Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-134).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-128)

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M.Ing. / Sunter (1999:13) states "Unemployment is now the scourge of virtually every single nation." Sunter believes that unemployment or the creation of new jobs will be the responsibility of small businesses. If one however analyses the survival of new business ventures, failure is not the exception but the rule. According to literature 52% of all new business ventures are dissolved within the first four years of their existence and 63% within 6 years. Various publications on business incubators state that new business ventures that were incubated by business incubators demonstrated a success rate that is as high or higher than the failure rate of non-incubated new business ventures. A typical success rate of approximately 86% is quoted as the norm for these incubated ventures. The success rate can be attributed to the support provided by the incubators. The support and services provided by incubators consist typically of a range of products but the distinguishing attribute or feature is the support programme developed and tailored to meet the specific requirements of each individual organisation that joined the incubator. To ensure that jobs are created in South Africa it seems that incubators should be in a position to contribute much. The results of an evaluation of the achievements of seven of the highly visible incubators in South Africa, indicate that the flirtation with incubators resulted in very limited success. None of the seven examples were found to be very successful, but not all for the same reason. The aim of this dissertation is to identify some of the attributes that a high-technology incubator should possess to ensure success. The approach adopted was to: Define what a high-technology business incubator is. Identify the typical life-cycle of new ventures. Determine why new ventures fail. Determine the critical success factors of new ventures Determine the reasons for failure of South African high technology business ventures and incubators. Then based on the results of the above define some of the attributes a South African incubator should possess. The conclusion is that the attributes, excluding flexible lease space, shared business services and networking to the know-how network (technical) of the South African incubators are well developed. The following attributes were found lacking and should be fully developed: Education, training and information programmes; Networking to debt and equity capital and networking in general and Counselling and mentoring support. These attributes are those that will enable an incubator to develop and tailor support programmes to meet the specific requirements of individual firms. The South African environment is identified as being detrimental to the development of small new ventures and it was recommended that it should form the subject of further research.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, 1981. / Bibliography: leaves 80-82. / by Jeffrey David Bellin. / Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, 1981.

How can people's risk preferences be understood? Work from prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) claimed that not only are people risk averse in the gain domain, but people are also risk seeking in the loss domain. Nonetheless, different opinions have appeared (e.g. March & Shapira, 1987; Sitkin & Pablo, 1992) casting doubt on the claim that people seek risk only in the loss domain; this is considered a fundamental disagreement about prospect theory. In order to bridge this gap, theoretical justification was examined in this study and it was found this disagreement originated from the arbitrary criterion of evaluating utility that was from an assumption on which prospect theory relied. Therefore, risk taking also exists in the gain domain. Based on this argument, three studies were developed to investigate risk preference when the decision making is framed in the gain domain. In order to predict people's risk preference in the gain domain, an Affect Venture Decision Making Model was proposed and examined in study one and two. On the basic of a dynamic learning experiment design, the third study found that not only are people able to be risk taking in the gain domain, risk preference even is reversed (most of people select to taking a risk) under some conditions of when individual's prior experience and knowledge are controlled for. The Affect Venture Decision Making Model was also systematically supported by the three studies. This suggests potential theoretical advances and presents new empirical evidence in this domain. / In study one, the decision of new venture creation is framed in the gain domain. 217 undergraduate students at The Chinese University of Hong Kong undertook the study. As a result, 30 percent of participants selected to create new venture, the risky choice. Further, in order to predict rather than describe people's risk preference between creating new venture and working in a stable firm, an affect venture decision making model was proposed. The results support the affect venture decision making model. It is found that subjective probability moderates the association between subjective value and risk preference; the association between the intensity of immediate anxiety and risk preference is also moderated. / In study three, the theoretical question arises to justify whether emotions are rational or irrational in explaining the decision making and judgment. The decision making performance does not draw a convincing conclusion in judging emotion as rational and irrational. Therefore, different accounts of rationality were reviewed in this conceptual work. With the fading of instrumental rationality in understanding people's rationality, bounded rationality, adaptive rationality, and game rationality have appeared in the literature. After reviewing the terminology of rationality, this study proposed that emotions are able to be rational since it holds expressive rationality and functional rationality. Cognition can not solve the issue of uncertainty completely. In order to examine the proposed argument, 206 undergraduate students at The University of Queensland were recruited to take part in the online experiment. Three conditions were manipulated. The results replicated the findings in study one and two, which examine that the proposed affect venture decision making model can be generalized into different decision scenarios and different samples. / Keywords. Risk preference, gain domain, affect, new venture creation, rationality / Study two examines emotional process in predicting the decision parameters proposed in the affect venture decision making model. Multiple expected emotions on the possible success or failure of creating new venture are studied to address (1) How much influence do the discrete multiple emotions have on the decision making process of creating new venture? (2) How is subjective judgment affected by these emotions? The empirical results support the affect decision making model. It is found that hope, regret, and surprise significantly predict the judgment of the subjective value and subjective probability. The study found that value judgment is more tasks specific. Probability judgment is influenced by both trait emotions and expected emotions elicited by the possible outcome of starting-up. / Li, Yan. / Adviser: David Ahlstrom. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: 2134. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-142). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

This thesis is broadly concerned with the factors that influence and shape the character of human resource management (HRM) within the entrepreneurial start-up enterprise. Specifically, it investigates the way in which such companies implement and action HRM activities, and evaluates the extent to which it is possible to characterise the activities as entrepreneurial and strategic. Human resource management is understood in this thesis in its broadest sense � that is, as signifying people management within employment relationship. Little is known, however, about the development and implementation of human resource management in small and medium size enterprises. The majority of published research to date focuses on HRM in large, formal organisations, and is inter-organisational, rather than intra-organisational. Welsh and White comment that �Small business is not a little big business� (1981: 18), however, and it cannot be presumed that the two have the same managerial practices. Research into small business does, however, indicate that size, informality of structures and processes, and the personal preferences, values and attitudes of the owner/manager impact significantly on the way in which HR practices are adopted. Although there is little extant research that focuses on the relationship between HR practice and strategy in small business, it has been suggested by some that they have limited ability to manage strategically due to the informality of their structures and processes. Others however speak of HRM in the small organisation as strategic where there is a discernible link with the strategic goals and objectives to improve business performance and develop organisational cultures that foster innovation and flexibility. The �entrepreneurial start-up enterprise� is understood in this thesis as a particular type of business; that is, a simple, small, informal enterprise with a founder/owner/manager who is opportunistic, innovative, responsive to the excitement of risk taking, and is interested in fast growth. In the past, studies of the effectiveness of HRM and HR practices in small companies have benefited from being qualitative in nature. However, methodologies employed in the study of entrepreneurship tend to lack diversity and neglect alternative approaches (Aldrich, 1992). There has also been insufficient effort focused on researching organisation formation activities (Gartner and Starr, 1993). This thesis employs a qualitative approach that is interpretive, naturalistic, and narrative in style, in an effort to go some way towards redressing the limitations of existing work in the twin fields of HRM and entrepreneurship research. This is a longitudinal case study of two self-styled entrepreneurial start-up enterprises: Consultco and Pilotco. Consultco is an interactive business consultancy with a recruitment practice as part of its service. Pilotco is a publishing and Internet company that was to produce a series of CD-ROM guides to key Internet sites. A case study methodology was chosen as a sound way to explain, describe, evaluate and explore close-up HRM activities in the natural world of the entrepreneurial start-up. Narrative was chosen as a way of making the respondents stories about the organisational experiences more accessible to both the researcher and the reader, and in this way captures the unfolding story of the founding of a business as it occurs. The thesis is presented in four parts. The first part explores entrepreneurship, the influence of the entrepreneur on their organisation�s culture, and the concept of entrepreneurial strategy within the growth process of the enterprise. It also covers different views of human resource management and the practice of HR in the context of small business, specifically the entrepreneurial start-ups. The second part of the thesis is concerned with the theoretical methodologies that underpin the research, and the design of the study. Part 3 presents the stories of the respondents in their own voice, to create organisational narratives for Consultco and Pilotco. A cross-case analysis follows, which tries to throw light on the process of HRM as it is practiced in the entrepreneurial start-up context. This part concludes with the researcher�s own story within the research process, and how this experience in turn influenced on the process of meaning making. The final part of the thesis revisits the factors that influence and shape the character of HRM in the entrepreneurial context, and posits an alternative way in which to interpret the meaning of HRM, and its relationship to the opportunistic enterprise.

The research project reported in this dissertation discovered, applied and drew inferences about the utility and applicability of an enhanced paradigm of Entrepreneurial Business Planning (EBP). The project was motivated by the observation that a clear disparity existed between the teaching of entrepreneurship � in which attention to EBP has been intense and significant � and entrepreneurship research � in which attention to EBP has been negligible. Discovery commenced with development of an analytical framework suitable for classifying and analysing an EBP paradigm, should one be found to exist. This framework was created by combining the four essential ingredients of a paradigm � distilled from an analysis of several definitions of the word paradigm in appropriate contexts � with the three core roles which Mintzberg (1994) argued are the key descriptors of the function of any plan. An existing but inadequate EBP paradigm was revealed by a content analysis, conducted according to an adapted combination of the methodological prescriptions of Krippendorf (1980) and Carney (1972), of a large sample of the existing EBP normative literature: that is, prescriptions purporting to teach the reader how to write a successful Entrepreneurial Business Plan. A combination of logical critique, application of appropriate analytical models and development of grounded theory � based upon the methodology first articulated by Glaser and Strauss (1967) � resulted in production of an enhanced EBP paradigm, a complex construct embracing: (1) precise definition of application boundaries, (2) twelve laws; (3) six success rules; (4) and specified instrumentation requirements. Application of the enhanced EBP paradigm involved four research case studies embracing the case research methodology espoused by Yin (1989). Four Entrepreneurial Business Plans were written according to the prescriptions of the enhanced EBP paradigm and submitted to the marketplace. Sufficient time (between four and eight years) was allowed for results to be monitored. The four case study businesses were selected to span a variety of key attributes designed to maximise two things: (1) the ability to attribute causation of observed results (most particularly the attraction of the investment funds solicited by each Entrepreneurial Business Plan) directly the application of the enhanced EBP paradigm rather than any other possible cause; (2) the ability to make wide rather than narrow inferences about the applicability and utility of the enhanced EBP paradigm. Inferential conclusions were drawn from individual and cross-case analysis. Four points encapsulate the most significant results of the research to the community of entrepreneurship scholars and practitioners and beyond them, to the managerial community at large. (1) The research provides a basis for systematic inquiry in the field of Entrepreneurial Business Planning and a template for quality assessment of Entrepreneurial Business Plans. (2)It redresses the imbalance between research and teaching in an important field of the entrepreneurship discipline. (3)It extends the domain, credibility and utility of entrepreneurship as a discipline. (4) It is the potential generator of many practical analytical constructs and corollary theory in a wide variety of managerial fields. Extended case analysis provided two examples of domain extension and the generation of corollary theory and practice: first, in the field of �venture renaissance� (a term coined to represent the domain of all non startup applications of the enhanced paradigm of Entrepreneurial Business Planning) and second, in the field of mergers and acquisitions. These two illustrations of corollary theory and practice provide strong concluding arguments in favour of the proposition that the enhanced EBP paradigm has substantial general utility. In summary, as a result of the research reported in this dissertation, Entrepreneurial Business Planning may be regarded as a distinct grouping of integrated techniques amounting to a managerial technology for removing impediments to business growth by attracting necessary investments on behalf of articulated strategies. Entrepreneurial Business Planning has thus emerged from vague definition amid the narrow contextual confines of a startup venture seeking venture capital, to precise definition in a far broader context as a generic technology for the removal of impediments to business growth, wherever and however they occur.