Business Commons^™

Motivations Of One Small Business Community To Implement Environmental Sustainability As A Business Practice, Ruth C. Hughes, Marleen Troy

Journal of Environmental Sustainability

Small businesses in the Central Business District of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania were surveyed to determine their familiarity with and attitudes towards environmental sustainability, including obstacles and motivators for implementation as well as current business practices. While publications on similar topics existed for small businesses in other countries, there appeared to be little recent published research for small business communities in the United States. The research used a combination of online surveys and interviews with business owners and managers to gather data, as well as an extensive literature review for the basis of the analysis. Research results from the local survey …

Research Brief: "Training And Educational Development For “Vetrepreneurs"", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This research discusses the types of programs available to veterans, and presents a framework for evaluating the performance of veteran entrepreneurship programs. In practice, veteran entrepreneurs should continue taking advantage of available programs and veteran entrepreneurship program directors, and managers should consider reviewing the eight outcomes provided by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) in the UK. In policy, the VA might continue supporting veteran-owned businesses through its many programs and services, and the SBA might continue offering courses, training, and funding to support veteran entrepreneurs. Suggestions for future research include evaluating what learning outcomes veterans should develop after …

A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Exploration Of A Crowdfunding Entrepreneurial Pitch., Victoria Doyle, Olivia Freeman, Brendan K. O`Rourke

Conference papers

This paper explores multimodal discourse analysis (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001) as a methodology to address the research question: How are environmentally conscious entrepreneurial ventures constituted in online investment crowd-funding pitches and the communications that surround them? While discourse may be realised in many different ways (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001 p.5, Bezemer and Jewit, 2010), multimodal discourse analysis focuses on analysing and describing a repertoire of meaning making resources which individuals use in various contexts (visual, gestural, written, actional etc.). Broadband internet and associated technologies mean that these crowdfunding pitches and many other genres tend to be much richer …

Impact Of Leadership Styles On Entrepreneurs' Business Success, Hona Amer

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Leadership styles play an important role in entrepreneurial businesses in today’s business marketplace. The Full Range Leadership Model provides a framework for transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles, as measured by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), while the ENTRELEAD scale has been used to assess the entrepreneurial leadership style. A review of the literature reveals limited empirical research focused on the effect of entrepreneurial leadership as applied in the contemporary marketplace. Limited research also exists on the effectiveness of the combination of these leadership styles for entrepreneurs in order to positively affect business performance and business longevity. The problem of …

Two Essays On The Impact Of Institutional Structures On Entrepreneurship: Country Level Analysis, Mehdi Sharifi Khobdeh

Management Theses & Dissertations

Entrepreneurship has long been viewed as an engine of innovation and economic growth; however, there is limited understanding of cross-national differences in rates and types of entrepreneurship. This dissertation mainly uses an institutional theory framework to investigate whether shared social knowledge, value systems, and regulations influence differences in rates and types of entrepreneurial activities among countries.

This dissertation’s central research question is addressed in two essays. In Essay 1, I examine what factors explain the recovery of entrepreneurial activities in countries after the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC). Nearly all countries experienced a sharp drop in entrepreneurial activities during the …

Little Things That Count: A Call For Organizational Research On Microbusinesses, Alice M. Brawley, Cynthia L.S. Pury

Management Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Incubator is to encourage organizational researchers to attend to the most common type of business in the United States—the microbusiness. After defining and describing these businesses, we propose research questions on defining and managing performance, organizational citizenship, and work–family conflict in this novel business setting.

Dental Practice Success Vol. 4 No. 2, American Dental Association, Publishing Division

Dental Practice Success

No abstract provided.

Strategic Management In Small Business: An Exploratory Study, Nicholas Gary Schlereth Ph.D., Mba

Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences ETDs

Small businesses make up approximately 98% of all businesses in the United States, but little is known about how they engage with their communities and engage in strategic management (Small Business Administration, 2016). To understand more about how small businesses engage in these practices, this study seeks to explore these topics through a technology enhanced qualitative study design (Marshall & Rossman, 2015). The study sought to replicate face-to-face interviews through an online survey with open-ended questions designed to learn from small business decision makers regarding their actions and the actions of their organizations. The study had 45 total participants from …

Does The Crowd Support Innovation? Innovation Claims And Success On Kickstarter, Anirban Mukherjee, Cathy L. Yang, Ping Xiao, Amitava Chattopadhyay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Online crowdfunding is a popular new tool for raising capital to commercialize product innovation. Product innovation must be both novel and useful (1-4). Therefore, we study the role of novelty and usefulness claims on Kickstarter. Startlingly, we find that a single claim of novelty increases project funding by about 200%, a single claim of usefulness increases project funding by about 1200%, and the co-occurrence of novelty andusefulness claims lowers funding by about 26%. Our findings are encouraging because they suggest the crowd strongly supports novelty and usefulness. However, our findings are disappointing because the premise of crowdfunding is to support …

Using Insider Action Research In The Study Of Digital Entrepreneurial Processes: A Pragmatic Design Choice?, Kisito Futonge

Conference papers

This paper proposes that insider action research (IAR), with its iterative and emergent form of inquiry, presents a pragmatic design choice for understanding the nature of uncertainty surrounding the digital entrepreneurial process. Since entrepreneurship in the digital context is a highly dynamic and fluid process, IAR appears well-suited for use in researching it. Yet, the paucity of application in entrepreneurship research in general, and less so in the emerging digital space, is rather puzzling. Thus, using a ‘live’ case study in the e-learning domain, this paper contributes by shining light on how this design choice might be set up and …

Gender Inclusion Activities In Entrepreneurship Ecosystems: The Case Of St. Louis, Mo And Boston, Ma, Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Karren Knowlton, Susan Clark Muntean

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

Women-owned businesses have an economic impact of nearly $3 trillion in the U.S. Despite the tremendous opportunity for economic growth they present, women entrepreneurs lag behind their male counterparts in terms of number of start-ups and scaling of businesses. To understand how and why this may be taking shape, we focus on the role of entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) or those organizations that act as intermediaries between the resources of a local ecosystem and entrepreneurs. All organizations that have as their proverbial mission to serve, support or partner with entrepreneurs can be categorized as ESOs. Given their role as decision …

Sewing Garments, Sowing Lives: Two Generations Of Migrant Workers' Back And Forth To The Chinese Coast, Alice Tzou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Migrant workers in China have been at the center of popular news media and scholarly attention for three decades, since they started to migrate to work in factories on the coast in the post-1978 Economic Reform era. As western and central China has developed and work opportunities have arisen in these migrant-sending regions, internal migrants have started to return home. Push and pull factors of internal migration have been reversed. Poverty and lack of job opportunities used to be the push factors; they are now replaced by new push factors—long hours of work and long-distance travel to and from the …

Profiling The International New Venture -A Literature Review Of The Empirical Evidence, Natasha Evers

The ITB Journal

International New Ventures (INVs) are defined as "business organisations that, from inception, seek to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries" (McDougall et al., 1994: 470). Globalisation, the dismantling of trade barriers, and the pervasive impact of new technologies have created unprecedented opportunities for young firms to go international early in their life cycle. This is also evidenced by the large number of long established firms that have recently internationalised. In light of these global trends, size of the firm is no longer a key determinant of internationalisation as it …

The Appeal Of Singapore’S Beauty Industry, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

How CITISPA has grown in the beauty industry

Entrepreneurship For All?, Paulynne Castillo

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

No abstract provided.

Estimating The Cost Of Equity In Emerging Markets: A Case Study, Benoit Boyer, Ralph Lim, Bridget M. Lyons

WCBT Faculty Publications

A firm's weighted average cost of capital is an integral component in capital budgeting decisions and in assessment of the firm's enterprise and equity value. Estimation of the cost of equity is a key component in determining the overall cost of capital. The calculation of the cost of equity for U.S. based corporations is relatively straightforward and is most often estimated as a function of the U.S. risk-free rate, the firm's beta value, and an estimate of the average risk premium associated with equity investments compared to risk free assets. Since U.S. financial markets are fairly liquid and reasonably efficient, …

Business Model: California Agriculture Marketing Agency, Mary M. Alameda, Emma L. Larson

Agricultural Education and Communication

The importance of creating a marketing agency specializing in agriculture is to bridge the gap between producers and consumers. The lack of transparency from the producer has created a torn industry causing the average consumer to be questioning his or her food, or simply not understanding the agricultural way of life. An agricultural marketing firm in California can represent and advocate for local businesses to start closing the producer to consumer gap.

The American farmer excels at many things, but lacks in public communications. Modern day farmers have been able to produce more food than ever despite fewer resources and …

Increasing Equity Through B Corp Certification In The Coffee Commodity Supply Chain, Emily Hlavka

Capstone Collection

The coffee industry is a cornerstone of Nicaragua’s economy. Coffee production shapes communities and is a major factor in the development of the country. Coffee cooperatives in Nicaragua are often Fairtrade and Organic certified, yet their farmers continue to struggle to secure stable livelihoods. In this inquiry, I sought to understand whether becoming a Certified B Corp and interacting with the B Corp network could improve farmer livelihoods for production cooperatives. B Corp Certification seeks to redefine success in business with the unifying goal of creating a more inclusive economy. B Corps, for-profit businesses which have passed the rigorous B …

Culture, Inner-City Education And Improving Economic Growth In Birmingham, Alabama, Leroy Abrahams

Capstone Collection

Perhaps the greatest reminder of the economic inequities in American society is the drastic deficiencies in educational outcomes, based on class and race. Birmingham, Alabama, vividly portrays this reality. Families with means send their children to private schools and/or concentrate in the suburbs, leaving largely poor, and oftentimes, predominantly minority in densely populated crime-ridden areas with suboptimal schooling. The schooling patterns are clearly reflected in the economic outcomes, though Black are a majority in the city they are vastly underrepresented in the middle to upper middle class, while grossly overrepresented among those in poverty. These inequities are often mirrored in …

Do Rio, Barbara Brasil Marcolini

Capstones

Do Rio is a solutions journalism platform for residents of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It consists of a website and Facebook page where Rio de Janeiro’s citizens find inspiring stories of people who found solutions for their city’s problems, exchange ideas about the the challenges Rio faces and take part in events with positive impact. This project was created by Barbara Marcolini at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism as part of her Master’s in Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY J-School.

Link: http://do-rio.com/

Irish Local And Artisan Foods: Multiples Make Space!, Michelle Dunne, Angela Wright

Dept. of Organisation & Professional Development Publications

Consumers are now bombarded with marketing messages in relation to food choice and consumption, but modern day consumers are very concerned with the food chain and have become discerning about their food choices.

This research examines “Local and Artisan” food choices and finds that consumers in general would like to have easy access to such products. While traditionally found at farmers’ markets, now everyday access is sought through Supermarkets. The researchers were fortunate in having access to a large supermarket rewards programme database where 14,646 supermarket shoppers responded. The study finds that Local and Artisan food products are desired by …

Zeppy Low Calorie Alcoholic Beverages Business Plan, Allison Zeppuhar

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The documentation of a college-level student starting her first company in the alcoholic beverage industry. Allison Zeppuhar created a low calorie alcoholic beverage brand called Zeppy during her junior and senior year of college at James Madison University. This documentation includes an executive summary, a reflection of her findings, her timeline, an entity-relationship diagram, To Be Manufacturing and Customer Order process maps, and a progress journal.

Neighborhood Segregation And Black Entrepreneurship, Eric Fesselmeyer, Kiat Ying Seah

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

We examine the causal effect of neighborhood segregation on black entrepreneurship. We address neighborhood sorting by analyzing city averages and omitted variable bias by instrumenting for segregation using historical railroad configurations. We find that segregation has a significant positive effect: a 10 percentage point increase in the dissimilarity index decreases the racial gap by about 3.3 percentage points. To minimize the effect of cross-city sorting, we use a narrower sample constructed from outcomes of young adults and find a similar effect. Our findings are importantbecause historically, entrepreneurship has been an avenue out of poverty, and entrepreneurship has been promoted as …

Banking The Unbanked In The Philippines, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The Ayala Group brought together two of its subsidiaries, Globe Telecom and Bank of the Philippines Island, to bring banking services to 80 percent of the country

Redefining “Success”: Toward A Community Minded Restaurant Industry, Molly Bennett

Senior Honors Projects

Restaurants are at the heart of communities across the United States. They contribute to the local culture, provide space for families and neighbors to gather, and help shape the identity of towns, and cities. Restaurants should reflect not just the culture, but the values and priorities of the communities where they are located. Whether it’s in terms of the treatment of their workers, the environmental impact of their daily operations, or the health implications of their food, I believe that restaurants should reflect the values of a community. As a student graduating with a major in supply chain management, my …

2017 Q2 Private Capital Access Index Report, Craig R. Everett

Pepperdine Private Capital Access Report

The Pepperdine Private Capital Access Index (PCA) is a quarterly indicator produced by the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University, and with the support of Dun & Bradstreet. The index is designed to measure the demand for, activity, and health of the private capital markets. The purpose of the PCA Index is to gauge the demand of small and medium sized businesses for financing needs, the level of accessibility of private capital, and the transparency and efficiency of private financing markets.

Lcw Marketing Newsletter Volume 7 Issue 1, Touro College Lander College For Women, Lander College For Women

Yearbooks and Newsletters

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between The Human And Social Capital Characteristics Of Nascent Entrepreneurs And Expected Job Growth In The United States, William Dwight Burge

Dissertations

The global financial crisis (GFC) that began in 2007 negatively impacted new business creation (Davidsson & Gordon, 2015). Entrepreneurship has been identified as a viable way to generate jobs in the United States since the 1970s (U.S. Small Business Administration, 2014). However, the literature suggests that there has been a decline in entrepreneurship in the United States (Clifton, 2015; Singh & Ogbolu, 2015). Capital is important to those individuals involved in entrepreneurship (Cetindamar, Gupta, Karadeniz, & Egrican, 2012), specifically, human capital and the social network connections or social capital resources of the entrepreneur (Becker, 1993; Schutjens & Völker, 2010).

This …

Relationship Between Generations Of Entrepreneurs And Entrepreneurial Traits, Ihsan Eken

Theses & Dissertations

This quantitative descriptive study investigated the relationship between 3 different generations of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship traits. The specific purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial traits and generations of U.S. entrepreneurs in Southwest (San Antonio), Northeast (Dallas), Center (Austin), and Southeast (Houston) Texas, to see whether generational differences are associated with entrepreneurial traits. 3 different generations of entrepreneurs were investigated in the study: baby boomers, generations Xers, and millennials. The research aimed to contribute beneficial insights to their understanding in enterprising potential and differentiate themselves in entrepreneurial traits in (a) need for achievement, (b) need for …

Senior Business Seminar Proposal, Alex C. Mcgrainer

Senior Honors Projects

How could a single idea increase the value of a university’s college of business? My project aims to do this through the successful implementation of a single class. It addresses some of the most important factors that current and prospective students should consider while they undergo their college searches, such as the post-graduation employment rate and starting salary across majors of interest.

My inspiration for the topic came from students struggling to find a job. I realized that every year around March, they would begin to suffer due to the self-inflicted pressure of being unemployed after commencement. I immediately knew …