Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Clinical Nursing, 2003. / "March 2003." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 340-350). Available in print format and electronically. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09PH/09phw746.pdf Title page, contents and abstract only.

The issue of unemployment among immigrants in Sweden started from 1980s when a large amount of immigrants had no access to the labour market (Sördersten, 2004). Many foreign born citizens who could not find any jobs have to live on social welfare. Some of them have found a way to solve their unemployment by becoming self-employed. In 2003, Swedish Integration Board reported that the proportion of self-employment in Sweden was 7.4 percent. This proportion was higher among foreign-born (8.8 percent) compared to native Swedes (7.3 percent). It is of great academic interest for our group to conduct research on immigrant’s business entry decisions. This thesis specifically focuses on identifying and understanding the factors that influence immigrants’ decision to start up their business. This research was conducted in Jönköping municipality by doing a case study on nine ethnic entrepreneurs who come from Non-EU countries, namely: China, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Vietnam. Many studies have been carried out on the topic of ethnic entrepreneurship by researchers such as Waldinger et al. (1990), Basu (1998), Curran and Blackburn (1993), Najib (1999) and Ram (1994). Previous studies will be treated in this thesis as a source of evidence and theoretical framework. Qualitative method was used in this thesis. Case study is particularly chosen as the most appropriate tool in qualitative method to conduct this specific research. In order to obtain information for this case study, semi-structured interview with guideline questions was used. Nine cases including: five restaurants, one clothing store, one cosmetic shop, one assembling company and one carpet shop were selected in this study. The results of this study showed that, the factors that motivated ethnic entrepreneurs’ decision to start their own business were: selective immigration, entrepreneurial traits, blocked mobility, opportunity recognition, level of education, desire for independence and autonomy, financial betterment, business background and previous business experience, business culture values, interests and hobbies. However, opportunity recognition, level of education, desire for independence and autonomy and financial betterment were the factors that played a significant role in immigrant business decision making process. The result also shows that positive (pull) factors outweighed negative (push) factors in immigrants’ decision to enter self-employment. One alternative to unemployment is to become self-employed. It is highly possible that self-employment will lead to lower unemployment among immigrants (Hammarstedt, 2001). It should be in interest of the Swedish government to support self-employment since it will contribute to the growth of the Swedish economy. This thesis may be of interest to Jönköping municipality and other governmental organizations as well as policy makers. It might help them to improve the integration level of immigrants into Swedish society, unemployment level or encourage self-employment by understanding the factors affecting immigrants to start up their own businesses.

Earlier quantitative entrepreneurial studies with a focus on poverty rate has centred their arguments and analyses entirely on income differences which has resulted in a high poverty rate among self-employed. Their results shows that variables such as age, gender, hours of labour and structure of the household significantly affect the poverty rate among self-employed. In this study we aim the focus on material living standards instead of income differences, thus using a more representative approach while studying entrepreneurial poverty. The purpose of the study was to examine how personality traits (big five) affect the material living standards among the self-employed in Sweden, using a group of employed as a control group. Variables earlier known to affect the poverty risk among self-employed where used as control variables together with education and household income. With this new aspect on entrepreneurial research, we found that four out of five personality traits affect the material living standard among self-employed. Two out of the five personality traits, openness and extraversion, where found uniquely on self-employed. Among the control variables only gender and household income seemed to affect the material living standard, thus excluding the effect of age, hours of labour, education and household structure. This indicates that personality traits should be considered using while studying poverty among the self-employed.

Poverty and unemployment are critical challenges that confront the post-apartheid government. Over a decade has passed since the implementation of the neoliberal Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy (GEAR), and the policy has largely failed to address the socio-economic inequalities in South Africa. As a result of the lack of job opportunities in the country, many South Africans participate in the growing informal economy. Although there are more men employed informally, women tend to dominate certain sectors such as street trading. Research indicates that many female street traders are the sole providers for their dependants, and thus rely heavily on the small income that is generated. As women, female traders are also tasked with managing their households and taking care of their families. The thesis aims to explore the identities that female street traders construct in relation to their work experiences at home and in the informal economy. The empirical research for this study was conducted in the Hill Street informal market, which is located in the central Pinetown area, within the eThekwini Municipality. In order to address the research problem, this study adopts a feminist approach that highlights the engendered binary logic that pervades western spatial thought. Spatial binaries, such as the space/place and public/private dualisms, are intimately linked to gender. Whilst notions of home in the private sphere are thought to embody feminine characteristics, public space is typically encoded masculine. Feminist geographers argue that how space is conceptualised matters to the construction of gendered identities, in that gender and space are mutually constitutive. In this study a range of qualitative, interpretive techniques are used to explore the meanings that female street traders attach to their work spaces and to their identities as women. By exploring the everyday work activities of female street traders, as they move between engendered public and private space, attention is drawn to how the working experiences of these women both challenge and reproduce traditional ways of conceptualising space and gender. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Clinical Nursing, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in a print form.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Clinical Nursing, 2003. / "March 2003." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 340-350). Also available electronically.

This study examines female self-employment in British Columbia from 1901 to 1971. Entrepreneurial women comprised a small proportion of the total female labour force but they exhibited differences from the rest of the labour force that deserve attention. The study relies on the Census of Canada to gain perspective on trends in female self-employment over a broad time period; qualitative sources are also utilized, including Business and Professional Women’s Club records, to illustrate how individual businesswomen reflected patterns of age, marital status, and family observed at a broad level. The role of gender in women’s decisions to run their own enterprises and in their choice of enterprise is also explored. While the research focus is British Columbia, this study is comparative: self-employed women in the province are compared to their counterparts in the rest of Canada, but also to self-employed men, and to other working women, in both regions. Regionally, women in British Columbia had higher rates of self-employment than women in the rest of the country between 1901 and 1971. Self-employed women in both British Columbia and Canada were, like wage-earning women, limited to a narrow range of occupational types, but they were more likely to work in male-dominated occupations. Self employed women were also older and more likely to be married, widowed or divorced than wage-earning women; in these aspects, they resembled self-employed men. But there were gender differences: whether women worked in female or male-dominated enterprises, they stressed their femininity. The need to take care of their families, particularly if they had lost a spouse through death or desertion, provided additional rationale for women’s presence in the business world. Family, marital status, age, gender and region all played a role in women’s decisions to enter into self-employment between 1901 and 1971. / Graduate

The aim of the thesis was to describe and analyse the problem of "švarcsystém" from the legal and financial aspects. "Švarcsystém" is used by a lot of employers in the Czech Republic. The reason for making contracts based on Commercial Code is simple. According to the tax system and the system of health and social insurance it is more beneficial for an employer than making contracts based on Labour Code. In this thesis tax consequences are analysed. There is assessed type of solutions of the "švarcsystém".

Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology: Business Administration (Entrepreneurship) in the Faculty of Business at the CAPE PENINSULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY / The South African government, to accelerate economic growth and development, has identified the Small Medium Micro Enterprises (SMME) sector, and female entrepreneurs, as vehicles capable of bringing about this change. Unfortunately, this growth has been stifled due to the high failure rate of entrepreneurial businesses in the SMME sector. A possible solution for female entrepreneurs is the introduction of start-up support services to empower them to be successful. Empowering entrepreneurs is the function of nurturing and supporting entrepreneurs by providing them with professional skills development and moral support, to impact positively on the business’s sustainability. There is a clear need to widen access to business start-up training and advice to encourage larger numbers of women to embrace self-employment. This implies offering a wide range of start-up support services which encourage women to go into business. Women enter business from a variety of backgrounds and with a wide range of experience. The provision of business start-up training and advice needs to accommodate these very different experiences. Women attending entrepreneurship programmes have often criticised these programmes as being male-orientated and prescriptive. Women are expected to conform to male models and standards of behaviour. While this study relates specifically to female entrepreneurs in the Western Cape, it is set in the context of female entrepreneurship in South Africa. The target population for the research was 150 female entrepreneurs in the Tourism industry in the Western Cape. The study is quantitative in nature, using the survey method for better understanding of the research problem. The study aimed to understand the needs of female entrepreneurs, and to underscore the significance of skills and knowledge transfer from the government to female entrepreneurs. The research explored the role of government in empowering female entrepreneurs in the Tourism industry in Western Cape, and identified support services that can be used to promote the growth and development of female entrepreneurs. Possible solutions to failure rates of female entrepreneurship are also addressed, with specific models for improved business support services for all female entrepreneurs in the Tourism industry in the Western Cape. This will help them to run sustainable businesses as well as provide more jobs. This research recommends that management capability and financial management acumen be regarded as key to success for funding by the entrepreneurs themselves, and the parties involved in supporting and promoting them.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration in Project Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2011. / Human capital is both a key driver of economic growth and a means to promote overall development. In order to enhance human capital in South Africa, tertiary institutions have seen a tremendous increase in students' enrolment over the past few decades. But, in spite of the need for skilled labour, tertiary education graduates are increasingly faced with unemployment, which poses a serious obstacle to the economic growth of the country. This study investigated the role of tertiary education in enhancing selfemployment among project management graduates. This study was descriptive in nature and intended to find answers to research questions, which comprised the extent to which tertiary education seeks to motivate students to self employment. In addition, the study sought to find challenges related to self-employment facing project management students after they have completed their studies, as well as reasons why some people choose self-employment over salaried employment. Data were collected with the use of a self-administered structured questionnaire. Collected data were analysed using of the statistical software for social science (IBM SPSS Statistics version 19) for descriptive statistics in the form of tables and charts. Furthermore, statistical tests, using chi-square values at the 0.05 level of significance, were performed to determine factors influencing individuals to choose a self-employment career. The study found that education may either enhance individual entrepreneurial ability, thereby increasing the likelihood of choosing self-employment or increase opportunities for paid employment, both of which reduce unemployment. In addition, tertiary education provides human capital that enables graduates to achieve increased level of productivity, which leads to earning more income than lower educated people in both paid employment and self-employment career. Unfortunately, graduates face financial related challenges, which constrain them from undertaking self-employment endeavours. The results of this study suggest that graduate unemployment can only be eliminated if students are provided with the right skills and knowledge to match the requirement of the employment market. Furthermore, the study suggests that graduates should be assisted financially at the initial stage of their self-employment activities.