According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, African Americans are the fastest growing entrepreneurial minority group in the United States. However, they suffer the highest business failure rates. The research design for this study was a multiple case study to explore the strategies small business owners used to succeed in business beyond 5 years. The conceptual framework for this study was the systems theory. The population was small business owners in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolis, Texas. Data collection sources included semistructured interviews, company documents, company websites, and site visit observations. The data analysis process included data cleaning, uploading transcribed interviews into qualitative data analysis software, organizing and coding, and conducting methodological triangulation against company documents. The thematic analysis led to the identification of 6 major themes contributing to company sustainability. The predominate themes included entrepreneur qualities, adequacy or lack of collateral, financial planning, and market qualities. The consensus among participants denoted that in a business environment characterized by market differentiation, effective financial planning and unique entrepreneurial characteristics contributed to company sustainability. The findings revealed several features of the successful business owners such as education, professional background, motivation, creativity, negotiation skills, networking, risk-taking, and self-efficacy were critical for company sustainability. The positive social change includes increasing the rate of small business success, supporting the U.S. economy, and improving financial security for African American entrepreneurs, their families, employees, and the community.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-02T21:43:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 OSWALDO MARTINS DOS SANTOS FILHO.pdf: 643395 bytes, checksum: 20f73829884ddfb8b0b840e0a8f5c114 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-07-06 / Due to the necessity of insertion of sustainable development politics within the context of organizations, companies invest in resources expecting that the adoption of these actions may bring strategic and economical benefits, reflected in the image of the organization as well as in its valorization in the market. In this setting, Sustainability Indexes were created in a global scale, and these indexes, in general, evaluate several dimensions of the organization relations with society, environment and with the suppliers of capital to companies. In Brazil, specifically in 2005, the created the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE) to gather the shares of companies that incorporate in their business objectives, social responsibility as well as company sustainability. Due to what was mentioned above, this paper has the objective of verifying what is the impact in the actions of the sample from 43 companies before the entrance and the exit of CSI funds. The methodology of event study aimed identifies the abnormal returns after the divulgence of the CSI funds, from the editions 2005 to 2009, according to the search, the risk-adjusted return and the market-adjusted return were used. The financial data, before and after the event, were extracted from the data base of São Paulo Stock Market. The results demonstrated the positive relation among the participation of some companies in the portfolios of the ISE and the financial performance of their share value. Moreover, the results showed that the necessary investments in sustainable development did not result in loss, once it could be noticed the predominance of positive abnormal returns in all situations analyzed in this paper. / Diante da necessidade de inserção de políticas de desenvolvimento sustentável dentro do contexto das organizações, as empresas investem em recursos esperando que a adoção dessas práticas possa trazer benefícios econômicos e estratégicos, refletidos na imagem da organização e na sua valorização no mercado. Neste cenário, Índices de Sustentabilidade foram criados em escala global, e estes índices em geral, avaliam várias dimensões das relações da organização com a sociedade, meio ambiente e com os provedores de capital para a empresa. No Brasil, especificamente no ano de 2005, foi criado o Índice de Sustentabilidade Empresarial (ISE) para reunir as ações de empresas que incorporam em suas diretrizes de negócio práticas de responsabilidade social e sustentabilidade empresarial. Com isso, a presente dissertação tem por objetivo verificar qual o impacto no valor das ações de uma amostra de 43 empresas perante a entrada ou saída das mesmas das carteiras do ISE. A metodologia de estudo de evento buscou identificar os retornos anormais após as divulgações das carteiras do ISE, de 2005 a 2009, através do modelo de retorno ajustado ao risco e ao mercado. Os dados financeiros, antes e depois do evento, foram extraídos da base de dados da Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo. Os resultados alcançados indicaram relação positiva entre a participação de algumas empresas nas carteiras do ISE e o desempenho financeiro das suas ações, além de mostrar que os investimentos necessários em desenvolvimento sustentável não acarretam perdas, visto a predominância de retornos anormais positivos em todas as situações analisadas neste estudo.