Owner-operators are business owners that began grass-roots efforts to satisfy a need for potential customers i.e. develop a solution for a problem in which customers are willing to pay the owner-operator instead of doing it themselves. The problem and solution may be thought of in terms of a singularity for the customer, however this is not the case. A dichotomy exists where both the owner-operator and the customer have problems and desire solutions based on their individual self-interests. The owner-operators’ problems are manifested in motivations and aspirations and their solutions are displayed as satisfaction. The list of existing motivations and aspirations is too numerable to manage along with the amount of potential solutions. For the pilot study, an attempt was made to categorize the motivations into more manageable groups to ascertain any potential relation with success. The pilot study did not lead to any conclusive results concerning the relationship between motivation and success. However, the pilot study did reveal an associating element between motivation and success i.e. a relation between the problem and solution. That connection was strategy. Strategy was the aid that allowed the gratification to occur. The decision of the owner-operator to choose either a differentiated strategy or cost leadership (low-cost) strategy (Porter, 1980) allowed them to use a more common element where the distinctive nature of the motivations and aspirations was downplayed. The import of this relationship comes into existence depending on how interested various governing and business support bodies are in developing policies whose purpose is to create and/or aid new and existing business ventures (Hamilton, 1987). A continuous review of motivations, aspirations and their relationship with strategy is warranted as older studies become dated, not to history, but due to the fact that economies are in constant flux and as economies change (Hamilton, 1987), so do strategies, motivations, and aspirations. The pilot study focused on success as the resulting construct. During the analysis stage of the pilot study, it was noted that success among various entrepreneurs was difficult to compare and measure across individuals and industries. The result was to shift the construct from success to satisfaction, as it would allow for a simpler definition and better comparisons across entrepreneurs. The question that this dissertation attempts to answer is: What role does motivation and aspiration play in informing entrepreneurial strategy and supporting satisfaction? / Business Administration/Strategic Management

Owner-operator lack of knowledge about financial and operation costs is a serious impediment to business survival. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between the knowledge of financial and operational costs among trucking owner-operators and their business performance. The theoretical framework for the study was the resource-based theory and knowledge gap theory. A convenience sample of 78 owner-operator truckers across the United States participated in this study. The response rate was 17% for a web-based survey that was distributed to owner-operators in Facebook, and 83% for the paper-based surveys from the owner-operators who were visiting more than 10 truck stops in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The findings from multiple linear regression analysis indicated a significant relationship between the trucking owner-operators' financial knowledge, operational costs knowledge, and financial performance. A significant relationship also existed between the financial knowledge of trucking owner-operators, operational costs knowledge, and nonfinancial performance. The findings of this study provide the owner-operator with a better understanding of factors that relate to business performance, which may inform their reasons for successes and failures. The implications for social change will occur if the failure rate of owner-operators declines and the opportunities for sustainable businesses increase. Sustainable owner-operator performance could lead to higher employment by the trucking industry and contribute to a better economy

[Truncated abstract] The focus of this thesis is to investigate the meaning and measurement of business success for owner-operators of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Taking a first step towards a greater understanding of SME performance, the study develops an instrument specifically designed to measure the business goals and objectives of SME owners. This development is based on a combination of a: literature search; quantitative analysis of a secondary data set of the goals and expectations of Australian retailers; qualitative (focus group) study of West Australian SME principals; and quantitative (mail survey) study of West Australian SME principals. Both these primary data studies used SME principals from a wide variety of industries . . . Tests of the power of the SOS to account for differences in economic performance revealed that the SOS significantly increased understanding of variations in owner returns and profitability and had a limited capacity to explain differences in revenue growth and staff revenue productivity. SOS satisfaction was found to describe differences in owner-operators’ perceptions of business success significantly better than objective measures of economic return. It is expected that such knowledge will help subsequent research develop an understanding of how SME onwer-operators modify their expectations of economic return for the utility they gain from their working life.