Business Commons^™

Growing Entrepreneurial Communities, Mark Bannister, Justin W. Evans

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

A pioneering segment of economic development practitioners, entrepreneurs, and scholars have advocated moving away from industrial recruitment and attraction programs to instead focus on designing vibrant systems for starting and growing businesses as a strategic approach for creating jobs, affluence, and community vitality. This article considers the lessons learned from “the largest focus group in economic development”—the 2016 Growing Entrepreneurial Communities Summit. The findings from this study are among the first to report the input from a broad spectrum of thought leaders including entrepreneurs, practitioner experts, and academics on creating entrepreneurial communities reflecting a strong consensus on processes and …

Mentoring Women Entrepreneurs: Perceived Needs And Benefits, David W. Whitlock, Ashley J. Hampton, Kitty Campbell

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

Women entrepreneurs are a rapidly growing demographic. Mentoring is a recurring theme in the literature as a valuable contribution in helping women entrepreneurs succeed. The roles of mentoring as well as the literature of mentoring relationships is presented, followed by a study in which the demand and perceived benefit for mentoring was conducted among women currently engaged or self-identified as aspiring small business owners and entrepreneurs. Women who participated a conference for female entrepreneurs, jointly sponsored by Southeastern Oklahoma State University and the Oklahoma Small Business Development Center, were surveyed. The survey consisted of five sections: the first gathered respondent’s …

Performance Of Technological Startups: The Interaction Of R&D And Founding Team Human Capital, Qian Ye, Weijun Zheng

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

This study examines the impacts of R&D on new-born startups’ revenue during the 0-3 age period, as well as investigating the moderating role of founding team human capital in the R&D-revenue relationship. The sample is from a longitudinal panel data from the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS), including a total of 1369 technology-based startups established in year 2004 and a total of 286 founding teams. Consistent with findings of previous research, results of this study suggest that startups who engage in R&D investments and activities in gestation/initial stage of business development have significant higher likelihood of obtaining high revenue in the …

Entrepreneurial Resilience, A Key Soft Skill To Develop In A Crisis Situation: Proposal For A Measurement Scale, Hajer Najeh, Salim Morched

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

Any resilient development that enables an entrepreneur to overcome a crisis is seen as an essential feature of the entrepreneur's profile. In order to acquire this quality, we must first understand how entrepreneurs perceive and assess their level of resilience. This involves defining the concept by identifying its underlying dimensions to conceptualize and measure it. Thus, this article presents the different stages of building a scale to assess the level of resilience of Tunisian entrepreneurs. These measures are based on a survey of 152 entrepreneurs following the paradigm of Churchill (1979). This paradigm allows the rigorous construction of questionnaire-type measurement …

Entrepreneurship And Decision Making: Have Your Cake And Eat It Too, Rhonda Richards, Courtney Kernek, Kendra Ingram, Kitty Campbell

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

Caked Up! is a small, local bakery in Oklahoma owned and operated by cake designer Lauran Fuller. Caked Up! serves cake, cupcakes, house-made ice cream, coffee, and an assortment of baked goods, including cake pops. In addition, they offer custom cake orders for special occasions. In March of 2014, Lauran opened the Caked Up! retail storefront. The case explains Lauran’s bakery from passion to performance, and gives an overview of the internal and external factors that have influenced its growth. In September of 2018, there were three key issues that Lauran is considering to improve Caked Up!’s likelihood of success: …

Social Media Impact On Entrepreneurship Intention: Lessons Learned From Business Startuppers, Panagiotis Mallios, Leonidas Zampetakis, Vassilis Moustakis

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

The potential impact of social media use on the development of entrepreneurial intention has received little attention. In addressing this gap, research reported herein extends entrepreneurial intention literature by explicitly incorporating social media use. Inquiry investigates development of intention via specific social media factors that influence intention through its antecedents, namely, perceived entrepreneurial desirability and perceived entrepreneurial feasibility. The article summarizes the salient aspects of a quantitative study of social media usage and startup entrepreneurial intention in Greece. Based on the entrepreneurship event model, theory of planned behavior and technology acceptance and adoption models, this article examines potential social media …

Rural Entrepreneurs Under Fire: Pandemic Reveals Need For Collaboration And Support, Jacob A. Dolence, James C. Haug

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

This article summarizes a research study done from April 2020 until April 2021 to examine the challenges, response, and tactics, of entrepreneurs in rural southern Virginia. In particular, the research goes into depth of how the COVID-19 pandemic effected operations, how entrepreneurs responded, and what measures they took to stay viable. Finally, the article proposes a framework for rapid response in the case of future pandemics, natural disasters, or economic events that cause similar disruptions.

Covid Reboot: Making A Case For Cultural Change To Increase Employee Engagement, Martin S. Bressler

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

When traveling around the country, you will notice that many small businesses have closed, in many instances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a recent study by economists at the Federal Reserve, 200,000 U.S. business establishments shut their doors during the first year of the pandemic in addition to the 600,000 businesses per year that permanently closed. Many states have reported that 40% or more small businesses have closed in their state (Congressional Research Service, April 2020).

However, even more disturbing than the number of businesses closing is the difficulty in staffing positions across the country. The hospitality industry …

Franchisepreneurship, A 10 Year Case Study, Peggy L. Lane, Michael R. Lane, J. Logan Jones

Journal of Business & Entrepreneurship

An entrepreneurial philanthropist who wanted to help students “get on the field” of owning and operating their own businesses provided funding to name a school of business in the Midwest. He focused on the concept of working with a franchisor to help locate opportunities to get young “franchisepreneurs” started. The University would train the students on how to operate a small business, and the franchisor would help the university locate an underperforming franchise and sell the franchise to a student at a relatively low price. To qualify, a student would have to win a “franchise” competition hosted by the university. …