Business Commons^™

Institutional Asymmetry And The Acceptability Of Undeclared Work: Synthesis Report, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Evaluating Competing Theories Of Informal Sector Entrepreneurship: A Study Of The Determinants Of Cross-Country Variations In Enterprises Starting-Up Unregistered, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Explaining Cross-Country Variations In The Prevalence Of Informal Sector Competitors: Lessons From The World Bank Enterprise Survey, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Analysis Of Small Business Innovation In Green Technologies, Anthony Breitzman, Patrick Thomas

Anthony Breitzman

No abstract provided.

The Quality Of Jobs Created By Entrepreneurs, Adam Seth Litwin, Philip Phan

Adam Seth Litwin

Few dare to challenge the conventional wisdom that small business is the engine of job creation. Indeed, in the United States, the image of the small business owner left largely unfettered to create novel products and services sits on the same cultural plane as baseball and apple pie, and one would be hard-pressed to find a policymaker who would openly question the wisdom that most new jobs arise either directly or indirectly from these small businesses. This near religious belief in the small business owner as job creator yields a steady stream of policies offering tax relief to small businesses, …

A Proposed Methodology To Promote Adoption Of 'Green' Production By Small Firms, Elizabeth Walker, Janice Redmond, Margaret Giles

Janice Redmond Dr

Small firms are critical to all economies but also have a significant negative impact on the environment. Their collective footprint equates to 60% of industrial pollution yet small firm owner-managers are not convinced of the necessity for behaviour change. This paper develops a proposed methodology to engage small firm owner-managers in 'green' production, in particular adoption of energy saving and waste recycling practices. This methodology includes a suggested approach to determining the 'tipping point' for the investment of time and resources by small firms. The paper argues that knowing the 'tipping point' and making a realistic business case should encourage …

Waste Recycling: Local Methods For Successful Interaction With Small Business, Elizabeth Walker, Janice Redmond, Calvin Wang

Janice Redmond Dr

Environmental management practices are common in large companies, but rare in small businesses even though, collectively, their environmental footprint is substantially greater. There is, therefore, a crucial need to engage small businesses in practices that reduce their environmental impact and assist sustainability. However, the management of environmental issues in small business is the domain of the owner-manager who is often resource poor, both financially and in the amount of time available to implement new sustainable practices. A survey of 139 small businesses in a light industrial area has provided an indication of the environmental footprint of small business by showing …

Gender Differences In Small Business Strategic Planning: Do Women Plan More Than Men?, Elizabeth Walker, Calvin Wang, Janice Redmond

Janice Redmond Dr

As the world of work changes and uncertainty continues in regard to employment conditions, more women are motivated to start their own businesses. However, many women-owned businesses are very small and appear to have limited growth capacity. There are few business role models for women in corporate Australia. So how do women break in? The evidence suggests that not only do many women have the capacity to grow their businesses, they also have the desire. Given the positive relationship between strategic planning and business success, this paper considers whether women are more likely than men to strategically plan their business …

Small Business Environmental Management:: Rhetoric Or Reality?, Janice Redmond, Elizabeth Walker, Calvin Wang

Janice Redmond Dr

Objectives - To investigate the attitudes of small business owner-managers toward environmental management. Prior work - Environmental management has commonly been practiced by large companies, however,. The need to engage small businesses also in these practices is crucial to sustainability in Australia. The management of the environmental impact of a small business is the domain of the owner-manager therefore their attitudes are a significant influence and have a direct impact• on participation and action on environmental management and, indirectly, on the local community. Most small business owner-managers are resource poor, both financially and in the amount of spare time available …

Gender As A Predictor Of Planning In Small Business, Calvin Wang, Elizabeth Walker, Janice Redmond

Janice Redmond Dr

The increase in women-owned small businesses in recent times has led to a corresponding rise in interest in women entrepreneurship. While some of this interest has focused on differences between male and female operators and their business operations, there has been relatively little attention paid to gender comparisons in relation to small business planning. Given that women are broadly acknowledged to behave and manage their businesses differently from men, then knowledge of how gender might influence planning activities has important implications for the small business sector. Accordingly, this paper presents results of an empirical study into small business planning and …

When Do Female-Owned Businesses Out-Survive Male-Owned Businesses? A Disaggregated Approach By Industry And Geography, Arturs Kalnins, Michele Williams

Michele Williams

Studies have invoked several theoretical perspectives to explain differences between female-owned businesses and male-owned businesses. Yet, few have considered the possibility that differential outcomes between female-owned businesses and male-owned businesses vary from setting to setting, an insight that we derive by combining social constructionism with feminist theory. We articulate hypotheses regarding the outcome of business survival duration based on this insight. Then, using a dataset of one million Texan proprietorships, we test these hypotheses by estimating separate gender effects for many individual industries and geographic areas. We find that female-owned businesses consistently out-survive male-owned businesses in many industries and areas.

Beyond The Formal Economy: Evaluating The Level Of Employment In Informal Sector Enterprises In Global Perspective, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Ready, Set...Pitch: Marketing Yourself With A High Five, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Connie I Reimers-Hild, PhD, CPC

Create a great Elevator or Quick Pitch using Dr. Connie's High Five: 1) What? 2) Who! 3) Wow! 4) Why? 5) When? The attached pdf is a PowerPoint presentation for the webinar, "Ready, Set...Pitch: Marketing Yourself with a High Five," taught for the PK Partnership's Business Enhancement Network by Dr. Connie on February 21, 2011. For more information, please contact Connie Reimers-Hild at: creimers2@unl.edu

Marketing Yourself With A High Five! Powerpoint Presentation, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Connie I Reimers-Hild, PhD, CPC

Great elevator pitches are created to sell your idea, business, organization, product or service in 30 seconds or less (the time it takes to go from the first floor to the top of the building in an elevator). It’s important to develop and practice an effective pitch so you are ready to use it under fire. When you step onto an elevator with Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, you want to be prepared! This worksheet will help you create an amazing pitch by using the “High Five” method of What, Who, Wow, Why and When. Note: As you develop your …

Promoting: Programs For And Challenges Of The Knowledge-Based Small Business, Joan Imukuka, Bhishna Bajracharya, Linda Too, Greg Hearn

Bhishna Bajracharya

ExtractSmall businesses have long been recognized for their contributions to innovation, job creation and the overall health of most economies (Audretsch, 2004; North et al., 2001; Tilley and Tonge, 2003). Government policies in most countries, therefore, often include support measures and infrastructure to help nurture small businesses, particularly in relation to their innovation-related needs (North et al., 2001). Most recently, there has been growing interest in fostering the emergence of new and innovative small businesses, especially in the high-technology and knowledge-intensive sectors (Bridge et al., 2009). The ’high technology’ and ’knowledge-intensive sectors’ are those sectors of the economy that have …

Employee Outcomes: Human Resource Management Practices And Firm Performance In Small Businesses, Christopher J. Collins, Jeff Ericksen, Mathew Allen

Christopher J Collins

[Abstract] Improving company performance is something of interest to all small business leaders. Small business leaders have many tools at their disposal — from finance to marketing to customer service — that could potentially improve the performance of their company. Among these tools is the way that small business leaders manage their people. As has been mentioned in previous reports, research has shown that people management does indeed impact company performance, even at the financial level. Studies show increases in value per employee of up to $40,000 and survival rates for IPO firms as much as 20% higher for companies …

Human Resource Management Practices, Workforce Alignment, And Firm Performance, Christopher Collins, Jeff Ericksen, Mathew Allen

Christopher J Collins

Small business leaders are charged with delivering high levels of company performance. There is no shortage of potentially fruitful investments available for consideration; these include developing new products or services, improving product or service quality, and enhancing marketing and sales. Another possible investment - improving the way a company manages its people - tends to receive less attention. This is somewhat surprising, however, when one considers that the human resource management practices a company uses can dramatically impact the bottom-line. One study of large publicly traded firms, for example, found that companies using "high performance" human resource practices have market …

Enabling Enterprise: Tackling The Barriers To Formalisation, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

No abstract provided.

Re-Thinking Informal Entrepreneurship: Commercial Or Social Entrepreneurs?, Colin C. Williams, Sara Nadin

Colin C Williams

Being The Boss And Working For A Boss: Upsides And Downsides, Justin Craig, Michael Schaper, Clay Dibrell

Justin B. Craig

Comparatively, very little of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics (HILDA) data set has been used to analyse the activities of Australian small business owner-operators, even though there are currently some 1.8 million small firms in existence. Using multiple waves of the HILDA survey, in this paper we investigate two important research questions related to life in a small business in Australia. Question one seeks to uncover differences between small business respondents and employees of private sector firms, by examining issues related to (i) life satisfaction, (ii) job satisfaction, (iii) individual priorities, (iv) perceived prosperity, (v) risk preferences, and (vi) …

Patterns Of Debt Use In Small Businesses: A Non-Parametric Analysis, Atreya Chakraborty

Atreya Chakraborty

This paper uses non-parametric techniques to examine patterns of debt use by small firms and how such patterns differ across firm categories. The methodological goal is to use the richness of the firm level data and allow convincing presentations with minimum of assumptions. The procedures used provide easily comprehendible graphical descriptions of the data. The procedures augment what can be discerned from descriptive statistics by accounting for differential weights and allowing for clustering that is a native feature of cross-sectional data. We also investigate how firms could benefit if credit availability improves. Though a model-based analysis would be required to …

Why High And Low Performers Leave And What They Find Elsewhere: Job Performance Effects On Employment Transitions, Charlie Trevor , John Hausknecht , Michael Howard

John Hausknecht

Little is known about how high and low performers differ in terms of why they leave their jobs, and no work examines whether pre-quit job performance matters for post-quit new-job outcomes. Working with a sample of approximately 2,500 former employees of an organization in the leisure and hospitality industry, we find that the reported importance of a variety of quit reasons differs both across and within performance levels. Additionally, we use an ease-of-movement perspective to predict how pre-quit performance relates to post-quit employment, new-job pay, and new-job advancement opportunity. Job type, tenure, and race interacted with performance in predicting new-job …

Legal Guide For Small Business, Robert Sprague

Robert Sprague

Overview of legal issues associated with starting, managing, and ending a small business.