Business Commons^™

Entrepreneurship In Nebraska, Van Tran, Eric Thompson, William Walstad

Business in Nebraska

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN NEBRASKA

Recent trends in economic indicators such as unemployment rates and job growth clearly favor Nebraska. However, these trends may differ from the state’s performance in core measures of economic strength such as entrepreneurship, net migration and capital formation. Given this, the University of Nebraska - Lincoln Bureau of Business Research seeks to track these core economic measures in Nebraska and in all U.S. states.

The state entrepreneurship index is one effort to track these core trends. Specifically, the index is used to track entrepreneurship in Nebraska and compare with the other forty-nine states.

The index was developed …

The Accelerator, Volume 5 Issue 8, Summer 2011, Christa Santos

The Accelerator

No abstract provided.

Developing A Sustainable Business Plan At The Shopping Center Of Southpointe Mall In Lincoln, Nebraska, Jessica Marie Hanson

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

This project consists of creating sustainable business plans for a group of diverse retail stores at the mall of SouthPointe Pavilions in Lincoln, Nebraska. A series of interviews took place with five managers at the businesses including: Scheels, Old Chicago, Bed Bath and Beyond, Von Maur, and Barnes and Noble. The questions were based around five different topics including: Technological, Environment, Socio-Cultural, Economic, and Public Policy. The Technological area includes processes with the product (or service) that occur before it arrives, during, and after it is sold. The Public Policy area includes if the business has an environmental policy, how …

Detrimental Effects Of Interventions With The Corporate Governance Mechanisms Of Young Entrepreneurial Firms, Guclu M. Atinc

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to assess the post-IPO performance structures of young entrepreneurial firms. Based on the propositions of the signaling model, I propose that the firm IPO performance is a determining factor in post-IPO changes in ownership structures. Furthermore, I contend that the new owners that replace the original ones in young IPO firms will be prone to request changes in corporate governance mechanisms such as top management team membership and the boards of directors based on the need to have their own agents looking after their interests as recommended by the agency theory. Following these alterations …

Sme Inc: Corporate Success And Social Good, Paul Lim, Brendan Barrett, Nils Steinbrecher, Tomoki Fujii, Ted Tschang, Lieven Demeester

Research Collection School Of Economics

Panel of experts share their views ranging from the definition of sustainable business to how governments should lead by example.

Sunshine Café: A Breakfast Restaurant Business Plan, Lillian I. Burrow

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose:

The purpose of this paper is to create a business plan for the SunShine Café. While the commonly known statistic of 90% of restaurants fail within the first year is false, approximately 60% of restaurants do fail within their first three years of operation (Parsa, Self, Njite, & King, 2005). The problem for entrepreneurs starting a restaurant is how does one reduce this risk of failure.

One way to minimize this risk is to create a business plan. Thus the main objective of this paper is to create a business plan that will not only help the restaurant develop …

Business Plan For 1st Street Diner And Nightclub, Brian D. Deets

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A business plan was created for a diner and nightclub located in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, and the concept was found to be unique to the Des Moines area. The downtown community is home to sixty-six American-cuisine eateries, is under continued development, and looking to house more restaurant and entertainment establishments. Des Moines has a five-county metropolitan area with a population of 562,000 and Des Moines alone is home to 200,000 people. The downtown community is growing, and with the projected employment outlook to rise 11%, downtown’s 77,000 employees will also increase. These findings suggest that there is a market …

The Management Of An Indigenous Hotel Chain Company In China: A Case Study Of Sichuan Minshan Hotel Corporation, Yinglin Wang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Justification:

The hotel industry has a comparatively lower threshold for market entry. This has enabled many international foreign competitors to successfully take up a fairly large share of this market. The competition in this emerging industry in China is becoming increasingly fierce as time progresses. Due to the pressure of growing number of foreign competitors, some indigenous hotels in China have started to follow in their footsteps and expand their sister properties across the country. However managing hotel chain properties is still new to most of these indigenous hotel chain organizations and the hotel chain effects of maximizing profits have …

Research Study Proposal For Nightlife Company (San Francisco, Ca), Trevor Hewitt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction:

This research proposal proposes a study to evaluate the differences in consumer spending amongst a company’s three types of customers (pre-sale ticketed, paid admission, free admission) once granted entry to one of the company’s nightclub venues in order to evaluate the optimal supply mix of customer type to maximize revenues. Since the company’s venue has a finite customer capacity limit due to safety and fire regulations and laws and it generally reaches these legal capacity levels on the vast majority of the nights it is open for business (leaving surplus customers unable to enter the venue), the proposed research …

Market Research For Kenz Kouture Accessories, Mackenzie Kassis

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration

Kenz Kouture is a recently developed business venture specializing in handmade jewelry. This study was conducted to understand the market and the consumer’s wants and needs of the products and prices of this new venture. The purpose of this study was to assess the market, product development, and potential success for the custom jewelry company, Kenz Kouture. Topics for the literature review included consumer buying behavior and entrepreneurship. An online questionnaire was distributed using Facebook and utilized snowball sampling to gather data from 238 subjects. The results indicate Kenz Kouture’s current fan base and product base have the potential to …

User Patterns Of Key Performance Indicators Among Non-Profits In New York City And Westchester County, Gregory Holtz Phd

Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship

After a brief description of the study participants, the four major questions which guide the research are explored:

• What percent of the non-profits in the study use KPI’s and what are the different purposes served by the non-profit’s sector adoption of KPI’s?
• What are the various uses of KPI’S by non-profits?
• What are the pressures that come from funders to use KPI’s?
• Why do some non-profits not use Key Performance Indicators?

The context inside of which these questions were posed is one that has changed rapidly over the last several years. For many years non-profit organizations concentrated their considerable energies …

Public Relations: The Importance Of Community Relationships Between Small-Businesses And The Community, Jayne Elizabeth Crabtree

Journalism

With the downturn of the economy public relations has been one of the first departments to be discontinued in many businesses as an effort to save more money. This paper addresses the importance of community relationships, particularly in the small town of Cambria, California. The importance of the building relationships will be addressed from the prospective of successful Cambrian businesses currently involved in the community, as well as the perspective of one business not yet getting involved, The Tea Cozy.

Recommendations For Economic Development In Guadalupe, Ca, Larissa Requa Heeren

Master's Theses

It is recommended that the City of Guadalupe prepare and implement a small-scale business expansion and retention program using existing service providers in the area.  This type of program model seems to hold the most potential for Guadalupe. A mixed-methods approach including in-depth cases studies of existing economic development programs and an analysis of opportunities and constraints in Guadalupe informs a set recommendations for future economic development in the City. Data was collected in three phases: short interviews with a variety of economic development program staff, short interviews with Guadalupe business owners and City officials and in-depth interviews with staff …

Interview With Franklin Jones, B-Line, 2011 (Audio), Franklin Jones

All Sustainability History Project Oral Histories

Interview of Franklin Jones by Grant Russ at Portland, Oregon on May 31st, 2011.

The interview index is available for download.

Risky Ventures With Possibly No Returns: The Allure Of The "Wonderful But Weird World Of Biotechnology", Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Entrepreneurs in the biotech industry require large risk thresholds. For one, the business of research is an expensive one, the results of which may not necessarily translate to commercial viability. Investors with the foresight and patience for such long-term, high-risk ventures are also hard to come by. At a talk organised by SMU's Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Dr. Steven Fang, founder of CordLife, shared insights on what 'biotechopreneurship' entails.

An Entrepreneur’S Voyage, With The Five Rs As His Guide, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Behind the glamour of the booming marine industry, are the various supporting players like ship chandlers and maintenance service providers that help keep the vessels well-oiled and their crews well fed. In a recent talk organised by SMU’s Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Danny Lien, founder of Amos International, shares how he run this business based on relationship, reputation, resilience, realism and recreation.

Franchise Partnership And International Expansion: A Conceptual Framework And Research Propositions, Dhruv Grewal, Golpalkrishnan R. Iyer, Rajshekar G. Javalgi, Lori Radulovich

Business Faculty Publications

Although academic research has provided tremendous insights about the organizational form of franchising, considerable work remains with regard to understanding the critical factors that enable international franchise expansion and performance. The authors advance the argument that a franchise relationship is essentially an entrepreneurial partnership, and that this partnership influences the speed, scale, and scope of franchise expansion into international markets. In the proposed conceptual model, the authors detail the links among the franchise partnership, international expansion, and franchise system performance.

Muslim Entrepreneurship In Ireland, Thomas M. Cooney, Jennifer Manning, Amr Arisha, Peter Smyth

Reports

No abstract provided.

The Application Of Creative Leadership Skills In The Education And Mentoring Of Social Entrepreneurs: A Graduate Level Course, Maria J. Rivera

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The purpose of this project is to fully comprehend the state of social entrepreneurship education through research, and consequently, to design a course on how to apply creative leadership skills to educate and mentor social entrepreneurs and to enhance their problem solving skills. The outcome of the project is a course proposal to build inter-disciplinary knowledge and skills.

Yak, A Green Icon And A Good Investment, Caroline Kang

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

“Yak, A Green Icon and Good Investment” was conceived after I briefly interned for the Mongol Yak Society during the NGO Drop Off. I became interested and even, invested in their mission. For three weeks of the ISP period, I worked closely with the Mongolian Yak Society based in Ulaanbaatar and researched how increasing the productive value of yaks through improved communications, equipment, knowledge, and support will address several key environmental and economic issues. I further focused on the Mongolian Yak Society and its role as a detached entity that intervenes on various levels of the yak wool value chain: …

Commercial Patterns And Spatial Networks In Hanoi’S Old Quarter: A Case Study Of Vendors On Lan Ong Street, Daniel Weiner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Walking the streets of the Hanoi’s Old Quarter, one can easily begin to question the economic viability of the area’s commercial pattern. That is, how can multiple stores that sell the exact same products coexist in such a densely concentrated arena? Why do traders with the same goods choose to locate next to each other? Through a literature review of the history of Hanoi’s Old Quarter as well as a case study of the vendors on Lan Ong Street, I examine the purpose and the functionality of the Old Quarter’s spatial structure. I find that the vendors in the Old …

The Business Of Art, The Art Of Business, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Fuelled by her life-long passion for the arts, Krisstel Martin chucked aside her degree in finance and banking to open an art gallery. At a recent talk organised by SMU’s Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Martin, owner of a gallery named after herself, shares the intricacies of dealing with prospective buyers, the joys of dealing with artists, and the passion and satisfaction of immersing herself in a business that she loves.

The Society Project, Stephen W. Rumbaugh

Master of Humanities Capstone Projects

The Society Project explores the concept of social entrepreneurship through the sales of handmade vegan bar soap on the website www.SocietyBodycare.com. Society Bodycare follows the "buy one/give one" business model, by which a bar of soap is donated for every bar of soap purchased by a customer. The four components which comprise this thesis project include a concise business description, a detailed branding guide, a functioning website, and a reflective essay conveying the motivations, inspirations, and historic details of the project and how it fits into the world of social entrepreneurship.

Factors That Stimulate And Motivate Entrepreneurs To Start Enterprises In The Growth-Oriented, Knowledge-Based Industry Sector: A Kerry Case Study, George Nash

Theses

This study focuses on the stimulation and development of growth-oriented entrepreneurs in Co. Kerry, with particular emphasis on the knowledge-based sector. The knowledge-based sector has been identified as a key area for development by the enterprise support agencies. The rationale for the study arose from the knowledge that a certain enterprise boom had taken place in Kerry in recent years and this had resulted in the creation of a new culture of entrepreneurial development in the county.

The research aims to profile Kerry‟s growthoriented knowledge-based entrepreneurs and to identify the factors that stimulated them to initiate and develop business ventures …

Becoming A Firm: An Investigation Of How One-Person Enterprises Construct The Problem Of Becoming An Employer, Ronda M. Smith Nelson

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study draws on Coase’s (1937) Theory of the Firm, that suggests a firm exists only after it has employees and Penrose’s (1959) Theory of the Growth of the Firm which suggests human resources are a critical asset to the firm as a means to better   understand the issue of job creation in the United States especially among one-person enterprises (OPEs).  From the perspective of entrepreneurial cognition, and in the context of ill-defined problems (Abelson & Levi.1985) a survey was conducted to better understand the Becoming an Employer Problem (BEP) as it is perceived by OPEs.  A measure of the …

Capital One “Getting Down To Business”: A Program Analysis Of Old South Baton Rouge Neighborhood Businesses In The Context Of Economic Revitalization And Small Business Development, Laura Carleton

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Cost Of The Connoisseur’S Cup: Power Dynamics In A Tea Factory’S Conversion To Organic Production, Karen Gardner

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper analyzes the identity of the tea factory as relating to small-holder tea farmers in eastern Nepal as well as the effects of a tea factory’s conversion to organic production on the bargaining power of tea farmers. This research uses both primary and secondary sources, including but not limited to interviews with tea farmers in the Sundarpani area of the Ilam district of eastern Nepal as well as interviews with staff members of Gorkha Tea Estate in the same area. The research findings indicate that though tea factories in the eastern hill region of Nepal act as efficient, expert …

Community Empowerment Through Youth Employment: A Comparative Study Of Social Programs For Youth Job Creation, Stacey Nelson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Entrepreneurial training may be a better means to livelihoods for youth in Uganda today than vocational or traditional education models. Even those with university degrees have difficulties being selected from saturated applicant pools for professional careers; vocational training programs give their otherwise-uneducated or unskilled students the means to an occupation though positions are limited. In traditional education systems or vocational programs, supplementary education encouraging entrepreneurship can help create careers where opportunities are scarce. By mobilizing youth, communities prosper. These activities can even create direct community benefit themselves.

This research observes the processes of both a vocational training model and a …

White Water Rafting And Its Role In Entrepreneurship At Bujagali Falls, Alex Nelson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The intention of this report was to explore the white water rafting industry on the Upper White Nile. Although the White Nile is widely considered one of the greatest stretches of white water in the world, there is little actually known about the industry itself. As a result the following research investigates the entrepreneurial nature of the rafting industry and its related adventure tourism activities. Additionally the research investigates the role of the soon to be finished Bujagali Hydroelectric Project and future dams to examine the impacts they are making on the local businesses and the community as a whole. …

Student-Centered Learning, Alex Stewart

Management Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.