In this dissertation I explore social identity, secularism, and Indian Muslims' conceptions and experiences of living in a secular state while debating among themselves the meanings of ethical Muslim selfhood. Through participant observation and interviews based on over 15months of intensive field research, undertaken in a predominantly Muslim area of south-east Mumbai, my research focused on two groups of Muslim men--middle-class entrepreneurs and householders in their early to mid thirties, and senior students, from their late teens to early twenties, from a madrasa (Islamic seminary) attached to a prominent mosque in the city. Owing to its complex and intense dynamism, I also emphasize the city as an important agent in shaping everyday life. The core of my work is to explore secular life and secularism, central to India's liberal conception of itself as a pluralist democracy, that emerge through the lived experiences of Muslim men engaging with various daily pressures and transactions in an intensely dynamic urban context while trying to maintain a self understood to be ethical in terms of an inherited Islamic tradition. In discussing everyday phenomena such as piety and religious authority, gender, childraising, popular culture, personal and professional pursuits and ethical conduct, I demonstrate that the ostensibly `religious' domain of Islam is not necessarily the only, or even primary, basis for achieving selfhood for even those who identify as observant and devout Muslims. Rather, I argue, the religious domain of Islam in this context is defined as such and intersected by discourses and practices of the self as a political and economic agent, that is, a self defined in terms of political modernity. Thus this dissertation also contributes to the current anthropological rethinking of categories like `religion', `secularism', and `politics' in relation to social processes and subjects: a series of projects that are related, in the Indian context, to modernity and liberal conceptions of statehood, sovereignty, and personhood. A major conclusion of this work is that while most Indian Muslims have largely internalized (and accept) the liberal differentiation of politics and religion, the modern secular project in India nevertheless remains incomplete.

Diploma thesis - Department of commercial law Procuration as a type of representation in business relations abstract The opening of diploma thesis on the given theme deals with the ways of action of an entrepreneur including it's forms and especially concentrates on the entrepreneur's acts according to § 20 of the Civil Code. Chapter two deals with the institute of representation and briefly try to outline the legal representation of entrepreneurs-legal entities according to the Commercial Code. The major part concentrates on contractual representation and proxy which are subsidiary applicable to the procuration according to § 1 paragraph 2 of the Commercial Code. The first and second chapter forms a necessary basis for the next part of the thesis. A third chapter of the thesis deals with the history of procuration. Chapter focuses on the progression of legislation in the Czech lands since 1863 when the Austrian Commercial Code was adopted until 1st January 1991 when the Czech Commercial Code was adopted. Individual sub-chapters compare regulation of the procuration according to individual acts, quote relevant case law which interprets questionable matters. Fourth chapter of the thesis focuses on the procuration according to the Commercial Code (Act No. 513/1991 Coll.). It compares the previous legislation...

Esta tese investiga heurísticas de criação de oportunidades empreendedoras em startups. Pesquisas sobre ação empreendedora com base em heurísticas são desenvolvidas tendo como premissa que o mercado oferece várias oportunidades, prontas para serem selecionadas. Tais pesquisas não investigam como se dá a ação empreendedora quando há a necessidade de criação de uma nova oportunidade. Pesquisas sobre ação empreendedora com base em heurísticas também não exploram conceitualmente e empiricamente a criação de oportunidades empreendedoras por startups. Para preencher essas lacunas, esta tese se propõe a analisar a aderência da tipologia proposta por Bingham e Eisenhardt (2011) na criação de oportunidades empreendedoras por startups. A proposição que se faz é a seguinte: a tipologia proposta por Bingham e Eisenhardt não prevê heurísticas de gestão para a criação de novas oportunidades, já que tem como premissa que o mercado dispõe de várias oportunidades prontas para serem capturadas. Com base nesta análise, a seguinte pergunta dirige esta tese: Quais as heurísticas presentes na criação de oportunidades empreendedoras? Para responder a esta pergunta, esta tese constrói um quadro conceitual a partir da literatura e emprega a abordagem de pesquisa empírica, através da análise de ações empreendedoras unindo percepções, decisões e ações através de estudos de múltiplos casos realizados em oito startups. A contribuição central desta tese é a proposição de uma tipologia de heurísticas relacionadas à criação de oportunidades empreendedoras, adaptando a tipologia proposta por Bingham e Eisenhardt. Enquanto a tipologia de Bingham e Eisenhardt determina que empresas aprendem heurísticas dos tipos seleção, processual, prioridade e temporal, esta tese determina que empresas também aprendem heurísticas do tipo \'criação\' e propõe uma nova tipologia de heurísticas para a criação de oportunidades empreendedoras: \'startups aprendem heurísticas dos tipos criação, processual, prioridade e temporal\', uma vez que necessitam criar uma oportunidade que o mercado ainda não dispõe. / This thesis investigates heuristics creating entrepreneurial opportunities for startups. Research on entrepreneurial action based on heuristics are developed with the premise that the market offers several opportunities, ready to be selected. Such surveys do not investigate how is the entrepreneurial action when there is a need to create a new opportunity. Research on entrepreneurial action based on heuristics did not explore conceptually and empirically creating entrepreneurial opportunities for startups. To fill these gaps, this thesis aims to analyze the adherence of the typology proposed by Bingham and Eisenhardt (2011) in creating opportunities for entrepreneurial startups. The proposition that does is the following: the typology proposed by Bingham and Eisenhardt does not provide management of heuristics to create new opportunities, as it is premised that the market offers many opportunities ready to be captured. Based on this analysis, the following question directs this thesis: What heuristics present at the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities? To answer this question, this thesis builds a conceptual framework from the literature and employs empirical research approach through the analysis of entrepreneurial activities linking perceptions, decisions and actions through multiple cases performed in eight startups studies. The main contribution of this thesis is to propose a typology of heuristics related to creating entrepreneurial opportunities, adapting the typology proposed by Bingham and Eisenhardt. While the typology of Bingham and Eisenhardt requires that companies learn heuristics types selection, procedure, priority and time, this thesis requires that companies also learn heuristics like \'creation\' and proposes a new typology of heuristics to create opportunities entrepreneurial: \'startups learn heuristics types creation, procedure, priority and time\', since they need to create an opportunity that the market does not yet have.

This thesis asks: ‘How can tertiary education nurture entrepreneurial creativity?’ Entrepreneurship is considered to be a vital determinant of economic growth and the entrepreneur is understood as someone who innovates and commercialises their own innovation. The setting is New Zealand which is struggling to make the shift from relying on primary production to becoming a ‘creative economy.’ The creative individual has been identified as a new mainstream but it is argued that in New Zealand, education provision is inadequate for supporting the development of the practice of entrepreneurship. The problem is not unique. Various writers are critical of business education generally, and of the mismatch between the passion and chaos in entrepreneurs’ lives and the way education programs are typically organised as a linear sequence of discipline-based courses with prescribed content, activities and outcomes. Rich data were gathered from in-depth interviews with twelve nascent, new or experienced entrepreneurs and two associates (one a marketer, the other a scientist). Each participant was drawn from a different area of economic endeavour. They were asked to share their stories and views about creativity, the connections between creativity and entrepreneurship, business success, formal and informal education, and ways to improve tertiary education programs. The research found that a suitable environment for nurturing creativity will most likely have structure but will also enable chaos. It will present opportunities for experiencing diversity, and will stimulate unconscious and conscious mental processes. It will provide scope for hard work that is fun and involves authentic risk-taking, and will enable both individual and purposeful teamwork. The study also found that business success is not based on knowledge but is rather about being resourceful. The becoming of the creative entrepreneur thus includes developing capability to network with peers and mentors and communicate with customers and staff, and developing passion for and resilience in the pursuit of a dream. The findings suggest that in an age of uncertainty, nurturing entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness requires learning to be viewed as a practice-based community process where knowing and doing are interwoven with being. It is argued that this needs to align with Ronald Barnett and Kelly Coate’s (2005) notion of ‘a curriculum for engagement.’ It is suggested that an entire program might simply invite students to work collaboratively to identify and exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity by producing and commercialising an appropriate product/service innovation; to undertake this work as two separate projects – one within an existing organisation, and the other as a new venture; and to theorise their work. It is proposed that a suitable framework lies in William Doll’s (2002) advocacy for a curriculum based on a matrix of five Cs: ‘currere,’ complexity, cosmology, conversation, and community. To these, creativity is added as a sixth C.

<p><strong>Purpose:</strong> The purpose of the study is to investigate firstly, the motivations of Swedish and Thai entrepreneurs toward internationalization business by exporting and secondly, the similarity motivation in going internationalization among Swedish and Thai entrepreneurs.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> The multiple cases design is used in this report by conducting semi-structured interview in order to “generate understanding of the study” (Stenbacka, 2001). Two Swedish companies and three Thai companies have been interviewed. Empirical data was collected by face to face and telephone interview for Swedish companies and e-mail for Thai companies.</p><p><strong>Conclusion:</strong> Both Swedish and Thai entrepreneurs are motivated by both internal and external factors in term of going internationalization. However, there are dissimilarities in each motivation factors.</p>

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate firstly, the motivations of Swedish and Thai entrepreneurs toward internationalization business by exporting and secondly, the similarity motivation in going internationalization among Swedish and Thai entrepreneurs. Method: The multiple cases design is used in this report by conducting semi-structured interview in order to “generate understanding of the study” (Stenbacka, 2001). Two Swedish companies and three Thai companies have been interviewed. Empirical data was collected by face to face and telephone interview for Swedish companies and e-mail for Thai companies. Conclusion: Both Swedish and Thai entrepreneurs are motivated by both internal and external factors in term of going internationalization. However, there are dissimilarities in each motivation factors.

Entrepreneurs are often perceived to be creative and risk taking (Kreuger, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to investigate entrepreneurs’ response to a failure namely a bankruptcy. People react differently to a bankruptcy and tend to blame different things as the cause. Some blame themselves while others blame things out of their control. These differences can have an impact on the learning process and how easy the entrepreneur moves on after the failure. These findings can be used for situations when dealing with failures and entrepreneurial activities. There is no single theory already existing for this topic, therefore several theories have been looked at and used for the analysis. The theories can be divided into five main areas: entrepreneurship, failure, entrepreneurial response to failure, factors affecting responses to failure and learning. Entrepreneurship is treated as the creation of new economic activity (Davidsson, 2004) and entrepreneurial traits (Kreuger, 2002) are considered in the analysis. Locus of control is an important trait since it shows the ability of the entrepreneur to think that they are in control of the environment. (Rotter, 1966) In order to explain the cause of a bankruptcy people tend to use certain attributions. Locus of causality refers to whether a person blames internal or external causes and stability whether these causes are changeable in the future or not. (Martinko, 1995) Several factors will influence the response to a bank-ruptcy and in this thesis motivation for the start-up, culture and separation of the company are looked upon. After a failure an entrepreneur can learn false lessons (McGrath &amp; Cardon, 1997) and stop any entrepreneurial activities. However failure can also be positive if something true has been learnt. (Wiklund, 2006) This report is an exploratory type of study and a case study was conducted where five cases were used with entrepreneurs that have run companies that have gone bankrupt. A qualitative method was used and the empirical findings were gathered trough interviews which were then analysed with the support from the theoretical framework. In the analysis new models were created that showed patterns we found comparing the in-terviews. It also includes discussion about how culture affects the blaming factors of fail-ure. The factors that an entrepreneur is blaming the failure on are much depending on to what degree they possess entrepreneurial traits. This paper also suggest that how personally an entrepreneur takes his/her failure depends mostly on how financially dependent they were on their company and also how experienced they were from failure. Another finding was also that all the participants agreed that it is not a supportive business culture in the Jönköping region. Another conclusion is that entrepreneurs that blame their failure on in-ternal factors learn more from it, but this learning can be less significant due to earlier ex-perience from failure.

This paper reports the initial investigation of the possibility of identifying an entrepreneurial orientation among subjects who have undergone a venture identification and creation experience. The basis for the development of the measurement model were characteristics identified from the literature as forming the emerging entrepreneur paradigm. The purpose of the longitudinal research is to establish a methodology for the identification of people possessing entrepreneurial potential and whose further development could then be encouraged. Variables in the model which proved to be predictors of entrepreneurial orientation included Locus of Control which is a very strong entrepreneurial orientation. Attitude Towards Risk proved to be a predictor of a general interest in entrepreneurial activities, supporting findings in the literature. Significantly, a new variable was identified out of scales measuring Personal Objectives (PO). A strong link was found between the nature of personal skill advantages, objectives and interests fulfilled during the experimental project and entrepreneurial orientation. SOMMAIRE Cet article rend compte de travaux initiaux sur la determination de l'esprit d'entreprise de sujets qui ont fait une experience supposant la prise de risques et un recours à la création. Le modèle de mesure a été élaboré à partir de caractéristiques trouvées dans les livres pertinents sur ce qui constitue l'archetype de l'entrepreneur en puissance. La recherche longitudinale vise a trouver des méthodes pour déterminer les personnes douées d'un esprit d'entreprise dont on peut favoriser le développement. Parmi les variables du modèle qui se sont révélées être des indices d'esprit d'entreprise, figure le "lieu géométrique d'autorité", un critère très important. II s'est avéré que l'attitude face au risque était un indice d'intérêt général pour les activités reliées à l'esprit d'entreprise, ce qui corrobore les constatations des écrits sur la question. Une nouvelle variable a été dégagée des échelles qui mesurent les objectifs personnels(OP). On a, en effet, découvert un lien étroit entre les aptitudes, les objectifs et les intérêts personnels concrétisés au cours du projet expérimental, d'une part, et l'esprit d'entreprise, d'autre part. / This research was funded in part by a Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada block grant.

L'esprit d'entreprenariat est le catalyseur de l'économie libanaise. Il est connu que le Libanais est né « entrepreneur ». Nous tenterons, à travers notre recherche, de trouver les éléments qui animent toute intention de démarrer une entreprise au Liban, et plus particulièrement chez les étudiants(es) en ingénierie et en gestion. En outre, cette recherche identifie aussi les attributs communs chez ces étudiants(es), et essaye de trouver quels sont les facteurs qui puissent entraver ou encourager un comportement entrepreneurial. Particulièrement, notre travail décèle le niveau de l'intention entrepreneuriale, s'il varie entre les hommes et les femmes, les étudiants en ingénierie et les étudiants en gestion, et à travers les différentes universités. Cette étude nous a permis de déterminer un grand nombre de variables au niveau individuel, organisationnel et environnemental qui ont le potentiel de formuler une intention à s'engager dans les affaires. En conséquence, nous avons élaboré nos hypothèses et construit notre cadre conceptuel. Pour cela, 315 étudiants(es) en ingénierie et en gestion de deux universités différentes ont été sélectionnés. Les résultats ont montré que cinq variables individuelles et une quant à l'organisation, ont caractérisé notre modèle final: l'Attitude d'Innovation, le Comportement de Type A, le Pouvoir, l'Accomplissement, le Sexe et le Soutien Familial. Par contre, les paramètres liés à l'environnement ne semblent pas peser dans la balance pour un étudiant au cours d'un processus décisif pour s'engager ou ne pas s'engager dans les affaires au futur. En fait, les entraves les plus importantes sont l'indisponibilité de fonds et les risques liés au pays, ainsi que les facteurs motivant, dont la rentabilité et le développement personnel. Les étudiants(es) en ingénierie et en gestion ont montré un empressement important à s'aventurer, à entreprendre, mais ceux en ingénierie, à la différence des autres, pensent ne pas être assez préparés par les programmes d'études universitaires. Cependant, les hommes sont davantage reconnus que les femmes en tant qu'initiateurs en affaires. À la fin, nous avons mentionné quelques limites concernant notre étude, et des suggestions pour une future recherche.

Abstract Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were one of the major contributors to the economic miracle of Taiwan. There are over a million SMEs, which comprise 97.7% of all Taiwanese enterprises, However, SMEs faced with high risks of failure, especially at their entrepreneurship stages, due to their lack of expertise and abilities in technologies developments, together with their disadvantages in economy scale, market, capital and business connections. Thus more than 60 incubators were founded by Taiwan Government in past seven years to help SMEs entrepreneur cope with the above threaten. These incubators vary in factors such as capabilities, facility, and resources. Therefore, the selection of an appropriate incubator is a critical issue for an SME entrepreneur. This research identifies a set of evaluating criteria within five categories: facility, technical and human resource, business administrative, knowledge source, and organization infrastructure based on extensive literature review and interview with industry experts. ELECTRE I, a multiple criteria decision making method is applied to evaluate incubators. The results provide an efficient and effective method for selecting an appropriate incubator for SME entrepreneur.