Thesis (MBus)--University of South Australia, 2001

M.A.

Magister Commercii - MCom / This thesis formed part of a existing longitudinal study. The overall study is an outcome of research done to understand success and failure issues in Africa, which is an attempt to understand the impact of a short entrepreneurial training programme on the performance of small scale enterprises over time. The study is unique in the South African context in that it is the first short term, 3 days, entrepreneurial training programme that is assessed by means of a longitudinal method incorporating a control group. / South Africa

This study is located in the rather young area of international entrepreneurship research. Despite the vast literature in Western countries exploring the nexuses on entrepreneurship-national culture and entrepreneurship-decision making, we know very little about how bounded rationality and national culture affect the entrepreneur’s capital budgeting decision making in emerging economies. Past research on small business and capital budgeting shows a predominance of quantitative approaches to identify which capital budgeting techniques were used and why they are used. Through qualitative interviews with 20 Mexican and 20 Canadian participants, this study looks at how Mexican and Canadian entrepreneurs approach capital budgeting decisions in small businesses in the food sector industry. This study confirms that capital budgeting decisions are taken under conditions of bounded rationality, but also suggests that context affects how bounded rationality is used. For instance, Mexican entrepreneurs rely more on “gut feeling”, while Canadian entrepreneurs tend to combine intuition with business plans. The differences observed for both national samples are further discussed through a Hofstedian and a GLOBE lens. I argue that national culture affects how capital budgeting decisions are made throughout the decision making process (planning, identifying, evaluating, selecting and authorizing) and also that national culture plays a role for who influences the entrepreneurs’ decisions. By contextualizing capital budgeting decisions and using a constructivist logic of discovery, this study provides insights into entrepreneurs’ capital budgeting decision making in small businesses and suggests that national cultural differences play a valuable part in understanding this important aspect of entrepreneurial activity. This thesis also adds to our understanding of entrepreneurs in emerging economies.

O presente estudo objetivou analisar a legitimação do poder entre franqueados da rede CCAA na região de Passo Fundo/RS; trata-se de um processo pelo qual esses pequenos empreendedores buscam consolidar suas relações de trabalho para exercerem suas funções de direção com autoconfiança. Para tanto, foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa descritiva que usou como método de coleta de dados a entrevista semi-estruturada aliada a observações do ambiente. Quatro diretores de escolas de idiomas da rede CCAA na região norte do estado do Rio Grande do Sul participaram da pesquisa. Os dados coletados foram submetidos a uma análise interpretativa feita a luz do referencial teórico que resgatou a conceituação do poder, bem como seu papel na sociedade, antes de abordar o poder (e suas fontes) no contexto das organizações empresariais. O manual de gestão de pessoas da rede CCAA permitiu que uma análise documental complementasse o estudo, cujos resultados ratificaram a difícil mensuração da legitimação do poder, mas foram positivos, no sentido de que o fenômeno foi investigado dos mais diversos ângulos e identificou-se de forma não-planejada uma série de fatores correlatos, provocando, assim, uma evolução no seu entendimento, pois percebeu-se que diferentes estratégias de legitimação do poder foram adotadas variando conforme a história de vida e o estilo de liderança de cada um dos empreendedores e que essas estratégias geraram resultados semelhantes a curto prazo, mas no longo prazo, tendem a distanciar as empresas em quesitos como grau de profissionalização e capacidade de expansão, por exemplo. / The current study had the purpose of analyzing the legitimation of power among directors of CCAA chain units in the region of Passo Fundo/RS, it´s a process in which these small business people try to make working relationships solid to perform their functions of direction with self-confidence. For so, it was done a descriptive qualitative research that used as method of data collection a semi-structured interview together with observations of the environment. Four directors of foreign languages schools of CCAA chain in the northern region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul took part in the research. The collected data were submitted to an interpretative analysis made under the light of the academic frame that rescued the conception of power, as well as its role in the society, before approaching the power (and its fountains) in the context of business organizations. The guidebook of people management of CCAA chain allowed a documental analysis to complement the study, which results reinforced the difficulties in measuring the legitimation of power, but were good after all, since the phenomena was investigated from an array of angles and a series of related factors were identified in a non-planned way, provoking, thus, an evolution on its understanding, since it was realized that different strategies of legitimation of the power were adopted according to the history of life and leadership style of each of the directors and that these strategies may create similar results in short term, but in long term tend to increase the distance between the companies in matters such as professionalization level or capacity for expansion, for instance.

When the Malaysian Prime Minister announced throughout the country in November, 1989, that the New Economic Policy, which had been aimed at encouraging the Bumiputras of Malaysia divulge into business, had only achieved 19.4 percent success rate, few were surprised. This was because it had been known over the two decades of the New Economic Policy that the Malays had achieved little impact in the local entrepreneurial scene. What was surprising, was that no one questioned why the NEP had achieved so little, as compared to the hundreds of millions of Malalaysian dollars which had been allocated for the purpose of helping them become more entrepreneurial. It is the view of this researcher that the Malaysian government and publics still have not achieved the expected 30 percent NEP objective of Malay participation because the main issue at the heart of the matter, that is the fact that little is known about the characteristics of the Malays who have become entrepreneurs overnight, is not fully understood. This research, even though only focussing on Sarawak, is meant to act as the springboard for future research into understanding Malay entrepreneurial attributes and what more better way to do that other than by comparing them with the Chinese entrepreneurs in the state, whose successes in business have enabled them to dominate the state economy. Comparison of the business activity of the two races is the prime focus of this research and it is hoped that the results of this study will be useful for future policy makers as well as the entrepreneurial development programmes they design. Failure to do this will result in more wastage in the resources and manpower employed, largely because of duplication of the activities such as seminars, workshops and entrepreneurial courses which everybody seems to be organising but where nobody seems to be keeping record of who is organising what courses, who has attended what courses, who is or is not eligible to attend, or more importantly, even who can achieve the most benefit from what is being provided. This research reveals the similarities as well as the differences between the Malay and Chinese entrepreneurs in the study. These attributes are compared and analysed statistically to see whether certain characteristics (variables) for the two groups are positively or negatively correlated, and if so, how strong the correlation is. The analyses from the study is then compared to earlier studies which have all been done for the Malays and Chinese in Peninsular Malaysia. It is pertinent to note at this point that no study of this kind has ever been undertaken for Sarawak, and this study happens to be the first.

O presente estudo objetivou analisar a legitimação do poder entre franqueados da rede CCAA na região de Passo Fundo/RS; trata-se de um processo pelo qual esses pequenos empreendedores buscam consolidar suas relações de trabalho para exercerem suas funções de direção com autoconfiança. Para tanto, foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa descritiva que usou como método de coleta de dados a entrevista semi-estruturada aliada a observações do ambiente. Quatro diretores de escolas de idiomas da rede CCAA na região norte do estado do Rio Grande do Sul participaram da pesquisa. Os dados coletados foram submetidos a uma análise interpretativa feita a luz do referencial teórico que resgatou a conceituação do poder, bem como seu papel na sociedade, antes de abordar o poder (e suas fontes) no contexto das organizações empresariais. O manual de gestão de pessoas da rede CCAA permitiu que uma análise documental complementasse o estudo, cujos resultados ratificaram a difícil mensuração da legitimação do poder, mas foram positivos, no sentido de que o fenômeno foi investigado dos mais diversos ângulos e identificou-se de forma não-planejada uma série de fatores correlatos, provocando, assim, uma evolução no seu entendimento, pois percebeu-se que diferentes estratégias de legitimação do poder foram adotadas variando conforme a história de vida e o estilo de liderança de cada um dos empreendedores e que essas estratégias geraram resultados semelhantes a curto prazo, mas no longo prazo, tendem a distanciar as empresas em quesitos como grau de profissionalização e capacidade de expansão, por exemplo. / The current study had the purpose of analyzing the legitimation of power among directors of CCAA chain units in the region of Passo Fundo/RS, it´s a process in which these small business people try to make working relationships solid to perform their functions of direction with self-confidence. For so, it was done a descriptive qualitative research that used as method of data collection a semi-structured interview together with observations of the environment. Four directors of foreign languages schools of CCAA chain in the northern region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul took part in the research. The collected data were submitted to an interpretative analysis made under the light of the academic frame that rescued the conception of power, as well as its role in the society, before approaching the power (and its fountains) in the context of business organizations. The guidebook of people management of CCAA chain allowed a documental analysis to complement the study, which results reinforced the difficulties in measuring the legitimation of power, but were good after all, since the phenomena was investigated from an array of angles and a series of related factors were identified in a non-planned way, provoking, thus, an evolution on its understanding, since it was realized that different strategies of legitimation of the power were adopted according to the history of life and leadership style of each of the directors and that these strategies may create similar results in short term, but in long term tend to increase the distance between the companies in matters such as professionalization level or capacity for expansion, for instance.

O presente estudo objetivou analisar a legitimação do poder entre franqueados da rede CCAA na região de Passo Fundo/RS; trata-se de um processo pelo qual esses pequenos empreendedores buscam consolidar suas relações de trabalho para exercerem suas funções de direção com autoconfiança. Para tanto, foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa descritiva que usou como método de coleta de dados a entrevista semi-estruturada aliada a observações do ambiente. Quatro diretores de escolas de idiomas da rede CCAA na região norte do estado do Rio Grande do Sul participaram da pesquisa. Os dados coletados foram submetidos a uma análise interpretativa feita a luz do referencial teórico que resgatou a conceituação do poder, bem como seu papel na sociedade, antes de abordar o poder (e suas fontes) no contexto das organizações empresariais. O manual de gestão de pessoas da rede CCAA permitiu que uma análise documental complementasse o estudo, cujos resultados ratificaram a difícil mensuração da legitimação do poder, mas foram positivos, no sentido de que o fenômeno foi investigado dos mais diversos ângulos e identificou-se de forma não-planejada uma série de fatores correlatos, provocando, assim, uma evolução no seu entendimento, pois percebeu-se que diferentes estratégias de legitimação do poder foram adotadas variando conforme a história de vida e o estilo de liderança de cada um dos empreendedores e que essas estratégias geraram resultados semelhantes a curto prazo, mas no longo prazo, tendem a distanciar as empresas em quesitos como grau de profissionalização e capacidade de expansão, por exemplo. / The current study had the purpose of analyzing the legitimation of power among directors of CCAA chain units in the region of Passo Fundo/RS, it´s a process in which these small business people try to make working relationships solid to perform their functions of direction with self-confidence. For so, it was done a descriptive qualitative research that used as method of data collection a semi-structured interview together with observations of the environment. Four directors of foreign languages schools of CCAA chain in the northern region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul took part in the research. The collected data were submitted to an interpretative analysis made under the light of the academic frame that rescued the conception of power, as well as its role in the society, before approaching the power (and its fountains) in the context of business organizations. The guidebook of people management of CCAA chain allowed a documental analysis to complement the study, which results reinforced the difficulties in measuring the legitimation of power, but were good after all, since the phenomena was investigated from an array of angles and a series of related factors were identified in a non-planned way, provoking, thus, an evolution on its understanding, since it was realized that different strategies of legitimation of the power were adopted according to the history of life and leadership style of each of the directors and that these strategies may create similar results in short term, but in long term tend to increase the distance between the companies in matters such as professionalization level or capacity for expansion, for instance.

This thesis formed part of a existing longitudinal study. The overall study is an outcome of research done to understand success and failure issues in Africa, which is an attempt to understand the impact of a short entrepreneurial training programme on the performance of small scale enterprises over time. The study is unique in the South African context in that it is the first short term, 3 days, entrepreneurial training programme that is assessed by means of a longitudinal method incorporating a control group.

The objective of this study is to define differences and similarities in certain aspects of education, experience, and business practices of White, Black, and Latin American small businessmen, and approximately fifty questions relating to their operations were asked.