Thesis (Ph.D.)(Engineering Management)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 15, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, 2006. / Thesis documentation and errata sheets inserted. Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-199). Also available electronically via World Wide Web in PDF format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Southern California, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 351-367.).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2006. / Title from title screen (site viewed May 22, 2007). PDF text: v, 165 p. : ill. ; 1.54Mb UMI publication number: AAT 3237053. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Enhancing levels of innovation and entrepreneurship to grow a more competitive economy is the focus of much government effort. Attention is paid to changing a culture seen as antagonistic to entrepreneurship through initiatives designed to promote an entrepreneurial spirit. Universities, aware of the importance of developing entrepreneurial potential, are focusing on equipping students with the skills and abilities to contribute to innovation within organisations they join upon graduation, while also providing opportunities for the development of student aspirations. Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) has developed a one week event designed to influence deep personal values and the underlying motivations of potential entrepreneurs. This paper reports on the Connections course content as it was offered at the University of Strathclyde in 2003, content premised on the belief that students are motivated to start new enterprises through enhancement of self-confidence in their entrepreneurial skills. Measures of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and other outcomes are offered, followed by a report of the results found at the end of the event and then six months later. The programme is found to have created enduring improvements in entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and a related strengthening of pre-entrepreneurial awareness and exploration of ideas for starting companies. Other assessment results are presented suggesting the need to include explicit course content on entrepreneurial career paths. The implications of the Connections findings for entrepreneurship teaching in general are discussed.

<p>Strategic and Corporate Social Entrepreneurship (SCSE) is a practice intended to support corporate endowments in developing effective, executable and impactful forms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which is a movement designed to encourage companies to engage in sustainable development, working toward ensuring social, environmental, and financial benefits for society and the environment. SCSE is grounded in a conceptual framework based on the three pillars of corporate responsibility: (a) social, (b) environmental, and (c) financial. Social Entrepreneurship (SE) literature from the last two decades reveals that a comprehensive theoretical framework for SE does not exist, and that most existing SE concepts fail to consider the important role of change agents. The purpose of this study was to determine best practices in corporate policies for creating, implementing, and measuring CSR. More specifically, this study compared corporate responsibilities and policies based on a review of (a) qualitative data pertaining to CSR located on selected corporations? websites and (b) literature on Corporate Social Responsibility, Strategic and Corporate Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Entrepreneurship, Social Entrepreneurship, and both historical and contemporary leadership. The study also pointed to leadership theories and attributes that may be best suited to implementing CSR best practices. Analysis of this study?s findings provided a detailed comparison of corporate responsibilities and policies for creating, implementing, and measuring CSR for the seven companies included in the study?s purposive sample: Apple, Allergan, Alibaba, BMW, Disney, FedEx, and Google. For these companies, most contemporary, global CSR leaders were (a) global, (b) ethical, and (c) transformational. These leaders acted as transformational change agents and demonstrated four overarching best CSR practices for publicly-traded, global corporations: (a) creating a clear mission, (b) having a global outlook, (c) setting measurable goals, and (d) leading ethically. Most importantly, this study shows that of the seven global corporations included in the study, the three companies demonstrating the most impactful and comprehensive best CSR practices?Apple, BMW, and Disney?employed female CSR leaders. Gender appears to have played a role in successfully leading CSR initiatives, and so it seems highly advantageous for global companies to be selective with CSR leaders.

The purpose of this study secondary schools and industries in Botswana support the inculcation and development of entrepreneurial attributes. Concurrently, it investigated consonance between the attributes fostered in senior secondary schools and those required by Botswana's manufacturing industries. Hence, it investigated images, perceptions and attitudes among students and teachers in senior secondary schools and industrialists towards entrepreneurial skills and attributes. It also investigated levels of social acceptance for entrepreneurial attributes, teaching/learning approaches in schools, classroom and industrial dynamism and the utility potential of entrepreneurial skills and attributes as perceived by students, teachers and industrialists. The research design used was the investigative descriptive survey targeting students and teachers in senior secondary schools and industrialists in Botswana's manufacturing sector. A questionnaire was used for collecting data. Statistical analysis involved descriptive statistics, cross tabulation and correlation using the SPSS computer package. The research findings indicated a correlation in the students' and teachers' perceptions of an entrepreneur relating an entrepreneur with psychological traits and an enterprise. The findings also indicated that teachers are more disposed towards entrepreneurial attributes than students and industrialists who are more disposed towards traditional conformist academic attributes. All the respondents indicated a dislike for autonomy and risk taking. The reward and progression systems seemed to favour the inculcation of traditional conformist attributes. The study also revealed that industrialists in Botswana prefer conformist and selfmanagement skills to entrepreneurial skills and attributes. Individual entrepreneurial attributes seemed to have a minimal influence on industrial dynamism. Entrepreneurial and incubator occupations were ranked least by teachers and students in the hierarchy of occupations. On implementation procedures, teachers preferred teaching methods and materials which enhance the acquisition of entrepreneurial attributes while students, preferred those enhancing traditional conformist attributes. There is a disjunction between the skills and attributes inculcated in schools and those required in the manufacturing industries. A hi-perceptual composite entrepreneurial curriculum focusing on entrepreneurial psychological skills and attributes and enterprise as a physical phenomenon was recommended. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / D. Ed. (Didactics)

This thesis presents a conceptual model of the nature/interaction of internal factors shaping individual ethnic minority micro-enterprise owners’ response to external threats in the business environment aimed to assist business support agencies developing/targeting appropriate help/support to enhance business development. Focus of the empirical research is Edinburgh Pakistani community owned convenience stores, as the failure to survive will adversely affect this community disproportionately reliant on the c-store sector and provision of related local social and economic benefits. The intangible influences on business approaches (education, experience, access to finance/business advice, personal values, goals, motivation, role models and cultural background) demands a qualitative, postmodern constructivist methodology, utilising social science adaptive grounded theory methods for sample selection, data collection/management, and theory generation. The initial conceptual model emerging from constant comparison analysis of qualitative interviews with a theoretical sample of 21 Edinburgh Pakistani c-store owners indicates key internal factors as start-up motivation, cultural influences and changing aspirations, awareness and acknowledgement of these influences on predominantly reactive responses to trading challenges varying widely. Comparison with wider ethnic minority/micro-enterprise research develops a conceptual model of the interacting internal barriers to minority community micro-enterprise development. Within any minority community and/or micro-business sector the owner’s response to changing business environments is shaped by three factors: motivation for self-employment and changing sojourner mentality; cultural influences and depth of social embeddedness; and generational aspirations and degree of economic embeddedness in the mainstream community. By taking the complex, multi-layered, individual, dynamic nature of these factors into account when developing and marketing business advice, support agencies can design and deliver products and services relevant to specific needs and resource availability. Raising owners’ awareness of the factors influencing business decisions will increase the potential for micro-enterprises to react proactively to external threats, with related benefits to individual owners, minority populations and the local community.

The research described in this thesis is an interpretative approach to exploring fashion consumption behaviour through applying a sustainability lens, underpinned by tenets of value. The research adopts existential phenomenology to explores the lived experience of mothers who work in a professional occupation, whereby lifeworlds which encourage intentions to adopt sustainability are juxtaposed within a myriad of lifeworld restrictions. The theoretical underpinning of the research assumes that consumers seek value in their consumption, whereby underlying tensions result in value trade-offs. As the research focus is to determine perceptions of fashion with the inclusion of sustainability, the participants evaluate a number of value types such as aesthetics versus ethics, price, quality, accessibility, altruism and guilt. The research identifies that situational values are focal; the immediacy of those consumer values contradict their detachment to production implications. Due to the dearth of information that can be meaningfully evaluated, the participants attempted to incorporate heuristic propensities to avoid fashion consumption which misaligned with their moral sentiment. Transferring sustainable principles from other consumption contexts to fashion resulted in uncertainty as to why sustainability was compromised and illustrated a reduced consciousness of what constitutes fashion production, including debating the implications of production on both the environment and for garment-workers. This dissimilarity contrasts with empowerment to adopt sustainability in other contexts situations, where value was maximised in networks sharing childrenfs clothing, reusing plastic bags and recycling behaviours. Conclusions include that consumers can expedite fashion sustainability with meaningful guidance, supporting facilities and assurance of the positive consequences of sustainable behaviours.