<p> The challenges of entrepreneurship make learning integral to the entrepreneurial process. However, many entrepreneurs work in relative isolation and lack opportunities to engage with peers in ways that promote meaningful reflection and learning. This study explores the experience of group coaching as a setting for meaningful learning and change in entrepreneurs. Scholars studying similar group settings have shown that social processes, including those related to peer learning and identity work, contribute to entrepreneurial learning (EL) and identity construction in important ways. Still, relatively little is known about how these social processes unfold or about the different types of social contexts in which EL occurs. This study advances the literature through a narrative exploration of eight entrepreneurs&rsquo; experiences navigating challenges related to entrepreneurial learning and identity in the social context of their coaching groups. </p><p> Data collection was accomplished via one-on-one, semi-structured narrative interviews with each participant. The data were interpreted using separate and sequential narrative/performative and thematic analytical methods to produce an in-depth, multi-dimensional understanding of the data. Participants&rsquo; stories depicted group coaching as a viable context for supporting entrepreneurial learning and change on multiple levels. In addition, the study findings contribute to an understanding of <i>where</i> or <i>under what conditions </i> EL unfolds within group coaching, and <i>how</i> or <i> in what ways</i> participant entrepreneurs experience learning in this context. Finally, the relational context of the interview itself was found to contribute to participants&rsquo; meaning making, directly influencing their constructions of past events and their meaning. The study presents practical implications for coaches, coaching educators, and entrepreneurs, as well as recommendations for future research.</p><p>

<p> This study explored experiences of women who left tech companies and started their own businesses or became self-employed. The study identified trends in their experiences working for tech companies, factors influencing the decision to leave, and factors influencing the decision to pursue entrepreneurship or self-employment. Fifteen women were interviewed. Working for tech companies, women enjoyed opportunities to advance but experienced limitations to that advancement. They liked their co-workers and felt proud of the work being done, but were impacted by poor leadership, being one of few women, and not having potential recognized. Women quit for primarily individual reasons. Organization dysfunction, unfair events, and the presence of better alternatives impacted the decision as well. Women chose entrepreneurship for primarily personal reasons including entrepreneurial drive and a desire for autonomy. Financial security was found to be an influence for many women in the decision to take the risk of pursuing their venture.</p><p>

Literature on entrepreneurship has been criticised on several grounds including a strong bias to examine masculine traits, being deeply rooted in the private sector, limited to economics, conceptualised as a specialist skill pertinent only to non-public entities, overly positivist, single causal and with a tendency to downplay the relevance of both the social and human sciences. The relatively few studies of female entrepreneurs in the public sector have been criticised on the grounds of privileging structure over agency and for ignoring new research perspectives. The literature calls for the generation of alternative viewpoints on entrepreneurship and specifically towards those that pay greater attention to the level of the individual within an institutional setting and that embraces like interaction with multiple sociological variables. To generate research outside these biases, a dynamic relational model consisting of four interactive variables (structure, agency, networks and context) was developed and then used to guide a case study on women entrepreneurs within a male dominated institution - the United Kingdom’s (UK) Armed Forces. A critical realist research methodology was used. Interviews were conducted with a stratified sample of 52 female, uniformed officers drawn from all three services (Navy, Army, Airforce). The findings revealed how women use structure, agency, networks and context to create the necessary leverage to bring about entrepreneurial institutional change based on individual goal realisation strategies. The originality of this research is threefold. Firstly, it examines female entrepreneurs in a male dominated public sector institution. Secondly, it uses a critical realist research methodology. Finally, the research develops a dynamic relational model that has wider utility. The overall net result of this research approach is to provide a richer understanding of the complex, multi-causal nature of public sector entrepreneurship that has the potential for far broader application. / © Cranfield University 2015

M.Comm. (Business Management) / Over the past ten years the insurance industry has been subject to extreme losses due to dual exposure in both underwriting and investments. Financial survival was the number one priority for many insurance firms in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attack in America in 2001, the natural catastrophe losses across the USA, and most recently the global financial crisis. Multinational European and North American insurance firms have been forced to focus on core business activities, and this has necessitated improvement of holistic risk and capital management of global and regional operations. Against this evolving microeconomic and managerial backdrop, multinational insurance firms withdrew from the South African insurance market in an attempt to improve financial performance by recapitalising funds to their core operations in Europe and America, and to mitigate their international risk exposure in developing countries. This study explores the phenomenon of how an entrepreneurial entity experienced opportunity realisation within the South African insurance industry when multinational insurance firms withdrew from the South African market. This research employed qualitative case study methodology to illustrate the phenomenon under investigation. Participants of this study included a purposefully selected group consisting of 12 candidates who have been directly involved in the opportunity realisation of the entrepreneurial entity. Grounded Theory analysis allowed for insightful descriptions of opportunity realisation within the South African insurance industry. The empirical evidence suggest opportunity realisation to be impacted by five dominant forces, namely, the South African insurance market, an entrepreneurial entity, opportunity identification, strategic development, and organisational design. Collectively, these five forces constitute the Inductive Opportunity Realisation (IOR) theory. This study focuses on entrepreneurial behaviour to realise opportunities within the South African insurance industry. The IOR theory also highlights the important role of constructive and deconstructive entrepreneurial behaviour in realising opportunities.

Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is seen as an important facet of strategic renewal, profitability, innovativeness and growth of organisations. This study examined the relationship between CE, Market Orientation (MO), Organizational Flexibility (F) and Job Satisfaction (JS). The outcomes of the influence of CE, organisational flexibility and market orientation on job satisfaction were also assessed. The Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment Instrument (CEAI) developed by Hornsby, Kuratko and Zahra (2002) was used to measure CE. Market orientation was measured by the Market Orientation Scale developed by Kohli, Jaworski and Kumar (1993). The Organisational Flexibility Scale developed by Khandwalla (1977) was used to measure flexibility of organisations. Job satisfaction was measured by the means of the short form of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire developed by Weiss, Davis, England and Lofquist (1967). Data were gathered from 333 respondents representing four different sectors namely, life assurance, information technology, transport and education. Factor Analysis was employed to revalidate the structure and internal reliability of each instrument used in the study. This resulted in a five-factor solution for the CEAI, named management support, work discretion, rewards/reinforcement, time availability, support for innovation and work improvement. A three-factor solution emerged in the case of market orientation, named intelligence generation, inertia and responsiveness. A two-factor solution was identified for the organisational flexibility scale, namely formality and authoritarianism. The two components of job satisfaction were identified as extrinsic and intrinsic job satisfaction. Pearson Product Moment Correlation was done, investigating the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship, market orientation and flexibility and job satisfaction sub-scales. Multiple Regression Analysis investigated the prediction of job satisfaction by means of corporate entrepreneurship, market orientation and flexibility as independent variables. Of the six Structural Equation Models built in this study, three indicated a good fit with the data. From a managerial perspective the results of two of the models indicate that the corporate entrepreneurship factors of rewards/reinforcement, formal organisational flexibility and an intelligence generative market orientation contribute statistically significantly toward higher levels of extrinsic and total job satisfaction. Additionally the corporate entrepreneurship factor of work improvement, formal organisational flexibility and an intelligence generative market orientation contribute statistically significantly toward higher levels of intrinsic job satisfaction. Though the remaining three models showed a weaker fit with the data, indications are that extrinsic and total job satisfaction could be negatively influenced by CE factors of rewards/reinforcement, inflexible authoritarianism and a market orientation of inertia. Furthermore intrinsic job satisfaction could be negatively influenced by work improvement CE, inflexible authoritarianism and an inertia market orientation. / Thesis (DBA (Business Administration))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

The previous economic structure in South Africa was well served by the FET College institutions in that they provided a resource pool for large companies and organisations. This however, developed a student mindset of becoming an employee instead of the employer of an organisation. With an economy in transition, privately owned companies or organisations now account for an increasing proportion of economic development. Hence, FET Colleges need to redefine their role in the economy and society, specifically in the type of entrepreneurship courses they offer. This study examines the provision of entrepreneurship education at a FET College in the Eastern Cape with special reference to the levels of provision, support mechanisms, course objectives, contents, teaching and assessment methods to ascertain whether they are appropriately developed to prepare students for entrepreneurship as a career option. This study followed a qualitative research paradigm, implementing a case study approach during the research. In order to analyse the above, the New Venture Creation and Entrepreneurship and Business Management students were selected for this study. Data were collected by handing out questionnaires to a sample of 200 students to assess entrepreneurship courses and pedagogies. The results of this study, indicate that entrepreneurship education at a specific FET College is not enabling the students with sufficient knowledge and skills to start their own business. The results indicate a low level of entrepreneurship education and a weak standing of entrepreneurship courses, which tend to only be part of the Finance course offered within the Business Studies Department at a FET College. Contributing factors to this low level of entrepreneurship education have been identified by lack of support mechanisms by management, the theoretical orientation of entrepreneurship curriculum, teaching methods and assessment of tasks. Based on these findings, it is strongly suggested that this FET College should: (1) develop specialised entrepreneurship programmes for all students; (2) receive special funding for entrepreneurship education; (3) integrate experiential learning in the curriculum; and (4) give special consideration to training entrepreneurship educators.

The Eastern Cape Province has been cited as the second poorest province in South Africa. The impact of entrepreneurship on the economy, with respect to socio-economic development, has placed increased pressure on entrepreneurs to operate effectively. Moreover, entrepreneurs are required to adopt and adapt to leadership practices that lead to business success. Business success is largely dependent on the leader. The importance of this study may, thus, be attributed to the need for entrepreneurs to possess the necessary leadership attributes for the efficient running of a business. The primary objective of this study was to improve the success rate of entrepreneurs in the Eastern Cape Province. This was done by determining the impact of selected leadership attributes on the success of entrepreneurs. More specifically, this study investigated how the success of entrepreneurs is influenced by leadership attributes (the dependent variable), namely, leadership style, vision, networking, risk-taking and ethics (the independent variables). In order to achieve the research objectives, the researcher used the inferential statistical approach, specifically, hypothesis testing. The first step was to conduct a literature review on factors that influence entrepreneurs. This entailed the barriers to success, critical success factors, the impact of the SMME sector on the economy, as well as the selected leadership attributes. Secondly, the quantitative research method was used to assess the perceptions of entrepreneurs with regards to the influence of the leadership attributes on their businesses. This was done through an empirical survey, namely a self-administered questionnaire that was distributed to a sample of 100 entrepreneurs who are based in the Eastern Cape Province and have been operating for a minimum of three years. Out of the envisaged 100 respondents, 89 questionnaires were completed (89% response rate). The data obtained from the empirical survey was then analysed statistically and the descriptive statistics were presented by using graphs and tables. The results of the empirical survey revealed that although all the above-mentioned independent variables contribute towards increasing the success rate of entrepreneurs, networking and ethics exert the most significant influence. Based on the findings of the literature review and the results of the empirical survey, this study made recommendations on areas of improvement for entrepreneurs in order to increase their success rate. Suggestions were also made for possible future research.

Entrepreneurs make decisions that influence subsequent decisions and future performance. The dissertation studies such sequences of decisions by using dynamic programming. This approach allows one to describe the decision process over time and, in some cases, it prescribes how business performance can be improved. An analytical approach helps to contribute a new dimension to entrepreneurship research and it encourages multidisciplinary work by allowing existing methodologies from various (analytical) disciplines to be applied to entrepreneurial problems. The dissertation focuses on research questions that invoke effort allocation in sequential decision-making at early development stages of a new venture creation. The dissertation is composed of three separate research studies. What dominates the entrepreneur's decision process initially is the effort allocation problem in sharing time between an existing job and committing to the new venture. The first study describes how this time-sharing is done and characterizes when is the best time to leave the wage job and become a full-time entrepreneur. I also show that the optimal time-allocation policy is driven by the entrepreneur's tolerance for work and by how returns behave with respect to time allocation in the venture. It is important to understand resource allocations to internal activities such as product development and customer recruitment. The second study focuses on new product development and it investigates how the flow of a new venture's funding affects the development of a new product. I prescribe the optimal release time for the new product and describe how this strategy is affected by the expected amount of funding and its uncertainty. I also identify industrial and entrepreneurial characteristics that generate various behaviors for the rate of change in the return on product quality as investment in the product is increased. The newly developed product must be bought to make the business start-up successful. The third study investigates how an entrepreneur makes decisions over time in allocating effort to building and exploiting a customer base so as to maximize profit. I study what a rational entrepreneur will do when faced with the allocation of effort to different customer categories. I also provide guidelines for improving the performance of an entrepreneur who may not be acting optimally. In these three investigations a dynamic programming approach is utilized to study various sequential decision processes of an entrepreneur during the development process of new venture creation. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Most studies of multinational organisations (MNE’s) have been focused on large mature corporations. Traditional literature explains that firms internationalise after a certain level of domestic maturity and wield a significant amount of economic power to withstand the threat of international competition (Oviatt, McDougall, 1993, p. 29)However, this premise has changed in recent years with the adoption of new legislation and technologies that allow firms to become established MNE’s much sooner, with many of these pursuing rapid internationalisation strategies.If the traditional notions of staged theory no longer hold true and new behavioural aspects are driving small businesses to internationalise, it is essential for researchers to gain insights into new firm development, survival and growth in the South African context. Firm growth is of particular interest where globalised SME’s are concerned. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Acceleration has long fascinated managers. Their captivation is reflected in a century of popular business strategies designed to speed up work, including "scientific management," "lean production," and "lean startup". Scholars have paid significant attention to acceleration, examining the effects of greater speed on numerous work outcomes (e.g., decisions, new product success) as well as work processes (e.g., information processing, consideration of alternatives). Despite this relatively robust literature, there are two areas where our knowledge of acceleration is still limited. First, we lack knowledge about the varied ways in which organizations enact acceleration; prior research has focused on the use of deadlines to speed up task completion, with little consideration of other approaches. Second, because previous studies have yielded conflicting results regarding the implications of acceleration, it remains unclear exactly how an emphasis on increasing speed shapes people’s experiences and work. To advance theorizing in these two areas, I conducted an ethnographic study of a seed accelerator ("InnoTech"), a relatively new form of organization that runs time-limited programs with the explicit intent of speeding up the process of venture creation. Through an inductive, grounded analysis, I found that InnoTech mandated acceleration through a broad set of tactics that included, but was not limited to, the imposition of deadlines. These tactics were rooted in InnoTech's localized conceptualization of acceleration: securing funding faster. I also found that InnoTech created both time-based (i.e., temporal) and event-based (i.e., sequential) triggers for beginning fundraising. Some of the entrepreneurs participating in InnoTech's program perceived these triggers as compatible, and thus felt a sense of synchrony. Other entrepreneurs perceived the triggers as incompatible, and thus experienced a sense of asynchrony. The entrepreneurs' differing perceptions had important implications for their experiences and work. By building theory about localized approaches to acceleration, and how they may shape people's responses in varying ways, I suggest that speed is a situated phenomenon that must be understood as such. My research contributes to the literatures on acceleration, pacing, deadlines, and time as a form of control in organizations.