The purpose of the study was to explore the lived experiences of exemplary female elementary principals. The qualitative phenomenological study investigated the career paths, job responsibilities, barriers/challenges, and affirmations of exemplary female principals practicing in elementary schools in the United States. The participants were required to have at least 5 years of experience in education and at least 3 years as an elementary school principal. Interviews were conducted by the researcher to acquire explanations about the participants’ perceptions, perspectives, and feelings based on their experiences as exemplary elementary principals. The investigation focused on the females’ career paths, job responsibilities, barriers/challenges, and affirmations as exemplary leaders. Further, the females provided advice and guidance for aspiring female leaders in education. In general, the exemplary female principals started their careers as teachers, married, had children, and obtained advanced degrees and training in educational leadership as they moved to positions as elementary principals. The job responsibilities of the female principals included supervising instruction to improve instructional practices as the instructional leader, monitoring data, implementing policies and procedures, hiring as well as placing personnel, preparing budgets, maintaining a safe environment for students and staff, managing facilities, and purchasing equipment/resources for the organization. The major barriers/challenges faced by the female principals were lacking resources, managing time, prioritizing tasks, and managing tasks for work and home. Advice and guidance for aspiring female administrators centered around the personal, professional, and public service responsibilities that contributed to their success and recognition as exemplary principal.

Purpose: Explore the external and internal barriers preventing consumer purchases in M- commerce. Research Questions:RQ1: What are the external barriers that prevent consumer purchases on smartphones?RQ2: What are the internal barriers that prevent consumer purchases on smartphones? Methodology: This thesis is a qualitative study using an exploratory purpose and used a cross- sectional strategy collecting data through two focus groups. Conclusion: There are existing external barriers in M-commerce that consist of; unadjusted webpages for the smartphone, small screen size, and inconvenient internet connection. Along with that, internal barriers consist of; the inability to complete a task efficiently, consumers’ motivation to use the smartphone other than purchasing, technology perceived as difficult, security concerns and lack of trust, and finally the lack of skill. Thus, the findings of this thesis explored how these factors prevent consumer purchasing in M-commerce. Theoretical contributions/limitations/future research: The key contributions of this thesis is in the field of M-commerce. More specifically, dividing the barriers of purchasing in M-commerce into two categories, external and internal barriers, which has not been studied before. Since this thesis used an exploratory purpose, the subjective nature therefore has implications affecting its validity and reliability resulting in lower levels of generalizability and replication. Along with this, the language barriers in the focus groups may have had an effect on the results. A suggestion for future research is to focus on the relationship between the external and internal barriers in M-commerce rather than distinguishing them. Future research could also consist of identifying other approaches of the barriers in M-commerce.

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The study's main objective is to explore the association of the internal barriers female entrepreneurs may experience when pursuing funding opportunities and the consequences of these barriers in the Swedish market. Statistics indicate that women create more profitable businesses, yet only 1% of all venture capital is distributed to female-only founding teams. Additionally, women continuously encounter challenges in pursuing external funding, which arise from internal barriers and societal and external perceptions. The research is grounded on a thorough literature review, the empirical findings derived from a qualitative data analysis through semi-structured interviews with eight female entrepreneurs and one “industry professional”.  The frame of reference assisted in analyzing the empirical findings by drawing parallels between gender role theory and self-efficacy theory. The findings unveiled three prominent internal barriers to apprehension when seeking external funding: Civil status, Fear of failure, and Gender bias. The study uncovers that internal barriers substantially impede female entrepreneurs’ access to funding, causing apprehension to seek external funding and a tendency to utilize slow-paced organic growth strategies. Therefore, scalability is hampered, and gender disparities remain in the Swedish funding landscape. The researchers suggest governmental implementations of networks aimed at supporting and educating female entrepreneurs, as well as standardizing measures of financial institutions to improve the funding landscape.

Background:The family business is one of Sweden’s most common business forms, making up 90% of all firms and institutions. Also, it accounts for more than a third of GDP. So, it plays a vital role in the economy in Sweden. However, most of the family businesses are relatively small. Purpose:This paper aims to explore and understand the internal growth barriers to the small Swedish family business. Method:A qualitative method inspired by the inductive approach was conducted through semi-structured interviews with five owners of small family businesses in Sweden. The data were analyzed through three steps of general analytical procedure, which are (1) data reduction, (2) data displays, (3) conclusion and verification. Conclusion:This study concludes several internal growth barriers that affect the small Swedish family business: having only revenue goals, long-term growth goals, no written form of goals, family-oriented goals, unawareness of owner to change the firm’s structure during the growth, owner’s tendency to control all activities, owner prefers to keep the business smaller to keep control, the owner has more than one role and task, shortage of competencies and skills, unqualified successors and family members are welcome, lack of robots and Knowledge, owners have another job, different tasks, and roles, family business offers services of high quality that need time, selecting the oldest son to take over regardless of his competencies, employees’ attitude towards obeying a female owner, successors have no interest in taking over, no successors, rivalry among siblings and conflict of their interest, high arguments, different goals of family members from different generations, employ the first non-family member employee, employed more people, fear that non-family employees are less interested in FB or that more employees lead to loss of control, not able to employ more people and finally risk-avoiding behaviour. These barriers resulted in: hindering strategic changes in the needed time, innovation changes in the market obstructed, goals are forgotten, lack of competencies and skills, increases workload and challenges for the male manager, not responding to the market changes quickly, impossible to manage everything effectively, decrease control, not employing needed employees, responsibilities and roles on the owner increase, decrease integrity and harmony in the family, and finally, not developing the products, assisting more customers, and focusing on the growth. Consequently, lead to selling the firm and not keep it for a long time, slow growth, do no maximize potential growth, growth affected negatively, growth hindered, stay in the same size, avoid growth chances, or miss growth opportunities.

A service can be traded either directly between a consumer and provider of the service or a service can serve as an input into the manufacturing of various products and other services that are traded. Trade in services has therefore become an essential part of global trade and contributes significantly to global, as well as South African economic growth, development and productivity. Service trade has furthermore been growing at a greater rate than trade in manufactured goods. The growth of services trade can be attributed to growth in goods trade, technological advances, rising per capita incomes, micro-economic reforms, as well as increased consumer and business demand, and technological change. According to the GATS’ (General Agreement on Trade in Services) services sectorial classification list, the service sector can be classified into twelve major categories and these sectors can further be divided into 160 sub-sectors. One of the sub-sectors that have been identified that has significant growth potential globally and for South Africa is the sub-sector, ‘other business’ services. This sub-sector falls under the sector, business services. Trade data revealed that this sub-sector is one of the top three traded service categories internationally, as well as for South Africa. For the purpose of this study the focus was specifically on ‘other business’ services provided by members of the BEPEC (Built Environmental Professional Export Council). The services performed by the members of the BEPEC are: consulting engineering, architectural, quantity surveying, and construction project managing services. These services are inputs into the manufacturing or construction of human creations such as buildings, structures, dams, roads etc. Trade barriers, however, hinder the free flow of services from the service provider to customers in other countries. This is no different for the providers of ‘other business’ services. Therefore in order to increase the competitiveness of South Africa’s ‘other business’ services sector internationally; the primary objective of this study was to identify the internal, as well as external barriers experienced by the exporters of ‘other business’ services. These internal and external barriers were identified by means of a questionnaire that the members of the BEPEC, who are exporters of ‘other business’ services, completed. Once these barriers were identified recommendations were made to the South African government. The most significant internal barriers were found to be: • lack of information about foreign markets; • lack of information on how to enter these foreign markets; • lack of personnel who are experienced in export activities; • scarcity of internal financial resources for export purposes and export promotion. • The most significant external barriers were found to be: • exchange rate risk and the risk of non-payment; • corruption and bribery; • risks involved with political instability in a country; • restrictions on immigration provisions such as delay in obtaining entry visas, residency or work permits; • poor infrastructure; • foreign government procurement policies; • distance to the target market. All of the identified barriers can mostly be addressed by the South African government by providing training, the provision of market related information, and trade negotiations. / Thesis (MCom (International Trade))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

A service can be traded either directly between a consumer and provider of the service or a service can serve as an input into the manufacturing of various products and other services that are traded. Trade in services has therefore become an essential part of global trade and contributes significantly to global, as well as South African economic growth, development and productivity. Service trade has furthermore been growing at a greater rate than trade in manufactured goods. The growth of services trade can be attributed to growth in goods trade, technological advances, rising per capita incomes, micro-economic reforms, as well as increased consumer and business demand, and technological change. According to the GATS’ (General Agreement on Trade in Services) services sectorial classification list, the service sector can be classified into twelve major categories and these sectors can further be divided into 160 sub-sectors. One of the sub-sectors that have been identified that has significant growth potential globally and for South Africa is the sub-sector, ‘other business’ services. This sub-sector falls under the sector, business services. Trade data revealed that this sub-sector is one of the top three traded service categories internationally, as well as for South Africa. For the purpose of this study the focus was specifically on ‘other business’ services provided by members of the BEPEC (Built Environmental Professional Export Council). The services performed by the members of the BEPEC are: consulting engineering, architectural, quantity surveying, and construction project managing services. These services are inputs into the manufacturing or construction of human creations such as buildings, structures, dams, roads etc. Trade barriers, however, hinder the free flow of services from the service provider to customers in other countries. This is no different for the providers of ‘other business’ services. Therefore in order to increase the competitiveness of South Africa’s ‘other business’ services sector internationally; the primary objective of this study was to identify the internal, as well as external barriers experienced by the exporters of ‘other business’ services. These internal and external barriers were identified by means of a questionnaire that the members of the BEPEC, who are exporters of ‘other business’ services, completed. Once these barriers were identified recommendations were made to the South African government. The most significant internal barriers were found to be: • lack of information about foreign markets; • lack of information on how to enter these foreign markets; • lack of personnel who are experienced in export activities; • scarcity of internal financial resources for export purposes and export promotion. • The most significant external barriers were found to be: • exchange rate risk and the risk of non-payment; • corruption and bribery; • risks involved with political instability in a country; • restrictions on immigration provisions such as delay in obtaining entry visas, residency or work permits; • poor infrastructure; • foreign government procurement policies; • distance to the target market. All of the identified barriers can mostly be addressed by the South African government by providing training, the provision of market related information, and trade negotiations. / Thesis (MCom (International Trade))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

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