Business Sponsorship in British Schools

Is it ethical for a school to accept sponsorship from business, and if so under what conditions? Indeed, given the poor provision of many UK local schools for their pupils is it ethical to refuse business sponsorship? Where does responsibility lie? “To attract and persuade is not an appropriate behaviour in dealing with inexperienced parties.” The author completed her MBA at London Business School in July 1997 and is currently setting up a new family business, The Organic Food Company Ltd.     

A Model for Screening Sport Sponsorship Opportunities

The prolific submission rate of sport sponsorship pro- posals to corporate marketing decision-makers warrants the avail- ability of a comprehensive screening instrument. Due to the limited number of instruments available Irwin and Assimakopoulos (1992) proposed the Sport Sponsorship Proposal Evaluation Model (SSPEM). This theoretical model featured a compilation of contem- porary sport sponsorship evaluation criteria with distinctive weight- ing and grading scales. The purpose of the current study was to subject the model to empirical testing in an effort to confirm the retention and categorization of contained criteria. Based on the results of this investigation modifications were made to the original model thereby enhancing its universal effectiveness to corporate decision-makers.     

The Effect of Sport Sponsorship Programs of Various Sport Events on Stock Price Behavior During a Sport Event

This paper examines sporting event's spillover effect to investor's behavior through event study analysis using the GARCH (p,q) model, focusing on the stock price effects of a sport sponsorship program during and after a sporting event. Studying stock price behavior during a sporting event is attempted for the first time in the marketing and sponsorship literature. First, we provide some summary points from the review of 40 research works and interpretive claims, based on a conceptual and theoretical framework. Second, we consider daily stock returns of 28 listed companies that have sponsored 15 major sports events during the period 2000–2009, in order to examine the effect of major sporting events on sponsors’ stock returns and volatility. The three research hypotheses are supported. Research results show that stock returns and volatility changed significantly during and after the sporting event compared to pre-event period. Results show that stock price effects caused by sports events’ sponsorship programs are firm-specific, as well as sporting event-specific. The findings of this study are of high value for promotion managers as it allows them to become more critically aware of the practical wisdom of sporting events.     

Small Business and Antitrust

The question addressed in this paper is how small business fits into a post-Chicago antitrust agenda. The answer, we will see, relates not to special privileges for the small, but to a vigorous competition policy directed against manifestations of market power.     

Small Business Survival

Abstract

Previous evidence given for some of the significant costs of survival for private enterprises in Guangzhou suggested that entrepreneurs may pay a significant amount in the form of dinners, gifts, and other offerings to insure survival. As a follow-up to that preliminary study, data have been collected from a cross-section of industries formally operationalizing the “costs” of survival as the means for maintaining legitimacy. The cultural context for such costs/offerings is hypothesized to be through guanxi, a traditional way of establishing social and business networks. The analyses herein suggest that guanxi costs are significantly higher for private enterprises versus all other enterprises types, i.e., state, private, township and village, domestic and foreign enterprises. Also, consistent with its cultural context, quanxi is consider to be equally important in business as in life for all types of Chinese enterprises.     

Small Business Exporting

This study investigates the effect of export marketing activites and size of the firm in the firm's stage of internationalization. The results of an empirical survey indicate that efficient marketing techniques and product adaptation are important determinants of a firm's internationalization stage. However, the size of the firm appears to be the critical variable in predicting a firm's given stage in its export marketing development.     

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.     

Sponsorship

Sponsorship, the ‘soft sell’ of advertising, may well become a typically British compromise reached by Professor Alan Peacock's Home Office committee ‘to assess the effects of the introduction of advertising or sponsorship on the BBC's home services’. The author, who is one of the pioneers of British commercial television, has written this survey of television sponsorship opportunities, particularly for advertisers who are now contemplating the allocation of millions of pounds to this ‘new’ television medium.     

Modelling Small Business Growth and Profitability

Small Business Economics - This paper develops a simple structural model relating small business performance to firms' market position and the characteristics of their owner-managers. Attention...     

Service Orientation and Small Business Marketing

ABSTRACT

In an environment of ever increasing competition, small businesses are beginning to recognize that adopting a strong service orientation in their marketing efforts not only gives them a differential advantage, but is also fast becoming a prerequisite for their survival. This study introduces a classification scheme which identifies firms by their degrees of involvement in service orientation. This typology was validated in a nationwide survey of retail nurseries. The findings supported the hypotheses that a strong service orientation does have a dramatic impact on a business's marketing decisions. It is hoped that recognition of these distinctions will offer strategic insights for small business practitioners in making marketing and promotion decisions.     

Small Business and Empirical Perspectives in Business Ethics: Editorial

In this editorial to a collection of papers on ethics in small firms, the case is made for greater use of high quality empirical research on business ethics. Sociological perspectives have much to offer to the field of business ethics that continues to be dominated by normative, moral philosophy. The second contribution of the paper is to argue for a re-orientation away from the large multi-national firm as a benchmark subject of business ethics research. One important point of view to be included is that of the small firm, which remains the dominant organisational form throughout all the OECD countries.     

External Relationships and the Small Business: A Review of Small Business Alliance and Network Research*

In order to thrive, small businesses are often advised to develop relationships with external organizations that have the potential to assist business development, survival, and growth. A focus on the external relationships of the small business underlines the vital importance of external resources in moving a small business toward increased success and profitability. Covering the period from 1990 to 2002, this paper reviews the small business literature as it relates to the use of these external relationships (such as organizational partnerships, networks, and alliances). In response to both academic and practitioner demand for further research in this area, an exhaustive analysis of the relevant literature was conducted and three “meta” research questions representing the connections within this literature were formed. The resource‐based view of the firm, resource dependency theory, and punctuated equilibrium theory are proposed as useful starting points for exploring these research questions and can give direction for moving forward in this research area.     

小城镇餐饮企业经营现状、问题与对策研究

随着农村非农产业的快速发展,小城镇的迅速崛起,小城镇成为带动农村经济繁荣和推动城镇化进程的重要力量。餐饮业是劳动密集型行业,兼有商品消费和服务消费的双重特性,吸纳就业人员多,产业关联度高,能有效带动种植业、畜牧养殖业、装饰装修业等相关产业的发展,同时餐饮业以市场大、增长快、投入相对少和吸纳劳动力多等特点,对于小城镇的建设和发展,解决农村劳动力的去向等问题有重要的作用。     

小生意同样赚大钱

<正>对于有眼光的人来说,商机无处不在。对于坚守诚信,视质量为生命的生意人来说,没有他做不成的生意。有些人一味地认为只有做大生意才挣钱,看不起小生意,殊不知,只要有市场,小生意也能赚大钱。     

The New Industrial Organization and Small Business

The small business sector is an important part of the American economic landscape, in both absolute and relative terms. Despite its absolute growth, however, the sector accounts for a diminishing share of private sector activity. But its importance, and changes in importance, vary across industrial sectors of the economy.Drawing on the theoretical and empirical insights developed in recent books by John Sutton, we suggest that the presence or absence of endogenous strategic behaviors of the larger firms with respect to advertising, promotion, research and development, and other sunk cost expenditures may well play an important role in explaining the differing levels of small business importance, both cross-sectionally and over time. We conclude the paper with suggestions for research directions that could shed further light on these ideas.     

African American Small Business Owners' Attitudes Toward Business Training

The attitudes toward training courses are documented for the rapidly growing African American segment of small business owners. The study provides evidence supporting the training-business creation model suggested by the Small Business Act and by Becker's work on human capital. Over 700 responses to a mail survey were divided into African American small business owners and Caucasian American small business owners. The African American small business owners rated the training courses as significantly more important than the Caucasian American small business owners for all 23 of the areas tested. A matched sample was created from the data set to evaluate the idea that demographics such as type of business and number of employees may have influenced the results. The findings from the matched sample were consistent with the findings from the total sample. Various reasons for these unusually strong results are offered as well as directions for future research.     

Small Business Borrowing and the Bifurcated Economy: Why Quantitative Easing Has Been Ineffective for Small Business

In the early years following the financial collapse, federal officials and others believed that banks were not making loans to creditworthy small firms, who have accounted for most of the job creation in the United States in recent decades. Acting on this belief, a number of programs were created to increase bank lending to small firms. Overall, however, the data collected since the 2007/8 financial crisis suggest that the explanation for slow loan growth in the small business sector is not a result of supply constraints but rather a result of anemic loan demand among small firms. Thus, recent programs intended to increase small business borrowing through easing credit supply were doomed to fail. The weak demand for credit among small firms is representative of the sluggish performance of the small business economy postrecession, a marked contrast to the robust performance of larger firms and a reflection of a bifurcated economy.