<p>Employee turnover is high in small retail business, compelling business leaders to implement strategies that successfully reduce employee turnover. The conceptual framework guiding this study was the Herzberg 2-factor theory because the theory identifies factors that influence job satisfaction and employee turnover. The study population was retail owners and managers from small businesses in the retail industry in San Antonio, Texas who had demonstrated successful strategies to reduce employee turnover. A focus group was conducted with 4 retail managers, and semistructured interviews were conducted with 2 small retail owners, all of whom were recruited via purposeful criterion-based sampling. Yin?s 5-step process for data analysis of compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding resulted in themes of continuous learning in the workplace, communication, and valuing employees. These leaders provided continuous learning in the workplace, which demonstrated their value of their employees. Communication was a key concept discussed by all participants, as it built credibility with leaders and employees, increased productivity, and reduced turnover. The study has value to the practice of business because results may benefit industry growth by increasing retail leaders? knowledge levels about employee turnover. The findings may affect positive social change as leaders apply strategies useful for reducing employee turnover as lower turnover rates might reduce unemployment, stabilize communities, and improve the human and social conditions outside the workplace.

<p> This research study examined the relationship between entrepreneurial bricolage and environmental dynamism, contributing to the knowledge base of the resource-based theory. Specifically, this study examined the influence perceived environmental dynamism has on entrepreneurial bricolage while controlling for the firm&rsquo;s annual revenue, number of employees, age, industry and business experience, and educational level. Prior research has identified firms with higher levels of entrepreneurial bricolage overcome resource limitations through innovation, a primary component of competitive advantage. Prior research has also identified firms that function efficiently in rapidly changing environments demonstrate stronger dynamic capabilities and higher levels of innovation. In addition, previous research has identified entrepreneurial bricolage and environmental dynamism, separately, positively impact innovation; however, no identified research has examined these constructs together within the parameters of this research study. This research study utilized multiple linear regression to analyze the data used to test the hypotheses related to the research questions. The primary research question examined in this study was to what extent does Environmental Dynamism Index (IV) explain variations in the Entrepreneurial Bricolage Index (DV), controlling for Annual Revenue (CV), Number of Employees (CV), Firm Age (CV), Industry Experience (CV), Business Experience (CV), and Education Level (CV). The population for this study included businesses located in the United States in the business services sector (SIC 73) with fewer than 100 employees and annual revenue below $5 million. Results identified perceived environmental dynamism was a statistically significant predictor of entrepreneurial bricolage; no statistically significant relationship was identified between all control variables (annual revenue, number of employees, firm age, business experience, and education level) and entrepreneurial bricolage. Findings of this study suggested that firms operating in environments of greater perceived environmental dynamism demonstrated greater use of entrepreneurial bricolage. This research study was limited in population and did not include all constructs of the Environmental Dynamism Scale; further research is recommended examining the relationship between environmental dynamism and entrepreneurial bricolage in various industries and cultures. In addition, future research is recommended examining these constructs using all constructs included in the Environmental Dynamism Scale.</p><p>

<p> The failure rate of rookie realtors is highest in the first 24 months of a new real estate practice. A large percentage of newly hired realtors voluntarily exit the industry because they are unable to earn enough income to sustain their practices. The purpose of this study was to explore the shared practice strategies and common themes of the successful rookie realtor. The perspectives of realtors that obtained a level of sales success during the early phases of employment are important to future practitioners and leaders in the industry. This qualitative case study examined the experiences of rookie realtors that successfully acclimated into new real estate careers and experienced sales success during the first 12 months of a new real estate practice. A purposeful sample of 10 realtors shared their early experiences of success in semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed five significant themes relative to their sales success: (1) rookie realtors are motivated by client satisfaction and financial rewards, (2) successful rookie realtors develop effective relationships, (3) understanding terms and constructs of the sales contract and finding a mentor provided the most significant training during the early phases of employment, (4) technology tools and applications are used to increase agent efficiencies and, (5) rookie realtors have unrealistic expectations about their jobs and the roles of leadership. According to the data, the most significant factor positively influencing early sales success in rookie realtors is their motivation to receive client satisfaction. A customer orientation trait in rookie realtors may positively influence early sales success.</p><p>

<p> Salons have a long and rich history. The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of salon owners, employees, and independent booth renters (IBRs) regarding mass employee walkouts (gaggles). The central problem for the study is salon owners fear gaggles because they can bankrupt salons. Prior to the current study, research had not been conducted to examine why salon walkouts occur. This study is unique because the research was conducted from the perspective that salon personnel and owners are knowledge workers (KWs). Unlike most KWs, stylists who walk out often take their clients with them. The overarching research question was the following: What are the lived experiences and perceptions of salon owners, employees, and IBRs before, during, and after a salon employee gaggle? The purposeful sample for the study consisted of salon owners, employees, and IBRs in the Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, metropolitan area who had experienced gaggle walkouts in salons. Ten stylists, who had experienced a total of 26 gaggles, completed telephone interviews. Using an iterative four-step analysis method with NVivo 10 software, 17 themes and seven subthemes were identified. The overall lived experience was pain. The findings regarding the gaggle phenomenon were discussed in terms of chaos and systems complexity theory. Leaders may use the findings of the study to better understand the lived experiences of salon owners, employees and IBRs during walkouts throughout the salon industry. Additional research is needed to determine whether the findings are applicable to KWs in other service industries..</p>

<p>Learning Ambidexterity in Organization As organizational exploitation drives out exploration, companies must reach beyond traditional organizational learning practices to become learning organizations, learning in action as they also perform. As traditional companies tip the balance between entropy and negative entropy, they ultimately begin to focus almost exclusively on evolutionary learning and refining more of what they already know. High-Tech Optics avoided this success trap of focusing on past performance by routinely assessing and perturbing its cultural and structural inertia and continually reaffirming that performance and learning should be integrally linked objectives. Exploitation was kept from crowding out exploration by several factors, namely the company CEO and the ambidextrous organizational culture. When learning was emphasized, it was in the context of ambidextrous learning, not simply a reference to incremental learning associated with the refinement of existing products and processes. Instead, this company?s learning fell across a spectrum, from learning within a specially created structurally ambidextrous space to research projects, customer problem solving, perturbing its own processes, and helping others. This qualitative single-case study, with its nine findings and four conclusions, strongly suggests not only that it is possible for organizations to learn ambidexterity, but that such learning most likely happens in all organizations. This study discovered that High-Tech Optics naturally converged on all three kinds of ambidexterity: contextual, structural, and temporal. What might not be possible, or natural, for most organizations, however, is the sustainment of ambidexterity, learning how to make an ambidextrous culture permanent. Remarkably, High-Tech Optics, a manufacturing company, emerged as an ambidextrous organization naturally over time, but then deliberately set mechanisms, structures, and processes in place to continue these behaviors indefinitely. The main implication for practitioners is to consider an ambidextrous plan for their own organizations. As exploitation tends to drive out exploration as organizations mature, favoring what is already known over what is new, organizations should not forget their early explorative learning behaviors.

<p> The study analyzed survey data and investment returns from 477 angel investment ventures to evaluate factors related to financial rates of return. Principal components analysis, linear regression, and nonparametric methods were used to reduce and analyze the data. The findings indicated that only the angel investor&rsquo;s perception of market risk was related to the rates of return on their investment, and that the rates of return to the angel investors was superior to alternative investments in common market indexes. Logistic regression was used to construct a model that increased predicted angel investment break even by 50% over chance.</p>

<p> Social enterprises have been emerging to support the growing need to address social challenges in society. However, it is not clear how social entrepreneurs create large-scale change. This research examines the emergence of a new organizing approach, social entrepreneurship networks (SEN), for enacting social innovation.</p><p> The premise is individual social enterprises may be limited in their ability to scale, while a network of social enterprises can create greater opportunities for impact. The problem is researchers have tended to focus more on the entrepreneur's human attributes. However, social entrepreneurship networks require an understanding of the interaction between <i>social actions</i> and <i>institutional conditions</i> that support social value creation. This research addresses a gap in understanding the nature of this interaction and how these networks emerge to enable social entrepreneurs the means to harness the complexity to achieve their ends of social change.</p><p> This research found the emergence of a network of entrepreneurs over time, which created novel social patterns. These patterns co-evolved to enable a SEN. This new organizing form was studied through the requisite conditions and social mechanisms necessary to create and scale social value. The conditions included the constraints and influences imposed upon particular agents by <i> course-grained social structures.</i> The social mechanisms identified as <i>fine-grained interactions</i> included the sets of internal assumptions that specified how people would interact and connect with each other. These structures and interactions created a set of <i>dynamical tensions</i> that enabled the emergence and sustainment of the SEN.</p><p> It was concluded that fine-grained interactions are enabled through networks, which provide the social mechanisms needed to lower the probability of failure and increase the level interactions. In addition, course-grained structures are ratcheted&mdash;holding on to what works-- as a result of fine-grained interactions that enable knowledgeable actors to change the structures. Lastly, dynamical tensions create opportunities for hyper-emergence &ndash;a form of kick-starting&mdash;a social entrepreneurship network. Social entrepreneurship networks simulate collective impact, which holds the promise of sustainable social innovation.</p>

<p> Salt Lake City, Utah, is recognized as the most entrepreneurially oriented city in the United States, fostering and nurturing small businesses owners to achieve success. Women in Salt Lake City start more businesses than do men, yet women struggle to survive. This study first presents nine successful Salt Lake City women entrepreneurs and how they got started in and grew their unique business and sustained them for extended periods. The participants were profiled as to the motivations and circumstances that led them to begin their businesses. Second, the strategies they employed to overcome challenges and obstacles they faced in the growth phase of their businesses are presented. Finally, the researcher presents information on how these nine women entrepreneurs sustained their businesses for many years. </p><p> This qualitative, phenomenological exploration of women entrepreneurs utilized two data collection methods: personal interviews and observations of their business operations. The nine women participants were purposefully selected to represent a cross-section of industries in an effort to provide rich, stratified data. The questions were designed and validated to elicit candid, authentic recollections of their lived experiences as entrepreneurs. One-on-one, personal interviews were conducted at each participant's place of business to capture the essence of the businesses and provide context of the nature of the enterprise. </p><p> This study resulted in four conclusions. First, the circumstances and motivations for these Salt Lake City entrepreneurs mirrored the intentions of similar populations; importantly, these women expertly juggled their family considerations with the demands of their businesses. Second, this group experienced little gender bias. Notably, they relied on their personal expertise, management backgrounds, and personal financial resources to make their firms a success. Third, this group did not rely on outside mentors, advisors, or counselors to propel their firms forward. Fourth, this group of Utah women created strong, dynamic, internal processes that ensured superior customer service, the single most important factor in their collective success. In summary, this study may be helpful current and future entrepreneurs as it has examined the personal biographies as well as the contextual and regional influences of these exceptional women entrepreneurs.</p>

<p> Nationally, about 50% of all business startups in the U.S. vanish by their fifth year (Fisher, Maritz, &amp; Lobo, 2014). In a recent survey, the U.S. Census Bureau (2015) has identified 5.4 million small businesses in operation today, with about 67% of them having fewer than 20 employees. This majority of all small businesses are known as micro-business enterprises (MBE) and are run by micro-business owners (MBO). </p><p> In this qualitative phenomenological study, decision-making processes through the principles of causation and effectuation were explored on MBOs whose MBE has fewer than 15 employees. There is a gap identifying challenges MBO&rsquo;s experience between the phase where the MBE transitions out of the startup phase and moves into the growth phase&mdash;a point in the business cycle known as the inflection point (Dimovski, Penger, Peterlin, &amp; Uhan, 2013). The findings in the study supported the problem statement in that MBO behavioral characteristics are the primary drivers that can impact the operating of a successful or unsuccessful business. </p><p> Authors who have studied decision-making processes at the point of inflection have indicated that most research has been conducted through quantitative methods (Chandler, DeTienne, McKelvie, &amp; Mumford, 2011; Perry, Chandler, &amp; Markova, 2012). As the study on the decision-making principles of causation and effectuation matures, Perry, Chandler, and Markova (2012) suggested new qualitative research be conducted to explore various aspects of psychological capital as MBOs hire, train, and manage employees.</p><p>

<p> Home health care has become a popular long term care option as most seniors prefer to age and heal in the comfort of their homes and among their loved ones. With the advent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and a rise in baby boomers, home health care has become an integral part of the health care delivery system. Additionally, these have led to an increased demand for Home Health Agencies - HHA&rsquo;s, and created a good market for the home health business. The following business plan is developed for the establishment of a Home Health Agency, in Long Beach, California. Chapter 1 Market analysis discusses the market structure and potential for the Home health business and analysis of the company, customers, and competitors. It also presents the marketing strategies, goals and objectives. Chapter 2 Feasibility and SWOT Analysis explains the operational feasibility and financial viability of the business plan. This chapter also explores the strengths and weaknesses of the business, opportunities for the business and threats to the business. Chapter 3 Legal and Regulatory issues, describes various legal aspects and regulatory requirements in a home health agency business. Chapter 4 Financial Analysis, gives detailed explanation of the financial plan and structure for the business like costs, expenses, budget and compensation.</p>