This investigation aims to explore the motivating factors behind the decision to engage in informal self-employment within ethnic economies. Through a series of semistructured qualitative interviews with Latin American immigrant women participating in informal self-employment in Stockholm, this study focuses on the ways in which agency and structure can influence economic decisions. Using the theory of mixedembeddedness, the results show that participating in informal self-employment can be understood as both a product of capitalizing on available social and ethnic resources, as well as the outcome of limited opportunities in traditional labour markets. While social and ethnic networks facilitate informal exchanges and provide an environment in which alternative employment opportunities become available, the decision to start an informal enterprise correlates with a lack of other opportunities, due to factors such as discrimination, a lack of language skills, limited access to start-up capital and a complex institutional context for small-scale entrepreneurs.

Innovation strategy has been playing an important role on innovation development in industrial firms. Extant studies have investigated in particular open innovation strategy.  By using a qualitative case study, I have conducted a research in an Indonesian R&D firm that has implemented an open innovation strategy. The purpose of this research is to add more information and confirm existing knowledge by exploring challenges and opportunities during the implementation of an open innovation strategy. I identify many challenges which are found in several aspects of innovation development such as collaboration management, assets protection and accessing external knowledge. Furthermore, the opportunities that I found are related with enhancement of license strategy, nurture of employee’s loyalty and establishment of various collaboration forms. These challenges and opportunities occurred due to the influence of the openness paradigm. The results of this study also confirm previous research result on the adoption of the partly open innovation scheme and the layered collaboration scheme. RQ: what are the firm-level challenges and opportunities with using an open innovation strategy?

Hugh Lafollette’s theoretical justification of parental licensing hinges upon consideration of the harms associated with raising children. If we understand Lafollette’s stance as one in which the moral status of children is equal to that of other human beings, we must consider what such a commitment might require of social institutions such as the family. Unlike other licensing programs, I argue that Lafollette’s parental licensing program serves as a tool by which fair equality of opportunity can be acquired for those living within a given society. I attempt to demonstrate how the normative views as to the sovereignty of parents serve to discount the moral status of children, thus limiting the protections offered against child maltreatment. I will show how Lafollette’s theoretical justifications align with concerns addressed in John Stuart Mill’s harm principle and Rawlsian views as to the importance of access to fair equality of opportunity.

Sveriges yngsta riksdagsparti Sverigedemokraterna har mött motstånd i form av demonstrationer. En form av motstånd vilket historiskt sett varit ovanligt i landet. Studien kartlägger hur dessa demonstrationer har tagit uttryck över en tioårsperiod, med syfte att se motrörelsens aktivitet och vilka taktiker som föredragits. Tidigare forskning på området pekade på att en motrörelses aktivitet ökar tillfälligt efter en förlust, för att sedan minska om inga framsteg görs över tid. Demonstranterna antogs också tillämpa mer drastiska taktiker i takt med att partiet når framgångar vid valen. Resultaten av studien visar att detta inte skett, våld har inte ökat. Istället blev användandet av ljud som civil olydnad mer vanligt mot slutet av protestcykeln. Efter ett antal motgångar där aktiviteten ökat successivt, minskade den sedan hastigt. Då tidigare forskning främst fokuserat på rörelser i andra stater, kan svensk politisk kultur samt SD och rörelser mot SD vara av annan karaktär, och därmed ge upphov till ett annat resultat.

The NBA instituted a new policy in 2006 mandating that players wait one year after graduating high school before declaring themselves eligible for the NBA draft. Since the rule’s creation, there has been constant debate over whether this policy is beneficial for the players. One side argues the extra year of school allows players to further mature and develop prior to signing a professional contract, while the counterargument claims the extra year is a waste of time and resources for a player who will enter the draft within a year anyways. The intent of this paper is to ascertain which factors, outside of on court performance, contribute most to a player’s value in terms of salary and determine the appropriate circumstances in which it is favorable for an athlete to leave school and pursue basketball professionally.

This thesis focuses on how entrepreneurial cognition interacts with internal stakeholder perception in established entrepreneurial organizations. In addition, the influence of interdependent factors of cognitive biases, temporality, growth and performance on the interaction has been examined. The study is exploratory, phenomenological and framed within an interpretive research paradigm. Primary data was gathered using a qualitative multiple case study methodology. Semi-structured interviews were conducted every three months over an eighteen-month period with entrepreneurs and internal stakeholders of nine organizations in Phase I and three organizations in Phase II. This research is original because it focuses exclusively on the interaction between concepts of entrepreneurial cognition and biases, temporality, internal stakeholder perception, organizational factors, growth and performance for established entrepreneurial organizations. The empirical evidence highlights that cognitive diversity and differences in perception and expectations have an impact on entrepreneurial and internal stakeholder interrelationships in established entrepreneurial organizations. Furthermore, entrepreneurial decision-making leads to the Icarus Paradox of confidence-success-attribution cycle that either moderates or mediates organizational growth and performance. The consequence of longer communication chains is limited information flow that results in cognitive dissonance. The research contributes to closing the gap in literature on the interdependent nature of entrepreneurial cognition and internal stakeholder perception on organizational growth and performance. The contribution to practice therefore is that in established entrepreneurial organizations the entrepreneurs and internal stakeholders can focus on performance by understanding the cause and effect influence of their interactions. This sets the foundation for further research on the interaction between entrepreneurial cognition and other organizational concepts.

In this paper, an Export Decision Support Model applied to the Czech Republic is developed, with the aim of finding export opportunities. The model functions using a filtering process in which a stream of data composed of numerous socio-economic indicators representing the world trade is analysed. For their construction, an extensive literature review was developed relying strongly on a previous EDSM targeted as well for the Czech Republic, as at the moment no explicit rule exist describing its appropriate composition. Then, if a given market, determined by its associated matrix of indicators, fulfils the conditions of the model, then it is retrieved as an export opportunity. After the model construction, it is supplied with two streams of data, for 2010 and for 2014 and, the hypothesis that for both years the output is equal is evaluated. With the intention to infer if the constructed model needs periodical recalibrations for its appropriate use. Finally, a local sensitivity analysis is deployed uncovering the behaviour of the different parameters of the model, a novel approach not yet implemented in an EDSM tailor made for the Czech Republic. JEL Classification F10, F13, F23, M31 Keywords export opportunity, entrepreneurship, international marketing, sensitivity analysis, trade Author's e-mail...

Master of Arts / Department of Geography / Max Lu / Many rural areas throughout the Great Plains and Midwest have been affected by a “brain drain,” or the outward migration of highly trained or well-educated people. This hurts many facets of rural communities, including local schools, economies, and available services. In response to a negative outlook for rural areas, in 2012 the State of Kansas implemented the Rural Opportunity Zone (ROZ) Program to encourage young, college-educated adults to move to rural counties. The ROZ program provides tax waivers and student loan repayments to those willing to relocate to participating counties. This research looks at what influences young educated adults to participate in the program as well as how the ROZ’s financial benefits potentially outweigh the drawbacks associated with rural life. The research employed a survey of Kansas State University students as well as interviews with local economic development officials who manage the program. Survey results reveal that even though the majority of students have a stated rural preference most do not view themselves as likely to participate in the program. Despite student interest in the program benefits most view the lack of services and employment opportunities in rural Kansas to be too much of a drawback. County officials expressed similar feelings. Interviews revealed that, though the program primarily benefits those though were already intending to live in a rural area, the program rarely attracts newcomers. In addition, the program is poorly funded in many areas and the lack of affordable housing or high paying jobs limits population growth in a way that the benefits of the ROZ cannot outweigh. Findings from this research will allow communities to make changes that build upon their attributes as well as limit their undesirable characteristics. This research also highlights the need for changes to be made by the State of Kansas concerning the program’s benefits and awareness.

In the last twenty years, Google had a tremendous growth, from a small project of two PhD students to one of the most valuable companies on the globe. This growth is characterised by the versatile of the company, next to its search engine, Google explored many different value chains along the way. In this study, the value grid model is used to examine their movements. It can be stated that Google used, and uses, the paths/dimension as implied by Pil and Holweg (2006) to explore new opportunity and demand. The main reason why Google is able to do so is because of its board and management, who are innovative, and open-minded. Next to the top management is the appearance of Google in many different sectors and value chains a reason of their growth. The variety in businesses allows them to create a “Google experience”, and thus a competitive advantage in comparison with their main competitors who do not have this ability.

The main aim of this graduation thesis is to create a business plan for an emerging business. The theoretical part briefly describes the concept of entrepreneurship. The basis of the theoretical part is representation of various chapters in the structure of the business plan The main part of the graduation thesis is the practical part, which contains a full version of a business plan for the company MaxiMini Ltd, which deals in shoes for people with special size requirements. The author first deals with basic information about the project and then goes on to describe the principles of a business opportunity, goals and business strategy. Then follow detailed product (and its need) characteristics, a description of services, location and potential suppliers. The marketing analysis examines competition, overall and target markets, prices and marketing. The financial part evaluates capital expenditure and operating costs, which together form the source for financial statements in three versions of possible future progress, followed by a recovery calculation of investment. In the conclusion the whole project is evaluated by means of SWOT and risk analysis.