator, a selection of startup companies, and the project’s academic collaborators. In line with the literature, we find that entrepreneurship education through student-startup collaboration contributes to the students’ entrepreneurial learning, and that the offering of an …

Is Guanxi Still Everything When Doing Business In China?, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Research finds that traditional guanxi-style connection-building is no longer the main key to success when doing business in China, and a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs form business ties based on reputation and capabilities

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 …

Leadership Adapted: Towards An Understanding Of How Western-Developed Leadership Theories Are Translated And Practiced In The Modern Arab Middle East, Derek R. Olson

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to understand how western-developed leadership theories are translated and practiced in the Modern Arab Middle East (MAME). Over the past century the notion of leadership has progressed through phases of understanding, definition, and practice. This evolution continues today and is no longer contained to the academic and practice-oriented institutions of North America and Europe. Through western-styled educational institutions and professional industries, western-developed leadership theories have stretched around the globe, including the MAME. While this is known, what is much less understood is how these theories are adopted and adapted. This study’s objective is to …

Empowering Female Entrepreneurs Through Mentorship In Medellin, Colombia: Results From The Field, Theresa Solenski

Master's Theses

Utilizing the power of local knowledge and peer networking, this study attempts to quantify the impacts of mentorship among female micro-entrepreneurs in Medellin, Colombia on empowerment. Developing countries such as Colombia have disproportionately high rates of unprofitable micro-businesses, many of which are managed by women. Internal constraints, such as disempowerment, play a central role in perpetuating poverty. We implement a 6-month mentoring intervention by pairing 18 successful entrepreneurs with 52 disadvantaged female, micro-entrepreneurs in Medellin, Colombia to measure the additional benefit of localized knowledge to micro-borrowers. Using a process of random assignment, I measure the change in female empowerment, measured …

How Does Energy Matter? Rural Electrification, Entrepreneurship, And Community Development In Kenya, Antoine Vernet, Jane N. O. Khayesi, Vivian George, Gerard George, Abubakar S. Bahaj

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine the impact of rural electrification on individuals and businesses within a community in order to test a resource-based theory of entrepreneurship. We show that access to electricity increases average households’ income and entrepreneurial activities. The impact of electricity on entrepreneurial activity has wide-ranging implications for development policy in countries where access to electricity is sparse. Results show a significant difference in entrepreneurial opportunities with respect to firm formation, with the electrified site reporting more new micro-enterprises than the control site after implementation. Electrification affects both households’ income, individuals’ perceptions of their social position, and opportunities for business development. …

The Impact Of Culture On Hispanic Entrepreneurs As Mediated By Motivation, Challenge, And Success, Valerie V. Ballesteros

Theses & Dissertations

In the modern economic environment, demographic shifts in U.S. population resulting from changing immigration, changing economic policies and environments, and growing socioeconomic disparity, scholarly research examining the business behavior of specific groups and the impact of behavior on the broader marketplace is valuable and necessary. Hispanic entrepreneurs, when compared to both minority and non-minority business-owners, started and flourished in successful business ownership at a greater growth rate than any other group (Davila, Mora, & Zeitlin, 2014). Since the beginning of the 21st century, Hispanic entrepreneurs have become a measurable economic force. The cultural experience of the Hispanic entrepreneur is important …

Innovations In Asia: Selected Case Studies, Institute Of Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Singapore Management University

Research Collection Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

This book is a compilation of seven case studies written by faculty and staff of Singapore Management University (SMU) and has been edited in conjunction with the inaugural Asia Pacific Innovation Forum organised by the International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM) and hosted by SMU in December 2014. These cases have been carefully selected to illustrate the various challenges inherent in creating entrepreneurial and business innovations.

The first five cases are related to start-ups by experienced professionals and students. Jayashree is an excellent case that shows how an individual with very little education was able to design and implement …

The Gender Gap In Immigrant Entrepreneurship: The Role Of Culture And Home Country Self-Employment, Amy Ingram

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates the effect of culture and home country self-employment rates on immigrant self-employment in the United States, post-migration. This study analyzes the effects for both men and women, focusing on the gender gap in self-employment. The empirical results show that home country effects have a small impact on self-employment, but most of this relationship is unexplained. Because the explanatory power of home country effects is so low, it is unlikely that culture significantly influences self-employment. I find that, contrary to my hypotheses, women from countries with high female self-employment rates are likely to see a larger decrease in …

"My Friends, They Are People To Rely On": The Social Foundation Of Business In Ghana, Patrick D. Shulist

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The management and entrepreneurship literatures increasingly engage in poverty alleviation research in the developing world. However, there is a marked tendency to overlook how the Western World, from where most theory comes, differs from the developing world. Such a fallacy has potential deleterious effects on the research itself, but more importantly on the practical applications of that research.

With this in mind, my dissertation uses an inductive qualitative methodology to explore the nature of self-employment in the developing world as it is; that is, not coloured by theoretical priors. In doing this, I lay the groundwork for understanding the …

Trashé Designs: A Social Enterprise, Cara Walden

MA IDS Thesis Projects

During my years in graduate school, my understanding of economic inequality has further expanded. While my experience in the Peace Corps and Nepal allowed me to see it in real life, my time in school has allowed me to ground these experiences in academic literature. By means of an action research project, my goal is to create economic opportunity for the HIV/AIDS community in Chiang Mai, Thailand, through the creation of the social enterprise Trashé Designs. A social enterprise is a way to address a social challenge with a market-based solution. My social enterprise, Trashé Designs, uses recycled materials to …

Enterprising Outsiders: Livelihood Strategies Of Cape Town’S Forced Migrants, Madeleine Ann Northcote

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Although refugees and registered asylum-seekers have a legal right to work in South Africa, research shows that prevailing anti-immigrant attitudes and South African employers’ suspicion of these migrants’ documents makes employment extraordinarily difficult to acquire. This thesis investigates how, in the face of such challenges, forced migrants in Cape Town secure their day-to-day livelihoods. The research is based on semi-structured, open-ended interviews with thirty-two refugees and other forced migrants who live and operate in the Cape Town area, as well as five key informant interviews with employees of refugee service organizations. It also draws from literature on both South Africa’s …

Institutional Entrepreneurship, Governance And Poverty: Insights From Emergency Medical Response Services In India, Gerard George, Rekha Rao-Nicholson, Christopher Corbishley, Rahul Bansal

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We present an in-depth case study of GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute, an Indian public–private partnership (PPP), which successfully brought emergency medical response to remote and urban settings. Drawing insights from the case, we investigate how the organization established itself through institutional entrepreneurship using a process conceptualized as opportunity framing, entrenchment, and propagation. The case and context highlight the need for innovation in organizational design and governance modes to create a new opportunity that connects state actors, private healthcare providers, and the public at large. We consider the role of open innovation and novel business models in creating these …

How Microlending Affects Innovation And Entrepreneurship: Evidence From Ethiopia, Robert Hirth

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Advocates of microlending suggest it is a sustainable intervention that reaches the poor directly and offers them the means to invest and improve their incomes (Khavul, 2010; Morduch, 1999; Yunus, 2007); yet, impact studies of these interventions have suggested they often have little or even a detrimental impact on borrowers (Van Rooyen, Stewart & De Wet, 2012). This dissertation examines the efforts to promote entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty in developing countries through microlending. I begin by reviewing the microlending literature, and in particular, impact studies of the effect microlending is having in developing countries. Next, I review theory and empirical …

The Chinese Social Enterprise: A Global Phenomenon With Chinese Characteristics, Amanda Jingtong O'Malley

Honors Theses

Social entrepreneurship, a concept that integrates business strategies with achieving social goals, is gaining traction in China. However, it is a distinctly Chinese variant of an approach exported by Western entrepreneurs. The purpose of this thesis to is analyze the Chinese social enterprise by identifying China’s socioeconomic and political forces that create the unique environment in which this trend is taking root. By examining how these factors are changing in China’s progressively more market economy, I conclude that key characteristics of the Chinese social enterprise are also shifting in response—moving from a civil society- originated model to a market‐based social …

The Myth Of The Immigrant Entrepreneur, Daniel Thorson

Summer Research

Abstract: In this paper, I examine the unique business environment with regard to Small- to Medium-sized Enterprises that has manifested in Hong Kong over the last two decades, looking especially through the lenses of financial and immigration regulations as well as cultural considerations. Business in Hong Kong is presented with an unprecedented opportunity in the form of its open regulatory environment, but how do the regulations in place currently contribute to or subtract from entrepreneurial pursuits? I propose that even with Hong Kong’s immigrant industrialist legacy and reputation for free business with well-endowed financial institutions, it is impossibly difficult to …

Economic Empowerment Through Income Generating Activities And Social Mobilization: The Case Of Married Amhara Women Of Wadla Woreda, North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia, Belete Deribie Woldegies

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Wadla Woreda is located in North Wollo Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. The woreda is predominantly agrarian and the population produces mainly subsistence food crops with small amounts of cash crops. Access to basic social and economic services such as health, education, and employment for rural communities is limited due to poor development of rural infrastructure. Wadla is one of the food insecure woredas in the region. As a result some of the people are internally displaced and a portion of the population is included in safety-net programs. The Wadla Woreda is prone to famine due to severe droughts, soil …

Informal Banking And Early International Entrepreneurs: The Case Of The Chettiars, Jayarani Tan, Wee Liang Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

As moneylenders during nineteenth century colonial period the Chettiars were functioned as informal bankers in Asia. They began as communal entrepreneurs in their clan but grew beyond their domestic borders. Despite their smallness and resources, they were able to internationalize. This paper reports a study into their internationalization examining the manner they were able to successfully venture abroad. We found that external factors like the British protectorate and internal factors like their unique socio-cultural institutions and norms and values served as enabling factors for their internationalization. These include a family culture of training the sons for the business, embracing business …

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2012 Singapore Report, Olexander S. Chernyshenko, Marilyn A. Uy, David Gomulya, Francis L. K. Wong, Moon-Ho R. Ho, Yoke Yong Lai, Kim Yan Chan, Olwen Bedford

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Independent of the stage of economic development, entrepreneurship plays a significant role for the expansion, job creation and overall economic health within a country. As a leading international indicator of entrepreneurial activity around the world, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) provides valuable insight into the state of entrepreneurship within and across developed and developing economies. Knowing the entrepreneurial aspirations of country’s residents is particularly relevant to Singapore’s innovation-driven economy given that the country’s prosperity depends largely on the economic activities of its citizens. We describe the key definitions and terms used in the GEM as well as the stages of …

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2011 Singapore Report, Olexander S. Chernyshenko, David Gomulya, Wei Ming J. Phan, Yoke Yong Lai, Moon-Ho R. Ho, Marilyn A. Uy, Kim Yan Chan, Olwen Bedford

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Independent of the stage of economic development, entrepreneurship plays a significant role for the expansion, job creation and overall economic health within a country. As a leading international indicator of entrepreneurial activity around the world, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) provides valuable insight into the state of entrepreneurship within and across developed and developing economies. Knowing the entrepreneurial aspirations of country’s residents is particularly relevant in Singapore’s innovation-driven economy given that the country’s prosperity depends largely on the economic activities of its citizens. We describe the key definitions and terms used in the GEM as well as the stages of …

Manifest Greatness The Final Original Version By Emmanuel Mario B Santos Aka Marc Guerrero, Emmanuel Mario B. Santos Aka Marc Guerrero

Emmanuel Mario B Santos aka Marc Guerrero

MANIFEST GREATNESS vf24jan2010 WE COME TOGETHER THERE OUGHT TO BE NO POOR WE TAKE CHARGE.

Manifest Greatness... Panahon Ng Mga Filipino Ang 21st Century: Ang Asian Century (Ang Pagpapanumbalik Sa Likas Na Karangalan Ng Lahat Ng Filipino Sa Buong Mundo), Emmanuel Mario B. Santos Aka Marc Guerrero

Emmanuel Mario B Santos aka Marc Guerrero

MANIFEST GREATNESS Panahon ng mga Filipino ang 21st century: Ang Asian Century (Ang pagpapanumbalik sa likas na Karangalan ng lahat ng Filipino sa buong mundo) Manifest Greatness is a work-in-progress Manifesto of, for and by Filipino citizens of the world in synergy with foreign national friends of the Filipino people worldwide in pursuit of genuine entrepreneurial wisdom