Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, 2007. / Title from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 24, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0660. Adviser: Dean A. Shepherd.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, 2007. / Title from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 25, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0666. Adviser: Dean A. Shepherd.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2009.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb. 8, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-05, Section: A, page: 1715. Adviser: George F. Dreher.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: K. Peter Kuchinke. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-185) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> This dissertation suggests three things: that the decisions about entrepreneurship in subsistence economies has a complex cultural ontogeny; that particular narrative strategies are used by subsistence entrepreneurs to successfully gain loans; and that constrained individuals still face discrimination even within new institutional forms of support, even though it is the explicit intention of these new forms to end bias. An inductive study set in rural India informs the first point, and also suggests ways in which the concept of &ldquo;context&rdquo; can be operationalized, by breaking it down into constituent components under physical, economic and cognitive dimensions. Global crowdfinancing helps me dissect and defend the next two points. I investigate positivity and negativity in the language of the pitch text, the cultural similarity between borrowing and lending nations, as well as the narrative complexity of their pitch, and how these influence the time to funding. Analyses indicate that positively worded loans are funded more slowly than negatively worded ones. Narrative has a monotonous and positive relation to funding speed. Finally, my results show that cultural similarity between borrowers and lenders affects the way capital flows, suggesting that even in tech-enabled financing solutions, cultural bias persists. In sum, I present evidence and argue that transformational and subsistence entrepreneurship evolve from and entail fundamentally different mechanisms, and that these differences merit focused investigations into subsistence entrepreneurship.</p>

In 2001, charities in the UK celebrated the 400th anniversary of their legal birth. They now wield considerable economic influence in their contribution to the economy as changes made to the welfare state over the last 20 years have transferred the delivery of some essential public services to the sector. However, the research problem (and hence pressing challenge facing charities) is whether their governance systems and processes are keeping pace with their growing role in Britain today. The objectives and purpose of this study become, therefore, to examine, describe and evaluate the various elements of charity governance from an 'insider-trustee' perspective and from there to build both theoretical understanding of, and insight into effective charity governance, such as to bridge identified gaps in the literature. This has become necessary because, 'for the first time in history, charities are ... now receiving more cash from the state than private donors' (Brindle, 2010, p. 1), and need, therefore, to demonstrate accountability to the UK taxpayer. Three research questions have guided this study: (i) What constitutes effective charity governance?; (ii) How does the Charity Board contribute to effective charity governance?; and (iii) Who are the stakeholders in charities, and does their recognition and engagement contribute to effective charity governance? The study adopts a descriptive, comparative, cross-sectional and multiple case study approach in order to explore the experiences, procedures and systems of third sector governance in three UK charities. This research design is considered suitable because it offers a robust, scientific methodology to investigate and understand the emic nature of the research problem. A conceptual framework developed on the three main themes of: (i) organisation structure and strategy, (ii) internal governance mechanisms, and (iii) external governance mechanisms, is used to provide the intra-and cross-case analysis presented. Participatory observation of governance meetings provides both an insider and direct access, insight into and understanding of, governance in the object charities. Document analysis is also employed to collect relevant data. However, the main data collection method employed is in-depth, face-to-face, open-ended interviews with trustees, Management Committee members, directors and Chief Officers of the object charities. The findings from the study reveal that although there are various elements of best practice governance in the object charities, significant room remains for improvement in organisation structure and both internal and external governance mechanisms in order to achieve effective charity governance. The study has made contributions to theory, practice and policy in several areas. In the area of theory, this research presents the first comparison of the development of corporate and charity governance in Britain. The study offers suggestions on how corporate governance codes can be 'flexed' for charities. In the area of practice, specific governance recommendations are made to transform the practices of the three charities. Training courses for trustees, chief officers and other executive directors have been developed from the empirical data and the literature. In the area of policy, changes in regulations are suggested. Finally, the empirical findings and literature provide a model which can be used by charity trustees and chief officers to assess the effectiveness of their governance arrangements. This model has been classified as the emergent principles of effective charity governance being: (i) optimal, responsive organisation structure; (ii) clear direction of travel based on defined goals and objectives; (iii) committed and focused governing body; (iv) sound financial and risk management; and (v) open, ethical and accountable stakeholder engagement.

The acquisition and successful integration strategies of companies is of particular interest given the significant numbers of acquisition failures: over 65% of acquired companies are either sold or divested within the first two years of new ownership (Dooley & Zimmerman, 2003). The cost of a failed acquisition can run into tens of millions of euros. If acquisition is important as a means of growth than are there means available to increase the chances of success? Acquisition as primary source of inorganic growth is important within the high-tech sector as this allows the acquiring company to obtain critical new technologies and products as well as access new or adjacent markets (Marks & Mirvis, 2001). In acquiring a high-technology company the acquirer is, in essence, buying the extrinsic and intrinsic knowledge resident with the acquired staff (Chaudhuri & Tabrizi, 1999). Whilst the extrinsic knowledge may be captured in documentation and drawings it is the intrinsic knowledge that may well be critical for realisation of the full value of the acquisition. This key knowledge is normally held by a small number of the acquired staff (Wooldridge, 2006). If these key staff members then, as a result of either the acquisition itself, or the ensuing integration, become unsettled or unwilling to remain in employment with the acquiring company then this knowledge is at risk. The exodus of thesekey staff members could well significantly devalue the purchase and, in extreme cases, could render the acquisition a failure (Hacker, 2003). At the point of acquisition the only initial legal safeguard to retaining the critical staff members is their contracts of employment. The uncertainty caused by the acquisition and subsequent integration could cause the staff member to reassess his or her role in the new organisation and decide to leave the company (Krug, 2003). If sufficient key staff leave the company the damage may be significant. The challenge of retaining these key staff members at acquisition and, subsequently, through and beyond the integration process is thus critical, particularly for hightech' companies (Chaudhuri & Tabrizi, 1999). Given the terms of employment are initially deemed to be satisfactory by the acquirer, what other measures can be put in place to ensure the retention of these key people in the new organisation? This research explores aspects of trust, its definition, development and role in the postacquisition integration context of the high-tech electronics area and whether trust could be one of the factors that influenced key staff to remain with the acquired company in two different geographic locations. The practical outcome was the development and production of a number of trust measurement tools that were first utilised and then supplied to the case study companies for ongoing use for both post-acquisition integration and also general monitoring The research was undertaken, consequently, driven by the need to explore conditions and contingencies of trust that may provide important new knowledge that can be utilised to assist with attempting to understand the role of trust in the context of high-tech company acquisitions. Two case studies at two separate geographical locations (in two countries) within a leading edge technology company have been completed. These studies were both designed to be longitudinaland multilevel in nature, encompassing both the relationship from staff to management and from management to staff. A further aspect that has been explored is the relationship between `head office' senior management and the geographically remote acquired company management. Full access has been granted to all staff and management constituting an excellent data gathering opportunity. A numbero f trust measurementto ols haveb eenr evieweda nd severals electedf or use (Gillespie, 2003, Spreitzer & Mishra, 1999). However, examination of the literature concerning trust measurement has indicated there is some absence of suitable tools that can measure trust spanning from a belief trust base (where the trustor believes he/she can trust the trustee) through to trust informed actions (Dietz & Den Hartog, 2006). This lack of appropriate means of measurement has led to development of two further trust measurement tools that will span this range of trust. To add to the value of the studies, as mentioned above, several points of trust measurement were carried out. Longitudinal trust measurement was selected on the basis of seeking to establish trust trends and possibly related management actions. Data has been collected over three years. Data has been gathered through surveys and semi-structured interviews to afford a mixed method quantitative/qualitative approach. The thesis contains an extensive review of the trust literature, describes the reasons for choice of the above mentioned methodology and reports results of analysis on the data collected to-date. The study concludes with discussion of the potential contingencies that can be undertaken by management in order to both monitor and maintain trust levels, the limitations of the research and areas for further study

Small business owners represent 99.7% of all U.S. employer firms, employ half of the private sector employees, and provide 43% of the total U.S. private payroll. However, 50% of new small business startups fail within the first 5 years of operation. The purpose for this multiple case study was to explore what skills, knowledge, and strategies small business coffee shop owners use to succeed in business beyond 5 years. Systems theory, chaos theory, and complexity theory provided the conceptual framework for exploring the research question of this multiple case study. To identify and explore the factors for maintaining small business' operations, the population for this study was 3 small business owners of 3 coffee shops in Duval County, Florida who sustained their businesses for a minimum of 5 years. The data sources were semistructured interviews, the business' websites, social media information, and site visit observations. Based on methodological triangulation of the data sources, analytical coding, and analyzing the data using mind mapping and software, 3 themes emerged: owner networking and the business as a customer to customer networking venue, business plans' initial challenges and addressing subsequent changes, and a need for marketing differentiation. Potential implications for effecting positive social change include increasing the rate of small business success, and increasing the financial security for owners, employeees, employees' families, and their communities.

Health-related absenteeism could significantly affect organizational productivity because of the additional resources needed to compensate for the missing worker's absence. Work productivity is critical for business sustainability as companies continue to create a lean workforce and decrease operating cost. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies that organizational leaders at a university in the southeastern United States used to successfully decrease occurrences of health-related employee absenteeism. The conceptual framework for this study was the theory of planned behavior. A purposive sample of 10 management, 5 faculty, and 5 staff members participated in structured interviews. Secondary data sources included field observations of the university's health and wellness facilities and a review of the university's healthcare plan and wellness program offerings used to reduce absenteeism. Thematic analysis, coding, and member checking led to the identification of 2 major themes. First, a need existed at this university for specific policy and procedures regarding health-related absenteeism. Second, emphasis was needed on the role of workplace health programs in decreasing health related absenteeism. The findings indicated that by integrating supportive management practices, effective absenteeism policies, and health management programs into their organizational culture, leaders at this university could develop specific strategies to decrease health-related absenteeism. Social change implications include changing perceptions of health related absenteeism to help leaders and employees at this and other similar environments become more aware of their current health status, reduce health risks, maintain a healthy lifestyle, and perform better at work.