Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons^™

The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status And Emotional Gratification For Consumers Who Purchase Overtly Branded (Overtly Designer) Goods, Sarah Siracusa

Fordham Business Student Research Journal

When examining the reasoning behind a consumer’s choice of luxury purchase, we rely largely on consumer psychology. One important psychological factor is the concept of needs. Consumers of different socioeconomic backgrounds have different needs, thus influencing what they choose to purchase. While past research has focused on intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations, and the relationship between aspiration and luxury brand preference in predicting luxury consumption, there has not yet been a study conducted focusing on the relationship between socioeconomic status and emotional gratification of purchasing overtly branded (overtly designer) goods in America. After surveying participants in three socioeconomic income groups, it …

It's Not Easy Being E, Alex Stewart

Management Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Rct Hospitality Consultants, Llc: The Making Of The Business Plan, Rachel C. Tyler

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction

Owning a small business is the dream for many Americans. Now more than ever this is true as many people have been laid off and are looking to utilize their skills while being their own boss. The focus of this paper is to determine if the author should start a consulting company full-time.

A hospitality consulting business with a focus on sales and marketing has been a goal of this author’s and as we emerge out of a recession. As possibility of a double-dip recession exists it is important to have a business framework that leads a small business …

Collaboration Tools For Education - "Learn And Teach Online”, Nader Ale Ebrahim

Nader Ale Ebrahim

No abstract provided.

Lean Manufacturing Initiatives, Anthony J. Jackson Prof

Anthony J Jackson Prof

The purpose of this research study is to analyze the factors that prevent small and medium size enterprises from implementing lean manufacturing processes and show, that by not implementing lean they are missing out on savings, efficient workforce, and new markets in the globalization arena. Globalization offers opportunities that have not been realized by SME’s yet still pose challenges and barriers that can be overcome by adoption and implementation of lean manufacturing.

Leaders Of Today Are Challenged By Generation X Workforce Retention, Joyce K. Kutin

Joyce K Kutin RN, MSN, MOL

Many organizations today are comprised of a culturally diverse workforce. In addition to organizational diversity related to gender, ethnicity, race, or religious beliefs, there are also four different generations working side by side. Today’s workforce includes the Silent Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y. The Silent Generation is known for their lifestyle approach of consistency, uniformity, conformity, law and order, hard work and playing by the rules. Baby Boomers were the first generation to grow up with television; they were the first to have broad access to news, issues, advertising, and a variety of programming. Generation X …

For A Competitive Edge In Services, Invest In The Right People And Processes, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Steve Jobs can teach us a thing or two about customer loyalty. Though Apple products have sometimes fallen short of expectations, Apple customers think nothing of standing in line for hours just to get their hands on the company's latest. According to Valarie Zeithaml, a David S Van Pelt Family distinguished professor of marketing at the University of North Carolina, recent financials show that Apple is achieving US$4,406 per annum sales per square foot – far higher than brands such as the US$3,000 per annum sales per square foot of premier global jeweller Tiffany and US$1,700 per annum sales per …

The Impact Of The "Great Recession" On The Financial Resources Of Nonprofit Organizations, Joseph C. Morreale, Phd

Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship

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 …

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 …

Managing Communication In New Product Development Process: Virtual R&D Teams And Information Technology, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Literature proves the importance of the role of information technology in increasing the effectiveness of virtual R&D teams’ communication for new product development. However, the factors that make information technology construct in a virtual R&D team are still ambiguous. Managers of virtual R&D teams for new product development do not know “which type of technology should be used”. To address the gap and answer the question, the paper presents a set of factors that make a construct that contribute to effective communication strategy for virtual R&D teams. The proposed construct has been modified based on the findings of a field …

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 …

The Effectiveness Of Virtual R&D Teams In Smes: Experiences Of Malaysian Smes, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Auburn University Team Takes Third Place In 2011 Launchpad Competition

Paul Swamidass

"Launchpad helps motivate the Thomas Walter Center to prepare a sound business plan for a promising Auburn University engineering invention each year," said Swamidass. "The screening provided by the Launchpad judges and publicity offered by the competition increases the chances that a strong Auburn invention will get to market for the benefit of the economy and the public. We expect IPC Foam to attract a CEO and private capital to establish a local startup to successfully commercialize this technology."

Addressing Homelessness Through The Private Sector, Mindy Nakamura

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

How To Increase H-Index#11;, Nader Ale Ebrahim

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Publishing a high quality paper in scientific journals is a halfway of receiving citation in the future. The rest of the way is advertising and disseminating the publications by using the proper “Research Tools”. Familiarity with the tools allows the researcher to increase his/her#11; h-index in the short time. H-index shows the academicians influences in the specified field of research. Therefore, a person with higher level of h-index has more high quality publications with high amount of citations. This presentation, covers the following topics: Why publish and increase h-index?, Definition of h-index and g-index, Importance of h-index, How to use …

2011 Ijbe Front Matter, Tamra Connor

International Journal for Business Education

1. Editorial Board
2. President's Letter
3. SIEC-ISBE International

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 Theses

No abstract provided.

Student-Centered Learning, Alex Stewart

Management Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

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 …

Virtual Collaborative R&D Teams In Malaysia Manufacturing Smes, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

This paper presents the results of empirical research conducted during March to September 2009. The study focused on the influence of virtual research and development (R&D) teams within Malaysian manufacturing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The specific objective of the study is better understanding of the application of collaborative technologies in business, to find the effective factors to assist SMEs to remain competitive in the future. The paper stresses to find an answer for a question “Is there any relationship between company size, Internet connection facility and virtuality?”. The survey data shows SMEs are now technologically capable of performing …

Virtual R&D Teams: A Potential Growth Of Education-Industry Collaboration, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Introduction: With the advent of the global economy and high-speed Internet, online collaboration is fast becoming the norm in education and industry [1]. Information technology (IT) creates many new inter-relationships among businesses, expands the scope of industries in which a company must compete to achieve the competitive advantage. Information systems and technology allow companies to coordinate their activities in distant geographic locations [2]. IT is providing the infrastructure necessary to support the development of new collaboration forms among industry and education. Virtual research and development (R&D) teams represent one such relational form, one that could revolutionize the workplace and provide …

Virtual Teams And Management Challenges, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Introduction: Collaboration is becoming increasingly important in creating the knowledge that makes business more competitive. Virtual teams are growing in popularity [1] and many organizations have responded to their dynamic environments by introducing virtual teams. Additionally, the rapid development of new communication technologies such as the Internet has accelerated this trend so that today, most of the larger organization employs virtual teams to some degree [2]. A growing number of flexible and adaptable organizations have explored the virtual environment as one means of achieving increased responsiveness [3]. Howells et al. [4] state that the shift from serial to simultaneous and …

Impact Of Human Capital On The Organization Performance, Philadelphia University

Philadelphia University, Jordan

No abstract provided.

How To Conduct A Literature Review, Nader Ale Ebrahim

Nader Ale Ebrahim

No abstract provided.

Entrepreneur's Dilemma: Hotel Investments In Emerging Markets, Melih Madanoglu

Hospitality Review

Estimating the required rate of return for hotel properties is a daunting task because a lodging property is considered a hybrid between a real estate asset, and a revenue-generating enterprise affiliated with a hotel brand. Computing the expected rate of return for a hotel becomes even more complicated when a third party foreign investor/entrepreneur is the one performing the computation for an investment hotel in an emerging country. This clinical case illustrates the challenges surrounding the estimation of a project’s cost of equity in the multinational hotel industry. The results reveal that estimating cost of equity in emerging markets for …

The Challenge Of Implementing An Erp System In A Small And Medium Enterprise – A Teaching Case Of Erp Project Management, Hongjiang Xu, Patrick J. Rondeau, Sakthi Mahenthiran

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system implementation projects are notoriously risky. While large-scale ERP cases continue to be developed, relatively few new ERP cases have been published that further ERP implementation education in small to medium size firms. This case details the implementation of a new ERP system in a medium sized manufacturing firm. As students explore the case, they will be required to address the many ERP-related project management, procurement, human resource, and management involvement issues raised by it. This case highlights the ERP implementation problems experienced by case company in one of their two divisions. The firm is considering …

Back To Square One: An Examination Of Social Entrepreneurship Centers And Programs, Noushi Rahman, Phd, Rebecca Tekula, Phd

Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship

Prominent social entrepreneurship (SE) centers and programs in North America, Europe, and Asia are examined in terms of their position in the institutional structure, initial and additional funding, teaching initiatives, research achievements, and outreach activities. Performance was computed using a transparent coding scheme. Low correlations with institutional endowment and SE center/program performance offer some evidence of discriminant validity of our rankings approach. Performance scores were used to rank-order SE centers and programs. Such an approach to examine SE center/program performance goes beyond the perception-based ranking instruments that popular magazines employ to evaluate subject-specific rankings. We examined data from 28 centers/programs, …

Entrepreneurial Passion: Sources And Sustenance, Melissa S. Cardon Phd, Michael Glauser

Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial passion helps coordinate cognition and behavior of entrepreneurs, providing the fire that fuels innovation, persistence, and ultimate success. But where does entrepreneurial passion come from? Using a phenomenological approach, we conduct a qualitative study of 80 entrepreneurs and analyze their oral histories to explore the sources of entrepreneurial passion, as experienced by entrepreneurs. Our discovery process in the interviews suggests six major sources of entrepreneurial passion: passion for building/developing the venture, passion for people, passion for the product or service, passion for inventing, passion for competition, and passion for a social cause.

Nyc Budget Cuts: A Counter-Productive Method To Effective Government-Nonprofit Contracting Relationships?, Anna-Kay Sinclair

Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship

This study examines the relationship between New York City budget cuts and the expenditure of human service nonprofits specifically involved in the government contracting relationship. With a focus on the Department for the Aging (DFTA), I examine nonprofits that provide a variety of services to the aging population on behalf of the DFTA. Correlations and regressions are presented examining the relationship between DFTA budget and nonprofit spending. The results of my analysis do not indicate a positive relationship between these two variables.