Representing four-fifths of businesses worldwide, family businesses are a prevailing form of business organizations. Their importance has brought on several studies concerning their development and behavior. Drawing on Gersick et al’s three-dimensional developmental model, this study examines the development of a Taiwanese family firm. Gersick et al’s three-dimensional developmental model develops a typology based on the dimensions of ownership, family and business. Through one-on-one in-depth interview of a Taiwanese textile manufacturer, this study finds that the founder’s character is an important factor that triggers challenges that family firms must face. With this unique factor, it is found that the family firm has employed an informal communication mechanism through close family members acting as third party liaisons to minimize communication conflict. Furthermore, through the application of quality management certifications, the firm has formalized organizational procedures and policies. Close affiliation with government aided institutions allows the firm to offer a comprehensive training program to attract and develop new talent. All these serve as future guidelines for family firms to overcome challenges in their developmental process.

Entrepreneurial Intention of Business Development

By using 290 municipalities in Sweden, this thesis examines the relationship between crime rates and business outcomes, especially newly registered sole trader companies, newly registered joint-stock companies and the number of bankruptcies. The main goal with this research is to identify the impact of criminal activity on business development, or if the absence is reversed, that the business development has an effect on crime rates. This research is done by using panel data where I have included fixed effects and temporal dynamics variables to expose these interactions.  The results suggest that certain crimes in the data have a significant impact on business outcomes. Significant lags indicate that increased crimes have a significant impact on the business outcome, also significant leads indicate that business activities can affect future crime rates.    This research indicates that reducing crime could advance business development and economic growth in Sweden. However, the thesis has limitations such as aggregated data and insists future research to use more complex data for deeper insight. Overall, this research highlights the relationship between crime rate and business outcomes, highlighting the need for suitable policies to reduce criminal activities.

This historical study chronicled events of the development and implementation of the Paris Small Business Development Center at Paris Junior College in Paris, Texas from 1986-2006. Data was collected from primary and secondary sources and oral histories through personal interviews. The analysis included a brief history of higher education and the service mission and situated the study in the broader context as an extension program in higher education. This study provided a brief history of the U.S. Small Business Administration and America’s Small Business Development Center Network as a background for the study. This study is significant to scholars in the field of higher education for a number of reasons. It provides a historical analysis of a service program that extends the college to the community and demonstrates higher education and its role in economic development. It adds to the current body of research by advancing an understanding of a past to contemporary knowledge. Finally, by integrating historical perspectives from multiple disciplines in higher education, what happened and the context in which it happened can be more fully appreciated. This study also contributes to practical knowledge as it deepens the understanding of significant events and processes that contributed to the success of an outreach program in higher education.

Magister Educationis - MEd / Continuous learning has been identified as a key element for SMMEs to succeed in their drive to build productive capacity, to compete, to create jobs and to contribute to poverty alleviation in South Africa. Without the necessary business skills and insight, emerging entrepreneurs will not be able to run their business successfully. Therefore, emerging small business owners especially those in rural areas attend the general, basic, government-subsidized courses provided by non-profit organizations.To ensure that learning is being transferred to the workplace, the Western Cape Business Development Centre (WCBDC) applies the concept of mentoring as a follow-up programme. In layman’s term, a business mentor refers to someone who is experienced in business, trustworthy and professional, trained and up-to-date in their advice.The goal of the research was to evaluate the impact of the WCBDC’s mentoring program on the development of marketing skills of an established small business. I did a case study on one of the successful small businesses in Saldanha, The Marine and Industrial Coaters (MIC), whose owners have attended the Western Cape Business Development Center’s (WCBDC) entrepreneurial development program and then enrolled for its business mentoring programme.Since the mentoring programme commits a substantial amount of resources to mentoring and requires a lot of time from the WCBDC, it is of interest to see whether the expected goals of the mentoring programme – to enhance the entrepreneurs’ business skills and to lead entrepreneurs to business growth – are achieved. I have focused on the development of marketing skills and found that the entrepreneurs’ marketing knowledge and skills did developed as a result of the programme. More efforts need to continue to sustain the existing momentum. However, success in implementing the mentoring programme will depend on essential factors such as selfdirected learning, facilitative and multiple mentoring, application of both psychosocial and career mentoring functions, and shared accountability and responsibility of both mentee and mentor.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Khayelitsha was developed as a dormitory town on the outskirts of Cape Town in the late 1980’s with little intention by the government of the time to actively stimulate local economic development within the area. Since 1994 one of the biggest South African challenges is to ensure that dormitory townships, like Khayelitsha, are developed appropriately to create jobs and to allow for the evolution of quality living environments. Many types of government investment initiatives came to life in the past 20 years, complemented by initiatives to draw in private sector investment in these areas. Nevertheless, the economic development discrepancy between Khayelitsha and other areas in Cape Town remains stark. This study shows that to date development initiatives did not focus enough on the stimulation and development of local entrepreneurial enterprises. Clustering of these enterprises occurs around key areas, like shopping centres, which act as a catalytic factor for other support initiatives aimed at SMME development. The study identifies key areas of local small and micro-businesses clustering in Khayelitsha and evaluates the underlying growth factors. It then presents key suggestions regarding policy interventions to support local entrepreneurial development. These suggestions were two pronged. Spatial interventions focused on recommendations regarding development nodes, activity routes and alternative zoning practices. General business support initiatives relates to access to finance, education and training, mentoring, business incubators and business networks. In general the study highlights the importance of public-private partnerships in small business support.

PC industry is a highly competitive industry. In this fast changing environment, no company can simply rely on basic core competencies to stay-up with the market & competitions. The growth of global demand for PCs has reached a plateau in recent years, and as products are becoming commoditized the differentiation between products are hardly distinguishable. And price war is inevitable. This study investigated how does a global computer company build and manage its dynamic capabilities to stay competitive and make appropriate adjustment to leverage its dynamic capabilities in the new business. The study finds that in order to sustain competitiveness in the market, corporation needs to look inward and institute a process to manage product and service development and business risks. Having good products and customer relationship are just the starting point for a successful business. A continuous learning system can help company to constantly strive for better improvement and in a long run this becomes a strong driving factor to improve operation excellence. It takes persistent and relentless drive for improvement to make a good company to great. When a company is going to start a new business and break an existing model, one of the effective approaches is to form a special task team that is given the full ownership in making sure the project is successful. In addition, senior management team needs to work closely with the project team via regular meetings and to offer help in clearing roadblocks within the organization and allowing team to think out-of-box and propose necessary changes. Without management support and foster, the chance of success for the special task team is minimal. / PC industry is a highly competitive industry. In this fast changing environment, no company can simply rely on basic core competencies to stay-up with the market & competitions. The growth of global demand for PCs has reached a plateau in recent years, and as products are becoming commoditized the differentiation between products are hardly distinguishable. And price war is inevitable. This study investigated how does a global computer company build and manage its dynamic capabilities to stay competitive and make appropriate adjustment to leverage its dynamic capabilities in the new business. The study finds that in order to sustain competitiveness in the market, corporation needs to look inward and institute a process to manage product and service development and business risks. Having good products and customer relationship are just the starting point for a successful business. A continuous learning system can help company to constantly strive for better improvement and in a long run this becomes a strong driving factor to improve operation excellence. It takes persistent and relentless drive for improvement to make a good company to great. When a company is going to start a new business and break an existing model, one of the effective approaches is to form a special task team that is given the full ownership in making sure the project is successful. In addition, senior management team needs to work closely with the project team via regular meetings and to offer help in clearing roadblocks within the organization and allowing team to think out-of-box and propose necessary changes. Without management support and foster, the chance of success for the special task team is minimal.

The general aim of the study was to determine the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on the perceived success of the pipeline gas company. This type of study has not been conducted previously for such a pipeline gas company and as such, a valuable contribution could be made to a more effective entrepreneurial orientation in the business environment. Two questionnaires were administered, which focused on entrepreneurial orientation and perceived success of business respectively. A response rate of 87.63% was obtained from a sample of 97 employees at management level in the pipeline gas company concerned. The results showed a statistically significant positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business development as variable of business success. The data also revealed correlations among the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, some with significant differences for various demographic groups and their level of entrepreneurial skills. Limitations within the study were discussed and recommendations were made for future research. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The notion of International New Ventures, or INVs, emerged in academia in the early-to-mid 1990s and generally refers to entrepreneurial firms that tend to internationalize very early in their life-cycle, and whose expansion into foreign markets occurs much more quickly than predicted by earlier theories of the incremental internationalization process. Previous literature proposes effective networking with market partners and, more recently, internationally viable business model among key distinguishing features of INVs that allow for such early and rapid entry into international markets. Nevertheless, little is yet known regarding how these younger firms develop over time and how they could sustain international growth. With the purpose of filling this gap, this doctoral dissertation scrutinizes business models and business model innovation of INVs beyond their early internationalization, with a particular emphasis on INVs’ external relationships configurations.   The dissertation consists of four self-contained essays that represent a methodological mixture of qualitative and quantitative approaches and incorporate longitudinal case studies, surveys and register-based data encompassing nine years of Swedish INVs’ development. The findings highlight the importance of the business model as an initial market entry tool, and of business model innovation as a potential growth vehicle over time. Findings also display that INVs work with a broader range of external partners compared to other firms for innovative purposes, and that INVs have different business model innovation patterns compared to other types of internationalized firms. Moreover, INVs focus more heavily on value capture innovations in their business models as they mature and seek to obtain a more centralized position in their industry ecosystem by re-configuring the parameters of existing external relationships or developing new ones.   Overall, this dissertation contributes to the international entrepreneurship and business model literature by explicating how maturing INVs need to operate under different business model configurations as compared to emerging INVs, as the original business model might lack scalability after a certain point in time. Furthermore, the dissertation suggests how INVs can pursue a dynamic business model approach and utilize dynamic capabilities to design business models that put the focal firm more in control of the surrounding ecosystem, and reduce constraints that can limit the value capturing potential and thus the growth and development of INVs.

As competitive advantage is becoming more difficult to reach in the intense business world of today, many companies are turning towards cooperation to enhance their performance. A common way to achieve cooperation between firms has been through strategic alliances, where firms can fill their gaps in terms of resources and create common strategies for success. When creating a common legal organization, it is usually done through a joint venture. Joint ventures are often used as a way for private firms to expand internationally. However, lately it is not only the private organizations that are facing this competitive business climate, but the historical view on the public sector as being inefficient and rather bureaucratic in its coordination of business development, has also put an emphasis on markets and competition in the public sector. This has lately resulted in joining forces with the private sector, to create public-private joint ventures. As the literature published on the nature of these public-joint venture is still limited to few studies and cases, this called for further exploration of the phenomena. Thus, this study aimed at exploring the dynamics of strategic alliances in a public-private joint venture. More specifically, this was done by looking at a public-private joint venture consisting of a municipality and the enterprise, using the case of Tillväxt Lidköping AB. By exploring these dynamics, the research wished to gain insight into the motives and objectives of why firms enter, stay and leave a public-private joint venture, as well as success factors and risk of failures. This was done through answering the following research question: How do the dynamics of strategic alliances unfold in a public-private joint venture? Through a qualitative case study with data collected from semi-structured interviews, this study operated inductively but in constant comparison with existent literature to formulate a model of the dynamics of strategic alliance in a public-private joint venture. The model includes a process starting with the motives and objectives to why companies and individuals engage in a public-private joint venture. After, influenced by the motives and objectives, the actual operation of the public-private joint venture including membership, strategies and management is presented, to end the process with impact of growth and cooperation. The practical contributions of this study will help managers of public-private joint venture with tools, such as how to avoid certain pitfalls and fill crucial positions. In term of theoretical contributions, this study added in exploring the gap of public-private joint venture by providing a conceptual model, as well as gave additional insights to how public-private joint ventures relates with social network theory. Moreover, the study provides policy implications, foremost for municipal and governmental bodies on how better access to centralized services can be implemented. Providing one place where all services can be accessed, can if successful facilitate smoother information sharing and enhanced competitive advantage.