Cette thèse porte sur une étude des aspects jusqu’à présent négligés concernant les ressources immédiatement accessibles aux entrepreneurs des jeunes et petites entreprises. En s’appuyant sur l’argument que les ressources immédiatement accessibles aux entrepreneurs sont leur capital humain et social, l’étude est d’abord centrée sur une lecture individuelle, qui met en exergue l’entrepreneur et son capital humain. Ensuite, elle tient compte explicitement de l'enracinement social des entrepreneurs et plus précisément de leur enracinement familial « family embeddedness ». Ainsi, l’étude s’ouvre à l'entrepreneur et son conjoint, donc au couple d’entrepreneurs. Cette thèse s'inscrit dans les domaines de recherche de l'entrepreneuriat et de l'entreprise familiale, et emprunte des concepts et des théories à l'économie et à la sociologie. Chacun des quatre articles qui constituent la thèse est une étude autonome destinée à la publication. Néanmoins, toutes les études se rapportent à une problématique centrale qui traite des aspects encore négligés concernant les liens entre les résultats des petites entreprises, l'entrepreneur et le couple d’entrepreneurs. / This thesis focuses on a study of the hitherto neglected aspects of the resources immediately accessible to entrepreneurs of young and small businesses. Based on the argument that the resources immediately available to entrepreneurs are their human and social capital, the study is primarily centered on individual reading, which highlights the entrepreneur and his human capital. Then, it explicitly takes into account the social roots of entrepreneurs and more specifically their family-embeddedness. Thus, the study opens to the entrepreneur and his spouse, thus to the couple of entrepreneurs. This thesis is part of the research fields of entrepreneurship and the family business, and borrows concepts and theories from economics and sociology. Each of the four articles that make up the thesis is an independent study for publication. Nevertheless, all the studies relate to a central issue that deals with the still neglected aspects of the links between the results of small firms, the entrepreneur and the couple of entrepreneurs.

Probation officers are departing their employment before retirement at a high rate depending on the agency, location, and type of position, which impacts society. The cost associated with training a new officer could consume a large portion of an agency's yearly budget, leaving many inexperienced officers to supervise dangerous offenders and defendants. Thus, it is important to examine factors influencing retention such as whether individualistic and collectivist values predict a relationship between retention intent of probation officers. The purpose of this quantitative research study, guided by Hofstede's cultural theory, was to determine whether family embeddedness influences retention intent of probation officers. Linear regression was used to examine the relationship between the variables. The Sobel test was used to determine if family embeddedness mediated retention-intent. Federal probation and pretrial services officers (n=85) from 5 regions completed online survey questionnaires (Individualistic values scale, Employee Retention scale, Global Measure of Job Embeddedness, and Auckland Individualism and Collectivistic Scale). The results showed that family embeddedness is not a mediator for probation officers that possessed individualistic or collectivistic values. The social change implication of this study includes a recommendation for the development of an employee screening instrument that identifies employees' values to increase retention of probation officers, which can be used to select and train staff.