After a review of the general characteristics of Aboriginal businesses on Canadian reserves, the empirical part of this research compares a sample of 22 on-reserve businesses interviewed within four reserves in Northern Ontario to a control sample of 229 businesses from across Northern Ontario. Both samples were surveyed in Spring/Summer 1997 by the Small Business Research Group, from Laurentian University's School of Commerce and Administration. The results confirmed the literature in showing a lack of structure, with 88% of the businesses unincorporated, a lack of capital, a sense of isolation and of being out of the information channels (a majority of respondents saw no benefits to networking), literacy problems among the population) and frustrations with government agencies. However, as among other groups in the Canadian business population, Aboriginal entrepreneurs were more educated than the general Aboriginal population. The remainder of the article discusses issues related to the development of entrepreneurship among the First Nations, including the Delgamuukw v. British Columbia decision by the Supreme Court of Canada and its potential effects. / This article is partly based upon research funded by FedNor by the Small Business Research Group of the School of Commerce and Administration, Laurentian University of Sudbury. The author thanks Sherrie·Anne Frost, Research Assistant, for her help, Chief Margaret Penasse-Mayer and Adjunct Professor Ovide Mercredi for their comments on the early versions of the manuscript. This research was also partly funded by Human Resources Development Canada, the School of Commerce and Administration, Laurentian University of SUdbury, and College Boréal at Surgeon Falls.

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Introduction: The Roles of women in family businesses and the challenges and opportuni- ties they face in relations to these roles in the family businesses will be explored in this re- search. Although women are accepted very important players, yet the roles of women are not frequently well-defined. The thesis will explore roles of women who play an important role in family firms and challenges and opportunities they have within the Family Business- es in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore what roles women in family business in Bangladesh and Pakistan have, and challenges and the opportunities they face in relation to these roles. Method: A qualitative approach was used to accomplish the purpose of this thesis. E-mail interview questionnaires from the participants were filled to gather information regarding the roles they play in the family business and the challenges and opportunities they have in the family business. Conclusion: Gender and the succession issue have a central role to play in the women par- ticipation in the family business. These factors along with invisibility issue are viewed as main challenges faced by women in the family businesses. Some of the results lead us to conclude that women situation in both countries is not so bad rather they have good posi- tions in the family businesses. So it was not in conformity with the literature written on women invisibility.

The economic success in Taiwan has been called the ¡§Economic Miracle.¡¨ However, it deserves further attention to explore the actual causes of the formation of the ¡§miracle.¡¨ As a country of island-economy, Taiwan is short of natural resources. It is necessary for Taiwan to depend on the international resources to survive and backup. Moreover, in the cross-section analysis, the rate of small and medium businesses is as high as 97.75% in Taiwan. Thus, the importance of the small and medium businesses in the development of Taiwan economy can be thus known. However, the great changes in worldwide economy have been taking place. Due to the limits on corporate size, finance, technology, manpower, marketing, research, and management, the small and medium businesses, which have been playing important roles in Taiwan economy, are facing great competitions. As a result, in order to obtain competitive advantages in business ventures, and to increase the competitiveness, the small and medium businesses try all the means to look for new ways to effectively deal with the economic challenges. Nonetheless, facing the same difficult business environment, the small and medium businesses have much fewer resources than the large-sized companies. Therefore, in order to find ways to survive and develop, the mergence among the small and medium businesses is one of the practical ways. Though merger can strengthen the power of the companies, most of the related researches all state that the failure rate of the mergence is actually higher than 50%. In order to make the action of the merger successful, it is necessary to examine the mutual adjustability, the resources and the corporate status of each merger, and to estimate the possible changes of the outside environment. And what¡¦s more important, it also requires careful observation and clear and powerful corporate expectation. This research employs mainly the ¡§case study¡¨ method that is used often in qualitative analysis and the in-depth interview. First of all, the researcher designs the interview outline, chooses the major decision makers of the merger case for the interview, and uses the in-depth interview to explore the research topics. The contents of the interview are then analyzed and discussed. Based upon the result, the practical key points for the success of the merger are concluded and the practical factors of the studied case and the related theories are further analyzed and compared to comprehend the coverage and the realizability of the theories and to offer conclusions and suggestions in order to provide future references for the professional researchers and corporate owners.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 16, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Murali K. Mantrala. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (MTech (Entrepreneurship))--Peninsula Technikon, 2002. / Word processed copy. Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-55). Also available online.

Many studies into emotional labor are constrained by a capitalist paradigm, where emotional labor is performed within corporate organizations with hierarchical divisions of labor. Using the case of Hotel BAUEN, this paper considers emotional labor in different organizational and relational context: a worker-owned and worker-recovered business in Argentina. Drawing on ethnographic observations in Hotel BAUEN, this paper shows how service work is structured in the cooperative hotel. Instead of doing emotional labor in the traditional “service triangle,” worker-owners provide services in a “cooperative dyad” without the oversight of a boss. This structural difference has both organizational and relational implications for the business. First, worker-owners provide a variety of services to a broad set of customers. Second, the processes of autogestión (self-management) rely on workers’ emotional labor to cultivate lateral workplace relations through self-management. Ultimately, within the cooperative service workplace, emotional labor functions differently than the literature would suggest. Rather than reproduce social inequalities, workers use emotional labor to generate capital and sustain an organization that seeks to reduce inequality. / text

The focal point for this research is a drilling automation small business. Questions regarding survival, growth, innovation, flexibility and professional management related to this technology business are seeded as the root for the research. Topics were selected based on the experience of the author as an attempt to provide answers to such questions. In a broader context, small businesses make an important contribution to the economy and job creation. Low survival rates raise questions about the factors that influence the success or failure of such businesses. Researches have attempted to identify such factors. However, there are limited theoretical models that were generated based on a small business setting. Many factors and their interactions among each other could determine the survival of a small business. However, there are techniques and philosophies that enhance the potential for success. Some of those techniques and philosophies proposed by authors researched are the Lean Startup methodology, analysis of roadblocks and speed bumps on the Product Development Process model, participative management, competencies alignment and outsourcing. Correlations between the small drilling automation business and research are made in order to generate the answers to the questions proposed initially. Ultimately, in regard to the company I work for, generation of intellectual property via outsourcing, deep knowledge of the potential market, financial flexibility obtained from capital and other resources by means of the relationships established helped the company to survive startup and grow. Founding expertise translated into good behavioral focus supported a sustained growth stage and competitiveness. There are applicable models and methodologies that serve to guide to faster innovation where associated risks are managed by having the multiple solutions available. The level of informality tolerated within the firm should be related to the level of performance, so for us there may be benefit to a more formal evaluation of the strategy, uncovering relationships and details not anticipated, that could lead to different decisions. Overcoming capital restraints to earn financial flexibility was particularly beneficial to our initial success. At current size and complexity level, it would be beneficial for our company to evaluate more formal tactical management. / text

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Background Small and medium businesses (SME) are important elements in the strategies of economic growth and improvement. The SME have played a great role in regional and global economic recovery during many years and thus they are very desirable. Small business leaders have to fulfil a wide range of roles and responsibilities however, the most important role being the leader role. Valdiserri (Valdiserri and Wilson, 2010) stated that poor leadership is one of the main failure reasons for small businesses. Furthermore, different countries may have different leadership styles and culture. Aim The purpose of this thesis is to identify the differences between the leadership styles in small technical companies in Sweden, an industrialized country, and Jordan, a developing country Method We adopted the study case method to study the leadership style in small companies. Through pre-defined questionnaire surveys, the leaders of eight small businesses (four companies in Sweden and four in Jordan) were asked to answer multifactor questions. We then studied the answers based on three situational leadership models. The situational methods used in our study were the Fiedler model, the normative model and the SLII model. The answers were then analysed in order to determine the current as well as the appropriate leadership style based on the models. Results In brief, our study identified several examples of different leadership styles in various situations in small companies and presented the most suitable leadership in those situations. The thesis also shed light on differences in small technical company leadership in Sweden and Jordan. The analysis of the case studies of the studied companies showed that the situational leadership methods could be used in small companies. The study concluded that in order to identify the leadership style, more than one model had to be used. In general, the leadership style in the Swedish companies matched the recommended leadership style. The Jordanian companies’ leadership style however did not match the recommended leadership style. The models in our framework also revealed the reasons behind and also proved to be valuable tools in recommending the suitable leadership style for all companies. The used models in our thesis however lacked the appropriate tools to explain the differences between the Swedish and Jordanian companies. The differences are thought to be due to cultural aspects, however, these models does not take in account the cultural aspect nor the size of the companies, an issue pointed out by Gary (Yukl, 2002). Conclusion The situational leadership style model was shown to be fully applicable in our case study as in previous literature. The conducted study suggested that more than one model had to be used in order to identify the suitable leadership style. Interestingly, the models used were clearly applicable in Middle East companies. This was, to our knowledge, the first time these models were used in Middle East countries when studying leadership style. Furthermore, the studied situational leadership style showed a clear difference in leadership between Sweden and Jordan. The models recommended a participative style in the small technical companies both in Sweden and Jordan. However, the current practiced leadership style in the Jordan companies were not exhibiting the recommended leadership style. Interviewing the leaders in the Jordanian companies gave us a hint that this difference could be due to cultural differences. The cultural differences must thus be born in mind when interpreting the data and trying to understand the reasons behind the results when studying these models. The Jordanian companies used more power leadership (telling leadership) than their Swedish counterparts who exhibited a participating leadership. According to (Hofstede, 1991) leadership in Arab culture show higher power distance than in Nordic companies. Our results thus coincide with previous studies. However more studies need to be made in order to draw conclusions on whether this is a common phenomenon in all Jordanian or Middle East companies and our thesis present an interesting pilot study in this regard.