<p> Over the past 15 years, privately held small businesses generated nearly two-thirds of the net job growth in the United States, yet much of what scholars know regarding the capitalization challenges faced by small businesses is limited to data from large corporations. In 2013 alone, business bankruptcies numbered 33,212, and each year approximately 10% to 12% of U.S. small businesses close. Ineffective capitalization strategies coupled with a limited understanding of funding options frequently results in unsustainable business practices. In this multiple case study, the capital budgeting theory was utilized to explore the capitalization strategies small business owners in the greater Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area employed to achieve sustainability beyond 5 years of business inception. Participants were purposefully selected based on their tenure in business, number of employees, and geographic location. Data were collected via in-person semistructured interviews with 4 small business owners, coupled with a review of financial archival documents. Data were analyzed using theme interpretation, data grouping, and word frequency tabulation. Three themes emerged: a preference for self-funded, personal capitalization; the leveraging of personal relationships as a primary educational strategy; and a general aversion to debt and high interest rates. Implementing sound capitalization strategies contributes to social change by improving the likelihood of long-term sustainability. Sustainable small businesses increase employment opportunities, wage growth, and community-based services while enhancing the overall quality of life for local families and the community.</p><p>

<p>The body of research on the economic activities of diaspora communities has developed over several decades by researchers in a variety of academic disciplines, including economics, sociology, and entrepreneurship. Although international business (IB) research is primarily concerned with the internationalization of large, mature corporations, the cross-border economic activities by individuals, particularly from those who have crossed borders themselves (diasporans) has been identified as a significant gap in the existing body of literature (Cano-Kollmann, Cantwell, Hannigan, Mudambi, & Song, 2016; Ramamurti, 2004, 2011). This dissertation helps to fill this research gap by exploring homeland investment interest (Gillespie, Riddle, Sayre, & Sturges, 1999) in the context of the US-based Ghanaian diaspora. My dissertation makes three specific contributions to the existing international business literature. Firstly, I test the theory of diaspora investment motivation (Nielsen & Riddle, 2010) in a novel environment. Secondly, I draw the distinction between interest in diaspora direct investment and diaspora portfolio investment, identifying key differences in their antecedents. Finally, I investigate how sub-national location affects country of origin investment interest.

<p> While women entrepreneurs have significantly contributed to the U.S. economy, their enterprises have been depicted as being smaller, having less profits, concentrating in low-profit sectors, and generating fewer jobs than their male counterparts (Blank et al., 2010; Hughes, Jennings, Brush, Carter, &amp; Welter, 2012; Marlow, 2014; Minniti &amp; Naude, 2010; U.S. Department of Commerce Economic and Statistics Administration, 2010). Thus, the portrayal of women and their ventures as disadvantage is prevalent in the women entrepreneurship literature and there is a need for research that presents a perspective that does not perpetuate this discourse (Marlow, 2014). </p><p> The purpose of this qualitative portraiture study is to understand the essence of U.S.-based, growth-oriented women entrepreneurs&rsquo; experiences in growing their businesses by centering women&rsquo;s ways of knowing in the male normative environment of entrepreneurship. The study explores the following research question with two sub-questions: How do growth-oriented women entrepreneurs understand their experiences in growing their organizations within a male-normative environment of entrepreneurship? How do women entrepreneurs identify and use facilitators to grow their businesses? How do women entrepreneurs describe the experience of acquiring knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed to grow their businesses? </p><p> An appreciative inquiry perspective, a key tenet of portraiture methodology that was selected for this study which is a blending of art and science (Lawrence-Lightfoot &amp; Davis, 1997), guided the examination of growth-oriented women entrepreneurs&rsquo; experiences in this study. Rather than looking for the deficiency in the women entrepreneurs&rsquo; experiences, this perspective allowed a search for &lsquo;the good&rsquo; (Lawrence-Lightfoot &amp; Davis, 1997; Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2008). The ontology that guided this study was social constructivism (Creswell, 2013; Crotty, 1998; Guba &amp; Lincoln, 1989) and the epistemology was based on women&rsquo;s way of knowing (Belenky, Clinchy, Golbert, &amp; Tarale, 1986). </p><p> The portraits of the three women entrepreneurs selected for this study were assembled into a gallery with their artifacts and stories organized and presented in a consistent way. My interpretation of each participant&rsquo;s story was presented in a poetic form which depicted the essence of each woman entrepreneur&rsquo;s experience in growing her businesses. </p><p> The findings of this study revealed the following six themes: women&rsquo;s entrepreneurial experiences, perception of their entrepreneurial characteristics, entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial reflections on gender, entrepreneurial knowing, and entrepreneurial self as knower. Conclusions are presented on the experiences of women entrepreneurs&rsquo; growth within the normative environment of entrepreneurship, facilitators that women entrepreneurs use to grow their businesses, women entrepreneurs knowing along with implications for research and practice.</p><p>

<p> This multiple case study contributes to identifying the reasons behind the almost complete absence of high-growth ambition of early-stage entrepreneurs in Brazil by investigating why they did not develop similar cognitive frameworks as the countries high-growth entrepreneurs. The understanding of the reasons can assist in the planning of programs and policies directed toward the creation of the necessary conditions to increase the number of early-stage entrepreneurs with high-growth ambition and hence promote the country&rsquo;s economic growth and help fulfill its aspiration to transition from factor-driven to innovation-driven economic development. The reasons identified by the study were that the factors in the cognitive framework of high-growth entrepreneurs&mdash;self-efficacy as a personality trait, knowledge acquired from family and professional experience (human capital), and social capital acquired during a professional career&mdash;that explains their high-growth ambition are rare in Brazil. These factors are rare because high-growth entrepreneurs belong to the countries&rsquo; very small well-educated and empowered elite whereas most early-stage entrepreneurs in Brazil do not. Some additional findings of the study are: (1) There is no social upward mobility from self-employed to high-growth early-stage entrepreneurs in Brazil; (2) The low quality of the Brazilian education system required acquiring task-related knowledge through extensive professional experience to find high-growth entrepreneurial opportunities; (3) The task-related knowledge acquired mostly in multinationals lead to innovations to fill needs and market gaps in the Brazilian market, but not to breakthrough innovations.</p><p>

<p> Entrepreneurship is undoubtedly a significant global activity that helps to transform our economies and inspires public policy. Over the past decades, entrepreneurship education has witnessed phenomenal growth, as many Universities around the world offer a diversified portfolio of entrepreneurship programs, including undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees, executive education certificates, workshops or seminars. More recently, and in response to the increasing global popularity of entrepreneurship, a large number of universities established entrepreneurship centers which coordinate a wide variety of activities, programs and resources under one roof. Nevertheless, the literature consistently expresses doubts about the success of entrepreneurship educational programs and identifies learning gaps between entrepreneurs&rsquo; needs and universities&rsquo; offerings. The rise of entrepreneurship centers gives us reason to believe that they play an important role in better addressing entrepreneurs&rsquo; learning needs, but relevant research is limited. By collecting data from directors of fourteen entrepreneurship centers in the USA and Europe through qualitative interviews, this study aimed at understanding how the centers address the learning needs of entrepreneurs, primarily with regards to educational goals, development of skills, curriculum and instruction. In addition, I have conducted interviews with fourteen entrepreneurs who were either alumni from the centers or alumni from other business schools, and I have learned first-hand details on their learning needs and educational experience. This study has found that the centers address entrepreneurs&rsquo; needs through a series of activities which include (a) setting goals and understanding audiences, (b) designing and implementing curriculum and instruction, (c) measuring success. In short, this study has found that entrepreneurial centers accommodate a plethora of activities with the aim to address entrepreneurs learning needs, but they have only superficially assessed entrepreneurs&rsquo; learning needs, their decisions about curriculum and instruction approaches are not driven by research or entrepreneurs&rsquo; feedback, and their measures of success are not targeted to knowledge, skills and attitudes needed by entrepreneurs; in short, entrepreneurship centers and universities may be meeting entrepreneurs&rsquo; learning needs, but it is more a matter of luck than design.</p><p>

The study aimed to validate the applicability of the Theory of Planned Behavior and to test its sufficiency within a contextual setting that has seemingly received limited prior focus. The sample comprised of 134 part-time learners from a university business school within South Africa; who are arguably older, hold more work experience and who are more ethnically diverse than subjects in most prior research. Importantly, this study combined construct measurement scales from two other studies in an attempt to improve measurement reliability. Findings suggest that the Theory of Planned Behavior was a significant predictor of entrepreneurial intention within the context of an emerging economy, explaining 21.1% of the variation in student‟s entrepreneurial intention. Further analysis revealed that demographic variables were found to have a significant residual effect beyond the predictor variables within the Theory of Planned Behavior, explaining 6.9% more of the total variation in student‟s entrepreneurial intention when added to the Theory of Planned Behavior. Closer investigation revealed that a particular racial group (black individuals) was solely responsible for the significant influence on intentions, thus rendering age, gender and all other racial groups as weak, insignificant contributors. These results suggest that the Theory of Planned Behavior is not sufficient in capturing all the variation in entrepreneurial intention. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / lmgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

M.Comm. / The purpose of this study is to research certain aspects of entrepreneurship and to highlight the relationships between entrepreneurship and business success. Organisations compete in a highly competitive and constantly changing environment and are becoming increasingly more difficult for them to survive and to succeed. One of the biggest challenges for organisations, if they wish to survive and succeed, is to change constantly and to adapt as quickly as possible to the changing environment. There is ample research which suggests that an entrepreneurial orientation is an important contributor to survival and growth of organisations. Entrepreneurs are seen as heroes of the modern business world. The reason for this is the increase in economic growth and job opportunities which they created. The central role of entrepreneurship is the ongoing need to create something new. Creativity and renewed thinking enable entrepreneurs to survive and to grow. Thus, creativity forms a part of entrepreneurship and without creativity, there can be no successful entrepreneurship. By understanding creativity, one can build the foundation of a very important component for entrepreneurship. Creativity consists of four interdependent components, namely the creative product, the creative person, the creative process and the creative environment. All four of these components are important for development of creativity, but this study will focus on the creative environment. It is important to concentrate on those situations in an organisational climate in which creativity can be stimulated, developed and/or discouraged. Although individuals can be taught to improve their creative abilities, one delivers optimal results in a favourable organisational climate that supports creativity. The organisational climate influences the way individuals communicate, solve problems, make decisions and handle conflict. Further, the organisational climate influences job satisfaction, the motivation of workers, the ability to innovate and the involvement of workers. A creative organisational climate has become a necessity for all organisations to survive and to succeed in the business world.

M.Com. (Business Management) / The objective of this study is to provide a programme for the management of small ventures. This model must provide guidelines to large companies to successfully establish an environment that will support intrapreneurial activity. It must further provide guidelines to potential intrapreneurs on how to become intrapreneurs and how to execute a small venture project. The programme was set up by doing a literature study to determine the characteristics of potential intrapreneurs as well as define the concept small venture. The steps in such a programme for the management of small ventures, as well as potential problems were then deterrnined.. The contribution of the programme is to provide a vehicle for large South African companies for increased growth and competitiveness.

M.Comm. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Com. (Business Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract