Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons^™

Entrepreneurial Leadership Strategies For Catalyzing Innovation Performance, Jason D'Souza

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Inadequate innovation performance has the potential for adverse business outcomes. Business leaders are concerned with inadequate innovation performance, as innovation is a significant driver of business growth. Grounded in entrepreneurial leadership, the purpose of this qualitative multi-case study was to explore entrepreneurial leadership strategies that some healthcare business leaders used to catalyze innovation performance. The participants were six business leaders within three healthcare sectors who contributed to strategic healthcare innovation decisions using entrepreneurial leadership strategies within the last 5 years. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of organizational strategy documents and websites. Through thematic analysis, six themes …

Entrepreneurial Leadership Strategies For Catalyzing Innovation Performance, Jason D'Souza

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Inadequate innovation performance has the potential for adverse business outcomes. Business leaders are concerned with inadequate innovation performance, as innovation is a significant driver of business growth. Grounded in entrepreneurial leadership, the purpose of this qualitative multi-case study was to explore entrepreneurial leadership strategies that some healthcare business leaders used to catalyze innovation performance. The participants were six business leaders within three healthcare sectors who contributed to strategic healthcare innovation decisions using entrepreneurial leadership strategies within the last 5 years. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and a review of organizational strategy documents and websites. Through thematic analysis, six themes …

Daan Go: An Entrepreneurial Case Study, Clifford Chuck Long Lam

Major Papers

Daan Go is a brand of Euro-Asian food services, now consisting of only its specialty bakery Daan Go Cake Lab. Having various retail locations across the Greater Toronto Area with current distribution channels that serve both Ontario and Quebec, Daan Go is currently focusing on expanding its bakery operations across Canada. To fulfill its vision of becoming a world-wide desserts brand, Daan Go finds itself facing unique challenges. Based on a case analysis, this report examines how Daan Go can leverage its current key capabilities, while maintaining its competitive position within the niche market it serves.

This report provides an …

Architectural Dimensions Of Socially Driven Venture Capital Firms: Social Innovation In The Capital Markets, Raymond Jones, Manjula S. Salimath

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose – Private equity and venture capital (VC) firms in the capital markets sector invest capital with the primary goal of delivering economic value. However, some firms in the capital markets sector have started to shift this focus to create (i.e. invest in) social value. More specifically, traditional VC firms are starting socially oriented funds, while other firms have emerged to focus solely on investments in social enterprises. These VC firms are contributing to an interesting paradox – performance metrics are not measured by profit alone but also by social innovation. From an architectural perspective, the authors examine the implications …

Strategies To Generate Innovation For Profit Gains Of U.S.-Based Global Retailing, Kazue Goto

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ineffective innovation strategies can negatively affect profit gains of U.S.-based global retailing companies (USGRC). Leaders in the retailing industry who fail to use strategies to generate innovation for profit gains can experience decreased profitability. Grounded in the dynamic theory of strategy, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies that leaders of USGRC use to generate innovation for profit gains. Participants included six USGRC leaders in California, who used strategies to generate innovation for profit gains. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, company documents and analyzed using thematic data analysis. Three themes emerged: customer-centric opportunity identification …

Escape For Boone & Crocket, William Foxx, W. Frank Thompson Jr., Joseph W. Giese, David Vanbuskirk

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Eber Crocket is the owner of Boone & Crocket Trapper Supply (B&C). He feels like the environmental forces that are impacting his business are like a trap slowing closing on him. He is considering ideas to improve his store’s profitability.

Demand for furs as fashion goods is a multi-million dollar industry. Twenty percent of this demand is met by wild fur which is harvested by trappers. Trapping suppliers serve as the middleman between small individual trappers and auction houses. These auction houses collect the raw fur pelts from trappers and trapping stores and hold them until one of their auctions. …

Nonprofit Strategies For Alternative Revenue Generation And Sustainability, Aretha Lepearl Day

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractIn the post-2008 Great Recession era of a highly volatile global business environment of increased competitiveness, diminishing predictable revenues, and depleting philanthropy, many nonprofit leaders struggle to sustain their organizations. Volatility is important to nonprofit leaders because such fluctuations create unpredictability, which threatens their organizations' financial stability for short-term survivability and long-term sustainability. Grounded in Elkington's triple bottom line conceptual framework, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore nonprofit leaders' strategies for short-term survivability and long-term sustainability. The participants comprised 3 senior leaders in a nonprofit located in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States who …

Are Entrepreneurial Capabilities And Prior Knowledge The Silver Bullet For The Generation Of New Digital Venture Ideas In A Digital Context?, Meifang Yao, Dan Ye, Gao Yang, Hui Shi, Xianrong Zheng

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

Digital technology has had an important impact on entrepreneurship. It has changed the uncertain nature of the process of new venture idea generation, and it has also brought unprecedented opportunities for the generation of new digital venture ideas. In order to explore how startups can deal with major challenges brought by digital technology and create new digital venture ideas, this paper focuses on micro level entrepreneurial actions and constructs a theoretical model of the relationship among networking capabilities, IT capabilities, prior knowledge, and new digital venture ideas. Furthermore, through the hierarchical linear regression analysis of 278 sample data, the paper …

Analyzing Local Alcohol Vendor Inventory Management Strategy, Angelo J. Amore

Senior Theses

This paper attempts to analyze how local alcohol vendors maintain their inventory throughout the year in Columbia, attempting to manage factors such as the season, sporting events, and other public gatherings and events. The research question resulted in contacting over 30 local alcohol vendors in Columbia, to ask them questions regarding their strategy in alcohol inventory management. The responses to these questions were then used to organize the vendors into groups by whether or not they utilize a reorder point to purchase/brew alcohol, or if they utilize periodic ordering. The vendors were also asked to rank the seasons from most …

Competitive Strategies To Improve Small And Medium Enterprise Sales, Adeola Oluwakemi Ogunyemi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractSmall and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the mainstay of both developed and developing countries by contributing to employment, revenue, and value added. SMEs, however, are not often able to grow because of a lack of appropriate growth strategies. Grounded in Porter’s dynamic theory of strategy, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies retail SME owners in Lagos, Nigeria, used to grow sales. The participants were a census of five retail SME business owners who successfully implemented strategies to grow sales. The data collection sources included semistructured interviews, direct observation, company documents, and reflective journals. Based …

Human Resource Management Practices For Sustainability Of Ghanaian Small And Medium Enterprises, Charles Bandari

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In 2018, the failure rate of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana was approximately 75%. SME owners and managers who refuse to recognize HRM strategies as a way for business sustainability risk closure. Grounded in Blau's social exchange theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore human resource strategies leaders of SMEs use to sustain their businesses. Participants were 4 SME leaders in the Tamale metropolitan area of Ghana who successfully used human resource management strategies to promote the sustainability of their businesses. Data were collected from semistructured face-to-face interviews, focus group discussions, and company …

Exploring The Strategies For Sustaining Small- To Medium-Scale Enterprises, Kingsley Onochie Umadia

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The lack of development and the continued survival of small- to medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) poses a challenge to SME practices in Nigeria. Using sustainability theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore the strategies that leaders use in sustaining SMEs in Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria. Ten SME leaders from the manufacturing sector, trading services, education, oil and gas service companies, and financial services sector provided comments during the interviews that addressed the research question. Data were analyzed by transcription, coding, categorizing and analysis of participants' responses using member checking. From the themes that emerged from the study, …

Marketing Strategies That Chinese Business Leaders Use To Increase Sales Of Smartphones, Byron Edward Johns

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Chinese smartphone manufacturing business leaders are experiencing difficulties associated with entering into the U.S. market, partly because of U.S. government concerns that the technology could be used by the Chinese government to gather intelligence. Grounded in Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore marketing strategies Chinese smartphone marketing business leaders used to increase their smartphone sales in the United States. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and company documents from 3 Chinese smartphone marketing business leaders with successful experience in using marketing strategies to increase their smartphone sales in the United …

Strategies For Small Business Sustainability, Victor K. Adoukonou

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small businesses represent more than 99% of all employers in the United States, but more than 50% of small businesses have failed before 5 years. Climate change, digitization, and social media contribute to a paradigm shift in consumers' habits, as more consumers have become environmentally and social justice conscious. Business leaders who are unable to follow the consumers' trends and changes of habit may not succeed in sustaining their businesses. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies owners of small businesses in the District of Columbia use to sustain their businesses for longer than 5 years …

Anatomy Of An Acquisition: The Challenges Of Selling A Privately Held Electronics Manufacturing Company, George Dierberger, Marc Mcintosh, Lori L. Lohman, Phyllis Kapetanakis

Faculty Authored Articles

Sweeny Electronics is a family-owned S Corporation based in St. Paul, Minnesota. The company was started in 1946 by a returning army veteran, Mike Sweeney, and focused on the heating, air quality and cooling markets. The company has survived numerous recessions, market consolidation, and manufacturing challenges in China, and currently is run by the third generation Sweeney family. The current owner and CEO, George Sweeney, is the grandson of the founder and is approaching retirement age. The board of directors has seven members: George Sweeney, his wife Jane and five members of the business community. Under the direction of the …

Strategic Analysis Of Lifeloop, Llc: Current Positioning And Recommendations For Future Growth, Erin Dabbs

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

LifeLoop is a senior living software company that has the potential to gain market share in a new and growing industry. By making changes to current processes, business level strategy, and corporate level strategy, the company can grow organically, faster. LifeLoop must make these strategic changes to areas of marketing and sales processes now as the industry is changing life cycle stages; the company’s movement in this window of opportunity is critical to their future success. These findings outline where LifeLoop is currently positioned and the first steps needed to grow and develop into a reputation of excellence that will …

Strategies To Sustain Small And Medium-Size Manufacturing Enterprises In Jamaica, Hugh Anthony Blake

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Jamaica's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have a high failure rate. In 2016, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) recorded Jamaica's SME start-up rate at 4.06% and the discontinuance rate at 9%. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive multiple case study was to explore the strategies some Jamaican SME owners used to achieve business sustainability in the manufacturing sector for longer than 5 years of operation. The conceptual framework used was the entrepreneurship theory, which provided insights into business sustainability. A purposive sample of 5 owners of SMEs who had achieved business sustainability in the manufacturing sector for longer than 5 …

Collective Action And Market Formation: An Integrative Framework, Brandon Lee, Jeroen Struben, Christopher B. Bingham

Brandon Lee

What Factors During The Genesis Of A Startup Are Causal To Survival?, Gilbert T. Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research presents the results of a qualitative and quantitative investigation into what factors are present at time zero that increase the probability that a startup will achieve long term sustainability.

Survival rates for startups in the United States (U.S.) are disappointingly low and economically inefficient. The data shows that the U.S. clearly lags its peer countries in the survival rates of startups. The U.S ranked an unacceptable 11th of 14 among its peer countries in first-year survival rates in recent years. Startup failure does not only impact the entrepreneur; it also impacts creditors, vendors, community stakeholders, and employees. While …

Oral History Conversation With Joon Han (Better San Diego), Lacey Hartin, Gabriela Guevara, Akira Bannai

Philosophy: All Student Work

This is an oral history conversation that was conducted with Joon Han, founder of Better San Diego, at the University of San Diego on March 28, 2017.

Effective Strategies Of Military Veteran Small Business Owners, John F. Groves

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small businesses owned by military veterans represent a source of new jobs, yet more than half of these businesses fail to survive beyond 5 years. These failures could lead to efforts to identify strategies that owners can use to avoid failure. The conceptual framework applied in this case study was the triple-loop learning theory. The purposive sampling included 7 military veterans who were small business owners who had sustained their small businesses more than 5 years. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and organization documents. Yin's 5-step process for data analysis compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding resulted in 4 …

Strategies For Entrepreneurs With Disabilities To Sustain A Successful Small Business, Terry L. Howard

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In 2006, Congress appropriated $5 million to create a research-based policy and give technical assistance to agencies that achieved self-employment outcomes for entrepreneurs with disabilities (EWDs). A lack of information exists within the extant body of research on EWDs and the strategies they employ to develop successful businesses. The research design was a multiple case study format engaging 3 Michigan EWDs whose firms were profitable after at least 3 years of successful business operations. Tipu's conceptual framework of entrepreneurship was useful in understanding the basis for successful EWDs' strategies. Face-to-face interviews with EWDs and onsite observations of their business operations …

Small Retail Business Owner Strategies Needed To Succeed Beyond 5 Years, Colonel Jaime Solis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small businesses accounted for 99% of the firms in private industry, provided 38% of the goods and services sold in the United States, and hired 55% of the labor force each year between 2012 and 2015. From 1993 to 2013, small firms accounted for 63% of new work generated while more than 50% of U.S. small businesses failed inside of 5 years and at least 20% failed during the first year. The purpose of this multiunit case study was to explore the strategies small retail businesses used to achieve sustainability beyond 5 years in a purposefully selected county in Virginia. …

Small Ethnic Restaurant Business Owner Strategies To Remain Operable Beyond 7 Years, Nam Phuong Le

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The failure rate among small businesses is high. More than half of all small businesses fail within the first 7 years of operation. The purpose of this multi-case study was to explore the strategies that successful small ethnic restaurant owners employed to remain operable beyond 7 years. Three successful ethnic restaurant owners who have been operating their restaurant for at least 7 years in Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada were selected. Data were gathered from participant interviews and from an examination of available physical artifacts such as the locations, premises, websites, and social media pages. The resource-based view by Edith …

The Power Of Words In Tension: Enterprise/Strategy As A Dilemma In Neoliberalism’S Persistence., Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

We address how enterprise is related to, another important discourse, strategy. From a discourse analysis of the talk of small firm owner-managers, emerges a view of strategy and enterprise as a single, integrated entity, bound together by some commonalities but more importantly by paired opposites reminiscent of ideological dilemmas (Billig, Condor, Edwards, Gane, Middleton & Radley, 1988). This dilemmatic nature of enterprise/strategy discourse adds to explanations for the persistence of the neoliberal form of enterprise, with the entrepreneur as the heroic saviour of all, based on the entrepreneur as an empty signifier (Jones & Spicer, 2009; Kenny & …

Strategic Planning: A Dynamic Process, Steven Slezak

Steven Slezak

A presentation outlining the steps taken to produce a thorough strategic business plan, along with the supporting analysis.

What Is Strategy?, Steven Slezak

Steven Slezak

A presentation outlining the nature of strategy, emphasizing its paradoxical nature, describing its structure, and describing competitive advantage and the value chain.

Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Network: Boston Regional Office And Minority Business Center, Mark Allio, Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Network, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Hosted by the College of Management, we are part of a statewide business assistance program providing free one-on-one counsel to entrepreneurs and seeking help with business growth and strategy, financing and loan assistance, and strategic, marketing and operational analysis. Our services are available to the public and members of the UMB community, including student, faculty, and staff. We also offer workshops and training programs on a variety of topics targeted to the needs of small business.

Strategic Discourse Across Organizational Meetings:Towards A Systems Perspective., Brendan K. O'Rourke, Martin Duffy

Conference Papers

Strategic Discourse across Organizational meetings: Towards a Systems Perspective Abstract This paper presents a tentative theoretical conception of how organizational meetings may be viewed as a system rather than as individual events. Perspectives from process metaphysics(Langley and Tsoukas, 2010), meso-discourse analysis (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000, 2011) and systems thinking (von Bertalanffy, 1969) are adopted, to explore and expand the theoretical resources available to conceptualise a ‘system of meetings’. The primary data draws from 130+ hours of recorded meeting proceedings, spanning 58 meeting events, from multiple sub-groups within a medium sized company.

Overcoming Liability Of Newness Through Legitimacy: A Stakeholder Salience Perspective, Clay Dibrell, Aaron Johnson, Ken Moores, Justin Craig

Justin B. Craig

Findings are presented on how start-up ventures in search of legitimacy are affected by internal and external stakeholders. Additionally, the salience that start-up entrepreneurs place on external and internal stakeholders in pre- and post-start-up legitimacy attainment is studied. Institutional theory, resource-based view of the firm, and stakeholder salience theory inform our discussion. using case and survey research methods nine start-up and three established Australian wineries from eight different regions are studied. Data collection consisted of: (1) semi-structure interviews with owner(s); (2) field research notes; and (3) a validation questionnaire. The findings suggest that start-ups, in this instance wineries, are able …