Business Survival and Success of Young Small Business Owners

Little empirical evidence provides insight in person-oriented drivers of business survival and success of small business owners. In this paper I perform a duration analysis of business survival amongst young white (self-employed) small business owners in the U.S. Compulsory exits are distinguished from voluntary exits. This enables an alternative definition of business success: the longer one can survive and prevent inLvoluntary exit, the more successful one is. Potential drivers of survival are derived from recent empirical evidence in related studies. The potential drivers of success are also derived from historical economic thinkers such as Marshall and Schumpeter. The estimated hazard rates are affected by characteristics of the small business owner and business conditions.     

Lifesizing Entrepreneurship: Lonergan, Bias and The Role of Business in Society

In an era of downsizing and disposable ethics, there is a need to redefine the role of business in society. Central to such a discussion is the frame of reference of the entrepreneur. A traditional business model defines entrepreneurship based on endowing resources with new wealth producing capabilities. This paper defines entrepreneurship as a calling to endow resources with new value. In support of the impact such a distinction would have on repositioning the role of business in society, the paper weaves together writings from the Pope, Drucker, and Lonergan, with emphasis on applying Lonergan’s discussion of bias to the discussion of ethics in business. Adapting the term, “lifesizing”, which was coined by the author in a previous article, to entrepreneurship, the paper takes the position that lifesized entrepreneurship can act as a catalyst similar to Lonergan’s cosmopolis and play a key role in countering bias and repositioning the role of business in society.     

Entrepreneurship,Small Business and Public Policy Levers

The author develops a progressively refined framework consisting of four typologies to help understand, explain, and analyze how various public policy levers impact new, small, and entrepreneurial businesses. Dimensions for the typologies include institutions and culture, competition and intended immediate beneficiaries of competition, impediments and supports, and policy objectives and direct/indirect action. Implications emerging from the typologies lead to potential hypotheses that can be subject to further investigation and empirical testing.     

Antitrust,Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Small Business

The purpose of this article is to discuss a few aspects of antitrust enforcement that are directly related to small businesses. The first point concerns how the antitrust laws work as an economic "charter of freedom" by protecting our economy from the misuse of market power by dominant firms, or from anticompetitive collusion by groups of firms, or from anticompetitive mergers, all of which can blunt the mainspring of our economic success – competitive markets. Second is an expansion on the first theme which focuses on how antitrust enforcement helps preserve two freedoms that I think small businesses care about very much: the freedom to engage in entrepreneurship, and the freedom to innovate. A final discussion involves a few recent cases recently seen at the Antitrust Division that illustrate the many ways in which antitrust enforcement has helped the small business marketplace.     

The Role of Business Ethics in Merger and Acquisition Success: An Empirical Study

The purpose of this paper is to explore job performance, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) from an ethical perceptive. A great number of studies have extensively discussed the link between M&A and performance; however, most focused on the financial functions and strategy selections. Although ethical issues emerge in the M&A process, it is a less studied area. This study adopted the structural equation modeling approach to empirically test our hypotheses. Based on 264 samples from financial companies, data analyses indicated that ethical conduct in M&A is significantly correlated with employee job performance. Ensuring employment security and caring practices can significantly explain organizational commitment. Organizational commitment also plays a significant mediating role between a company’s ethical conduct and employee job performance. Managerial implications are also provided.Carol Yeh-Yun Lin is a Professor of the Department of Business Administration at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. She received her Ph.D. in Human Resource Development from the University of Texas at Austin in 1992. She has published previously in the Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Psychology, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Industrial Relations Journal, International Journal of Human Resource Management, and a number of other scholarly journals. Yu-Chen Wei is a doctoral candidate of the Department of Business Administration at National Chengchi University. Her research interests include intellectual capital, high-performance work system and business ethics.     

Interfirm Alliances in the Small Business: The Role of Social Networks

In light of the increasing importance of strategic alliances in shaping competition, this study explored whether the social network of small firm executives can be leveraged to facilitate the establishment of interfirm alliances. Analyses are based on a mail survey of 149 small manufacturing firms in the northeast United States. Results indicate that the social networks of senior executives account for 11–22 percent of the variance in the degree to which firms engage in alliances, depending on the type of alliance. Results also show that the number of interfirm alliances is positively related to several networking properties (propensity to network, strength of ties, and network prestige). Findings are discussed in the context of network theory, social embeddedness, and the overall implications for management researchers and practitioners.     

Motivations and Obstacles for Small Business Entrepreneurship in Russia: Fifteen Years in Transition

A longitudinal survey of small business entrepreneurs was conducted in Russia in two stages: in 1994 and in 2008. This study examined entrepreneurial climate and developments in Russia's small businesses with a focus on motivations and obstacles in starting up and operating businesses. It also aimed at analyzing entrepreneurs’ needs for training, consulting, and other types of assistance in a comparative context. Russia's climate for small and medium enterprises (SME) and entrepreneurship has improved, although it is still a work in progress. The 2008 survey indicated younger age, greater share of female entrepreneurs, and remaining small size of the firms. Though the level of SME entrepreneurial activities in Russia is still lower than in major developed economies, the gap is diminishing. Thise study found no significant differences between 1994 and 2008 in terms of entrepreneurial motivations and obstacles; several shifts and trends in motivations and obstacles were identified in their relative importance in SME dynamics.     

Entrepreneurship and Development: The Role of Clusters

Defining entrepreneurship as the creation of new organisations,this paper explores,from a literature review standpoint,the moderating effect of clusters on the impact of entrepreneurship on development. To identify potential causes of this moderating effect, the paper focuses on three different impacts: entrepreneurship on development, clusters on development,and clusters on entrepreneurship. The findings of the paper are threefold.First,entrepreneurship is positively associated with economic growth.Given the importance of entrepreneurship in changing the economic and social structure of the economy,more research on the impact of entrepreneurship on development - i.e. focus on capabilities rather than on output - is needed. Second,it is difficult to reach empirical generalisations on the impact of clusters on development and entrepreneurship given conceptual and methodological constraints. Both positive results and caveats are found at different levels of analysis and at different stages of development of a cluster. Finally, given the previous finding, it is difficult to generalise on the impact of clusters on the association between entrepreneurship and development. Consensus on and validity between conceptual and operational definitions of clusters; consideration of context as well as process and, therefore, quantitative and qualitative methods; and differentiation between levels of analysis controlling for cluster stage and strength are the main criteria for future studies to consider to disentangle the impact of clusters on entrepreneurship, development and the association between entrepreneurship and development.     

Social Entrepreneurship: The Role of Institutions

A relatively small segment of business, known as social entrepreneurship (SE), is increasingly being acknowledged as an effective source of solutions for a variety of social problems. Because society tends to view “new” solutions as “the” solution, we are concerned that SE will soon be expected to provide answers to our most pressing social ills. In this paper we call into question the ability of SE, by itself, to provide solutions on a scope necessary to address large-scale social issues. SE cannot reasonably be expected to solve social problems on a large scale for a variety of reasons. The first we label the organizational legitimacy argument. This argument leads to our second argument, the isomorphism argument. We also advance three other claims, the moral, political, and structural arguments. After making our arguments, we explore ways in which SE, in concert with other social institutions, can effectively address social ills. We also present two examples of successful ventures in which SEs partnered with governments and other institutions.     

Social Entrepreneurship: The Role of Institutions

A relatively small segment of business, known as social entrepreneurship (SE), is increasingly being acknowledged as an effective source of solutions for a variety of social problems. Because society tends to view “new” solutions as “the” solution, we are concerned that SE will soon be expected to provide answers to our most pressing social ills. In this paper we call into question the ability of SE, by itself, to provide solutions on a scope necessary to address large-scale social issues. SE cannot reasonably be expected to solve social problems on a large scale for a variety of reasons. The first we label the organizational legitimacy argument. This argument leads to our second argument, the isomorphism argument. We also advance three other claims, the moral, political, and structural arguments. After making our arguments, we explore ways in which SE, in concert with other social institutions, can effectively address social ills. We also present two examples of successful ventures in which SEs partnered with governments and other institutions.     

The Effect of Business Regulations on Nascent and Young Business Entrepreneurship

We examine the relationship, across 39 countries, between regulation and entrepreneurship using a new two-equation model. We find the minimum capital requirement required to start a business lowers entrepreneurship rates across countries, as do labour market regulations. However the administrative considerations of starting a business – such as the time, the cost, or the number of procedures required – are unrelated to the formation rate of either nascent or young businesses. Given the explicit link made by Djankov et al. [Djankov et al. 2002, ‹The Regulation of Entry’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(1), 1–37] between the speed and ease with which businesses may be established in a country and its economic performance – and the enthusiasm with which this link has been grasped by European Union policy makers – our findings imply this link needs reconsidering. Prepared for: Small Business Economics (2007), Special issue GEM conference 2005     

Teaching Business Ethics: The Role of Ethics in Business and in Business Education

The paper begins with an examination of traditional attitudes towards business ethics. I suggest that these attitudes fail to recognize that a principal function of ethics is to facilitate cooperation. Further that despite the emphasis on competition in modern market economies, business like all other forms of social activity is possible only where people are prepared to respect rules in the absence of which cooperation is rendered difficult or impossible. Rules or what I call the ethics of doing, however, constitute just one dimension of ethics. A second has to do with what we see and how we see it; a third with who we or what I describe as the ethics of being. Of these three dimensions, the first and the third have been most carefully explored by philosophers and are most frequently the focus of attention when teaching business ethics is being discussed. I argue that this focus is unfortunate in as much as it is the second dimension which falls most naturally into the ambit of modern secular educational institutions. It is here that moral education is most obviously unavoidable, and most clearly justifiable in modern secular teaching environments. I conclude by describing the importance of this second dimension for the modern world of business.     

企业经营战略选择的影响因素及模式

以内部专业化、外部专业化、内部相关多元化、外部相关多元化、内部非相关多元化和外部非相关多元化六种战略类型为例,探讨经营战略选择的影响因素及模式。结论是企业的战略目标、竞争环境、战略资产和合作机会影响经营战略的决策,并决定其决策模式。     

The Reasons Behind Non-Ethical Behaviour in Business and Entrepreneurship

Despite the recent increase in interest in corporate social responsibility and the propagation of corporate governance in both business and academic literature, from observations of actual practice, the author has seen at all company levels, in everyday operations, instances of non-ethical behaviour vis-à-vis the whole gamut of stakeholders. This state of affairs is linked with: pressure from stakeholders, short-term tactics, hegemony of financial considerations, ‘juridisation’ of business, the tyranny of communications and the media and the difficulties in translating strategy into practical implementation. The paper scrutinises the motivation and the psychology of entrepreneurs and business people, and their behaviour is compared to other professional groups and confronted with the decline in ethics in society as described by some important observers. The conclusion drawn is that the recent positive evolutions do not provide sufficient ethical guidelines for the day-to-day activities of middle managers and entrepreneurs in the present competitive environment. Managers will always be confronted by difficult choices with ethical dilemmas. There will always be a tension between theory and pragmatism, but progress can be made with the effective implementation of the ethical discourse in companies. To achieve this, ethical management should not be confined to the large strategic issues but also applied to the small practical matters of everyday business life. Ethics in business and entrepreneurship requires more than corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR).     

Understanding Market-Driving Behavior: The Role of Entrepreneurship

In recent years, the marketing literature has placed significant emphasis on market-driving and proactive market-driven behavior within firms in attempts to reconceptualize the meaning of "market orientation." For their part, market-driving firms such as Starbucks, Amazon.com, Dell, and Southwest Airlines are demonstrating how business model innovation results in sustainable advantage and superior long-term performance in a wide range of industries. In this paper, we contend that market-driving behavior is distinct from a firm's market orientation, and instead is the essence of entrepreneurial action in the Schumpeterian "creative destruction" sense. It is further argued that the firm's entrepreneurial orientation interacts with other strategic orientations, in the process determining how they are manifested and, in some cases, whether they are manifested. Furthermore, entrepreneurial orientation plays a critical role in determining transitions among various strategic orientations over time. An integrative model illustrates the dynamics of the interface between marketing and entrepreneurship from both a content and process perspective. Two case studies illustrate how trajectories can be identified in the dominant strategic orientations within companies as they evolve.