Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Droit privé : Lille 2 : 2007. / Titre provenant de la page de titre du document numérisé. Bibliogr. p. 243-271. Index.

Thèse de doctorat : Sciences de gestion : Université Nancy 2 : 2007. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. Index.

Reproduction de : Habilitation à diriger des recherches : Sciences de gestion : Lille 1 : 2006. / N° d'ordre (Lille 1) : 517. Titre provenant de la page de titre du document numérisé. Bibliogr. f. 69-77. Liste des publications et communications.

This phenomenological study expands from current mentoring literature within the mass communication field in understanding how mentoring can contribute to the successful careers of public relations entrepreneurial women. While many scholars indicate that mentoring is effective for women, the present study describes how mentoring has affected the women participants' public relations careers and personal lives. In-depth interviews focused on following five research questions: What have been the key contributing factors in the success of public relations women entrepreneurs? How has mentoring helped the women participants achieve their goals in a public relations career and in starting their own company? Which mentoring strategy (formal or informal) is perceived as being most effective? Do women benefit more from having a women mentor versus male? What motivating reasons attributed the public relations women participants to undertake their own business? The qualitative interview data generated six common themes which are: (1) networking, mentoring, building key relationships and a strong work ethic as being key to their success, (2) career mentoring from university faculty members and/or Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) as an integral part in the commencement of their public relations careers, (3) mentoring affirmed their self-worth, (4) informal mentoring being perceived as more beneficial due to the long lasting relationship that follows, (5) male mentors being as effective as female mentors relative to career issues, although women provide both career and psychological mentoring, and (6) mentoring, lack of employment opportunities, and a better work-life balance being the three main key contributing factors in women professionals starting their own public relations company.

This study was undertaken to answer the question, “In a cross-section of the featured creative entrepreneurs from Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design, what kind, if any, of art education did these full time, handmade-craft business owners receive in EC-12 schooling and how has it affected their adult lives as successful craft business owners? In what ways, if at all, does it appear their formal art education led to their successful creative ventures in their adult years?” In order to answer this question, a survey was conducted of a cross-section of the participants featured in the book (Levine & Heimerl, 2008) and film (Levine, 2009) Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design about their art educational backgrounds, including what amount of art instruction they received in EC-12 schooling, as well as in informal or community settings. Based on the survey results, four representative participants were interviewed. Their responses were then constructed into narratives so as to portray holistic portraits of their individual paths through art instruction to entrepreneurship. In doing this it was revealed that while EC-12 can be attributed with furthering the participants’ interest in art, and giving them a grounding in many technical skills still used in their daily lives, in most cases, formal art education alone has not seemed to provide enough training on its own to promote the participants’ future successes as creative business owners. It is only through the blending of the sum total of their formal, familial, and informal art education that successful outcomes have been found. / text

This thesis aims to emancipate female entrepreneurs from the metanarrative of economic growth which has created a false dichotomy of successful male entrepreneur versus an unsuccessful female entrepreneur. This aim is pursued through a multidisciplinary and critical inquiry that destabilises this metanarrative conceptually and empirically. A critical interrogation of economic studies reveals the embeddedness of the metanarrative in neo-classical economic growth theory. Far from being a true reflection of the entrepreneurial experience, the theory has silenced the innovator entrepreneur in economic theory and replaced him/her with an economic rational manager. Concurrently, a re-analysis of Schumpeter’s theorising suggests that his theories do not subordinate female entrepreneurs as claimed by a number of critical theorists. In contrast, his theorising is emancipatory and offers an alternative theoretical framework to the oppressive neo-classical economic growth theory. Oral history methods are used to capture the voices of female entrepreneurs which have largely been excluded from the literature. The oral history narratives challenge the oppressive homogeneity imposed by the metanarrative of economic growth and illustrate the negative influence of the theoretical foundation of neo-classical theory upon the entrepreneurial experience. The study offers theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to female entrepreneurship studies by presenting a fresh interpretation of Schumpeter’s theorising; including the voices of the female entrepreneurs; and applying research approaches that break away from positivism which dominates entrepreneurial studies. The study has implications for policy makers and practitioners as it generates knowledge that takes account of the current social and economic changes.

In this thesis, I consider the emergence of a new generation of food trucks and question their popularity, narration and representation. I examine the economic and cultural discourses that have valorized these food trucks, and pay attention to the everyday material and embodied practices that constitute them. This research is situated in Chicago, where proposed changes to the existing mobile food vending ordinance spurred contentious debates about food safety, regulations, rights to the city and livelihoods. I follow the myriad actors involved in the food truck movement to understand the strategies employed to change the mobile food vending ordinance on behalf of these food trucks. As part of this, I raise questions about what interests are prioritized, and what interests are marginalized especially in light of Chicago’s long history of policing Latino street vendors. I conclude by considering what food trucks can elucidate about the city, the changing economy, and the molding of laboring and consuming subjects.

Research investigating women-owned businesses has developed considerably over the past two decades. There are, however, few British studies that have specifically focussed on growth oriented women-owned businesses. The current study aims to fill this gap. Its purpose is to explore the effect of social capital and human capital on the growth of women-owned enterprises in the UK. The research contributes to the knowledge of women's entrepreneurship as the first to study the moderating role of human capital in building and using social capital in the UK. It develops the theoretical premise that women entrepreneurs with higher human capital gain credibility and centrality in networks, accumulating social capital based on their importance for other network members and their business stakeholders. This mixed method study involves both collecting and analysing quantitative and qualitative data. Statistical analysis using SPSS was applied to analyse quantitative data collected through 517 on-line completed questionnaires from three different regions. The qualitative data collected through face to face interviews with 42 women entrepreneurs were also analysed and interpreted. The findings suggest that the social capital possessed by women entrepreneurs plays an important role in the growth of enterprises. Women entrepreneurs use different sources to build and use their social capital at different stages of growth and in different industry sectors such as manufacturing or services. Women entrepreneurs with higher human capital are more likely to identify opportunities, generate ideas and show creative thinking in introducing novel products, services, location, processes or systems, which makes their growth path exponential. There are implications of this study for women entrepreneurs to build and use their social and human capital for the growth of their enterprises. And there are also implications for politicians and business organisations, who must devise policies to develop opportunities for existing or potential women entrepreneurs for building their human based capital.

The purpose of this thesis is to identify what motivational changes occur while a lifestyle entrepreneur moves through three different organizational stages. The focus will however be on stage one and three. The problem of an under-researched field is addressed and how the motivation of specific lifestyle entrepreneurs, in these cases hairdressing salon owners, has changed. This thesis has been conducted with an interpretivistic viewpoint, an inductive approach and with a qualitative research method. The authors have selected to analyze the data through pattern matching and dividing the interviewees into two different case studies, one for each of the two chosen organizational stages in focus. In conclusion the authors found that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have had different effects within all stages in the organizational life cycle. The authors have discovered that during stage one the intrinsic motivations play a large role. During stage one where the organization is small and young the lifestyle entrepreneurs are motivated by factors such as independence and self-efficacy. Stage two is a more extrinsic dominated phase with the factors integrated regulations and identified regulation as motivators. The third stage is a return to the intrinsic motivations with factors such as locus of control and egoistic passion. This is further explained within the chapter with help of the analysis and empirical findings. A figure has been presented to show the different phases and their motivational change.

The tourism industry is a young industry in Sweden but important for the economy and a large part of the field is mountain tourism. Marketing a place is called destination marketing, which has become a huge phenomenon and an important part of efforts for promotion in the tourism industry. The entrepreneurs in the tourism industry are an important part, as these are a big part of the destination. Their marketing and communication becomes a force to reckon with in order to attract tourists to the area. The purpose of this study is to examine how entrepreneurs through destination marketing reach their target market and with the intention to identify marketing channels that the entrepreneur uses. To achieve this, two questions will be answered: How can entrepreneurs attract customers through destination marketing? Which marketing channels do business owners use to reach out to their target market in the tourism industry? The theories used in this study are destination marketing, internet marketing, services marketing, and entrepreneurs as business owners. This study’s methodology consists of four semi-structured interviews with companies operating in Åre, which is a destination where tourists can visit the mountain all year out. Also a content analysis has been done where an observation was made looking at the company’s internet marketing. The conclusion is that the entrepreneurs through collaboration can increase the demand on the destination and reach out to more tourists. The marketing channels that was used the most is digital communication, more specifically, social media like Facebook and Instagram. Also search engine optimization to get higher traffic to the corporate website is used.