Microenterprise success and failure factors

The purpose of this study is to identify factors contributory to success or failure of a microenterprise. Microenterprise is an enterprise with less than10 employees. About 99 % of all Finnish enterprises fall in this category. Earlier studies do not provide a comprehensive view on microenterprise success and failure factors. The theoretical part discusses the definition of success and failure, previous research and results already established about the topic and categories of business environment. The empirical part is founded on quantitative survey results from 204 Finnish microenterprises. The questions of the survey were based on previous surveys, literature and intuition. Both success and failure factors were enquired. Summary of the results was made and the results were compared among successful and unsuccessful enterprises. In open-end questions, the most important factors mentioned to affect enterprise performance positively were "Employees", "Customers" and "Skills, knowledge, education and experience." The most important factors affecting enterprise performance negatively were "Economical situation", "Employees availability and attitudes" as well as "Political decisions and passed laws". In Likert-scale set of questions, the most significant factors from the point of view of enterprise performance were "Product and / or service good quality", "Good reputation of the company" and "Staff's strong skills". The least significant factors were "Effect of marketing and promotion", "Conflicts" and "Differences of points of views of different generations". By Likert-scale set of questions, it was also tested which operations the enterprises perform, and according to the results, successful enterprises found "Performing a market research", "Use of distribution channel in sales" and "Expanding to new markets" less important than unsuccessful enterprises. The tests proved that the age of the enterprise correlates with the level of success of the enterprise: The younger the enterprise, the more successful it is. In addition, the results show that if the enterprise is family based, the less successful it is. In addition, there was also slight correlation between success and the level of growth, indicating that higher the level of growth the more successful the enterprise is. From the business environment point of view, the key finding was that internal factors affect more on the success of an enterprise than external factors, and that external factors affect more on the failure of an enterprise than internal factors.

Conditions and practices in the commercialisation of innovations in wood industry

The report 'Conditions and practices in the commercialisation of innovation in wood industry' has been written as a part of the Wood Academy project. The report analyses the commercialisation conditions and practices of wood industry by utilising product categorisation based on a conceptual schema which combines the aspects of the transfer of the procession of utility and the degree of form/service utility (or value-added) created or provided by the company. Open innovation approaches help to perceive the possible new product and service innovations as well as the new business models and earning logics in the industry. The report also contains brief company cases to demonstrate theory-to-practice and showcase company examples from successful Finnish companies.

Value based pricing and marketing of marine engines

Objective of the thesis is to create a value based pricing model for marine engines and study the feasibility of implementing such model in the sales organization of a specific segment in the case company’s marine division. Different pricing strategies, concept of “value”, and how perceptions of value can be influenced through value based marketing are presented as theoretical background for the value based pricing model. Forbis and Mehta’s Economic Value to Customer (EVC) was selected as framework to create the value based pricing model for marine engines. The EVC model is based on calculating and comparing life-cycle costs of the reference product and competing products, thus showing the quantifiable value of the company’s own product compared to competition. In the applied part of the thesis, the components of the EVC model are identified for a marine diesel engine, the components are explained, and an example calculation created in Excel is presented. When examining the possibilities to implement in practice a value based pricing strategy based on the EVC model, it was found that the lack of precise information on competing products is the single biggest obstacle to use EVC exactly as presented in the literature. It was also found that sometimes necessary communication channels are missing and that there is simply a lack of interest from some clients and product end-users part to spend time on studying the life-cycle costs of the product. Information on the company’s own products is however sufficient and the sales force is capable to communicate to sufficiently high executive levels in the client organizations. Therefore it is suggested to focus on quantifying and communicating the company’s own value proposition. The dynamic nature of the business environment (variance in applications in which engines are installed, different clients, competition, end-clients etc.) means also that each project should be created its own EVC calculation. This is demanding in terms of resources needed, thus it is suggested to concentrate on selected projects and buyers, and to clients where the necessary communication channels to right levels in the customer organization are available. Finally, it should be highlighted that as literature suggests, implementing a value based pricing strategy is not possible unless the whole business approach is value based.

Phenomena and mechanisms in purification of animal fat

Työn tarkoitus oli tutkia eläinrasvan puhdistusta biodieselin valmistusta varten. Eläinrasvaa syntyy elintarviketeollisuuden sivutuotteena ja sitä saadaan myös myymättä jääneistä elintarvikkeista. Rasva sisältää epäpuhtauksia, jotka on poistettava ennen biodieselprosessia. Tässä työssä tutkittavat epäpuhtaudet ovat typpi, fosfori, rauta, natrium, kalsium ja magnesium. Puhdistusmenetelminä käytettiin saostamista sitruunahapolla sekä adsorbointia kahdella eri adsorbentilla. Tavoitteena oli selvittää riittävä määrä happoa ja adsorbenttia sekä tutkia puhdistuksen mekanismia. Lisäksi tarkasteltiin lämpötilan vaikutusta adsorption aikana.

Transformation of carbon dioxide to diethyl carbonate over ceria and ceria-supported catalysts

Carbon dioxide is regarded, nowadays, as a primary anthropogenic greenhouse gas leading to global warming. Hence, chemical fixation of CO2 has attracted much attention as a possible way to manufacture useful chemicals. One of the most interesting approaches of CO2 transformations is the synthesis of organic carbonates. Since conventional production technologies of these compounds involve poisonous phosgene and carbon monoxide, there is a need to develop novel synthetic methods that would better match the principles of "Green Chemistry" towards protection of the environment and human health. Over the years, synthesis of dimethyl carbonate was under intensive investigation in the academia and industry. Therefore, this study was entirely directed towards equally important homologue of carbonic esters family namely diethyl carbonate (DEC). Novel synthesis method of DEC starting from ethanol and CO2 over heterogeneous catalysts based on ceria (CeO2) was studied in the batch reactor. However, the plausible drawback of the reaction is thermodynamic limitations. The calculated values revealed that the reaction is exothermic (ΔrHØ298K = ─ 16.6 J/ ) and does not occur spontaneously at rooms temperature (ΔrGØ 298K = 35.85 kJ/mol). Moreover, co-produced water easily shifts the reaction equilibrium towards reactants excluding achievement of high yields of the carbonate. Therefore, in-situ dehydration has been applied using butylene oxide as a chemical water trap. A 9-fold enhancement in the amount of DEC was observed upon introduction of butylene oxide to the reaction media in comparison to the synthetic method without any water removal. This result confirms that reaction equilibrium was shifted in favour of the desired product and thermodynamic boundaries of the reaction were suppressed by using butylene oxide as a water scavenger. In order to obtain insight into the reaction network, the kinetic experiments were performed over commercial cerium oxide. On the basis of the selectivity/conversion profile it could be concluded that the one-pot synthesis of diethyl carbonate from ethanol, CO2 and butylene oxide occurs via a consecutive route involving cyclic carbonate as an intermediate. Since commercial cerium oxide suffers from the deactivation problems already after first reaction cycle, in-house CeO2 was prepared applying room temperature precipitation technique. Variation of the synthesis parameters such as synthesis time, calcination temperature and pH of the reaction solution turned to have considerable influence on the physico-chemical and catalytic properties of CeO2. The increase of the synthesis time resulted in high specific surface area of cerium oxide and catalyst prepared within 50 h exhibited the highest amount of basic sites on its surface. Furthermore, synthesis under pH 11 yielded cerium oxide with the highest specific surface area, 139 m2/g, among all prepared catalysts. Moreover, CeO2─pH11 catalyst demonstrated the best catalytic activity and 2 mmol of DEC was produced at 180 oC and 9 MPa of the final reaction pressure. In addition, ceria-supported onto high specific surface area silicas MCM-41, SBA-15 and silica gel were synthesized and tested for the first time as catalysts in the synthesis of DEC. Deposition of cerium oxide on MCM-41 and SiO2 supports resulted in a substantial increase of the alkalinity of the carrier materials. Hexagonal SBA-15 modified with 20 wt % of ceria exhibited the second highest basicity in the series of supported catalysts. Evaluation of the catalytic activity of ceria-supported catalysts showed that reaction carried out over 20 wt % CeO2-SBA-15 generated the highest amount of DEC.

Yam (Discorea sp) drying with different cuts and temperatures: experimental and simulated results

The yam (Discorea sp) is a tuber rich in carbohydrates, vitamins and mineral salts, besides several components that serve as raw material for medicines. It grows well in tropical and subtropical climates and develops well in zones with an annual pluvial precipitation of around 1300mm, and with cultural treatments, its productivity can exceed 30t/ha. When harvested, the tubers possess about 70% of moisture, and are merchandised "in natura", in the atmospheric temperature, which can cause its fast deterioration. The present work studied the drying of the yam in the form of slices of 1.0 and 2.5cm thickness, as well as in the form of fillets with 1.0 x 1.0 x 5.0cm, with the drying air varying from 40 to 70°C. The equating of the process was accomplished, allowing to simulate the drying as a function of the conditions of the drying air and of the initial and final moisture of the product. Also investigated was the expense of energy as function of the air temperature. The drying in the form of fillets, with the air in a temperature range between 45 and 50°C, was shown to be the most viable process when combining both the quality of the product and the expense of energy.

Lipid and protein oxidation in the internal part of italian type salami containing basil essential oil (Ocimum basilicum L.)

Different concentrations of basil essential oil (Ocimum basilicum L.) (0.19; 0.38; 0.75; 1.87; 3.75 and 6.00 mg.g-1) were evaluated in relation to their antioxidant activity using the DPPH● radical methodology. From the IC50 obtained data, the concentrations of 0.19; 0.38; 0.75; 1.87; 3.75; 6.00 and 12.00 mg.mL-1 were applied directly to the product and these were sensorially evaluated by the test of control difference. The concentrations related to the highest acceptability (0.19; 0.38 and 0.75 mg.g-1) were tested for antioxidant activity in the internal part of Italian type salami - during the processing and after 30 days of storage, in terms of lipid and protein oxidation. The oxidation of lipids was determined using the method of TBARS. The method of carbonyl compounds was employed for proteins oxidation. Five different formulations of salami were elaborated: blank (without the use of antioxidant); control (using sodium eritorbate as antioxidant); and adding 0.19; 0.38 and 0.75 mg.g-1 of basil essential oil. The product was kept between 25 ºC and 18 ºC and UR between 95% and 70%, for 28 days. Analyses were carried out on the processing day and after 2, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days, and also following 30 days of storage. The basil essential oil in vitro presented an antioxidant activity of IC50 12 mg.mL-1. In the internal part of the Italian type salami the commercial antioxidant (control) and the formulation containing 0.75 mg.g-1 of basil essential oil presented antioxidant activity in relation to the lipids, but not to the proteins - during processing and storage.

Effect of incorporation of amaranth on the physical properties and nutritional value of cheese bread

At the present celiac disease has no known cure, and its only treatment is a strict lifelong adherence to a gluten-free diet. Cheese bread is a traditional Brazilian product and a safe option for celiacs. However, like other gluten-free breads, it has inherent low levels of fibers and minerals. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of incorporation of whole amaranth flour on the physical properties and nutritional value of cheese bread. Amaranth flour was incorporated at 10, 15, and 20% proportions in different formulations. The increasing amaranth levels darkened the product, reduced specific volume, and increased compression force. Ten percent amaranth-content cheese breads exhibited slight differences in physical properties compared with the controls. These results demonstrated the possibility of incorporating 10% of whole amaranth flour in the formulation of cheese bread resulting in a product with higher dietary fiber and iron contents and the same level of acceptance as that of the conventional formulation. The aim of this approach is to increase the availability of gluten-free bakery products with added nutritional value contributing to increase the variety of the diet of celiac patients.

Molecular characterization and evaluation of antimicrobial susceptibility of enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) isolated from minas soft cheese

Foodborne disease caused by microorganisms is a problem of public health. Minas soft cheese is a national product manufactured using simple technology; it has high level of acceptance in the country making its production an important economic activity. Many microorganisms may be present in foods including the bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli). Overall, E. coli is a harmless commensal bacterium; however, some strains may have a pathogenic potential. Several outbreaks of foodborne diseases associated with consumption of contaminated cheese have been reported, and the presence of pathogenic strains of E. coli has increased. The objective of this study was to isolate, evaluate the antimicrobial susceptibility, and characterize, by Multiplex PCR, the pathogenic E. coli strains isolated from Minas cheese commercialized in Rio de Janeiro. Thirty samples were analyzed and five strains of E. coli (EPEC) were identified. The assessment of antimicrobial susceptibility revealed 40% of the isolates resistant to ampicillin and 40% with intermediate resistance to ampicillin-sulbactam combination. These findings are a warning signal to health authorities since Minas cheese is a ready to eat food product, and therefore should not pose health risks to the population.

Salted lamb meat blanket of Petrolina-Pernambuco, Brazil: process and quality

Salted lamb meat blanket, originated from boning, salting, and drying of whole lamb carcass, was studied aiming at obtaining information that support the search for guarantees of origin for this typical regional product from the city of Petrolina-Pernambuco-Brazil. Data from three processing units were obtained, where it was observed the use of a traditional local technology that uses salting, an ancient preservation method; however, with a peculiar boning technique, resulting in a meat product with great potential for exploitation in the form of meat blanket. Based on the values of pH (6.22 ± 0.22), water activity (0.97 ± 0.02), and moisture (69.86 ± 2.26) lamb meat blanket is considered a perishable product, and consequently it requires the use of other preservation methods combined with salt, which along with the results of the microbiological analyses (absence of Salmonella sp, score <10 MPN/g of halophilic bacteria, total coliforms between 6.7 × 10³ and 5.2 × 10(6) FUC/g, and Staphylococcus from 8.1 × 10³ CFU/g at uncountable) reinforce the need of hygienic practices to ensure product safety. These results, together with the product notoriety and the organization of the sector are important factors in achieving Geographical Indication of the Salted lamb Meat blanket of Petrolina.

Collectiveness within startup teams – Leading the way to initiating and managing collective pursuit of opportunities in organizational contexts

While traditional entrepreneurship literature addresses the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities to a solo entrepreneur, scholars increasingly agree that new ventures are often founded and operated by entrepreneurial teams as collective efforts especially in hightechnology industries. Researchers also suggest that team ventures are more likely to survive and succeed than ventures founded by the individual entrepreneur although specific challenges might relate to multiple individuals being involved in joint entrepreneurial action. In addition to new ventures, entrepreneurial teams are seen central for organizing work in established organizations since the teams are able to create major product and service innovations that drive organizational success. Acknowledgement of the entrepreneurial teams in various organizational contexts has challenged the notion on the individual entrepreneur. However, considering that entrepreneurial teams represent a collective-level phenomenon that bases on interactions between organizational members, entrepreneurial teams may not have been studied as indepth as could be expected from the point of view of the team-level, rather than the individual or the individuals in the team. Many entrepreneurial team studies adopt the individualized view of entrepreneurship and examine the team members’ aggregate characteristics or the role of a lead entrepreneur. The previous understandings might not offer a comprehensive and indepth enough understanding of collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams and team venture performance that often relates to the team-level issues in particular. In addition, as the collective-level of entrepreneurial teams has been approached in various ways in the existing literatures, the phenomenon has been difficult to understand in research and practice. Hence, there is a need to understand entrepreneurial teams at the collective-level through a systematic and comprehensive perspective. This study takes part in the discussions on entrepreneurial teams. The overall objective of this study is to offer a description and understanding of collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams beyond individual(s). The research questions of the study are: 1) what collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams stands for, what constitutes the basic elements of it, and who are included in it, 2) why, how, and when collectiveness emerges or reinforces within entrepreneurial teams, and 3) why collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams matters and how it could be developed or supported. In order to answer the above questions, this study bases on three approaches, two set of empirical data, two analysis techniques, and conceptual study. The first data set consists of 12 qualitative semi-structured interviews with business school students who are seen as prospective entrepreneurs. The data is approached through a social constructionist perspective and analyzed through discourse analysis. The second data set bases on a qualitative multiplecase study approach that aims at theory elaboration. The main data consists of 14 individual and four group semi-structured thematic interviews with members of core entrepreneurial teams of four team startups in high-technology industries. The secondary data includes publicly available documents. This data set is approached through a critical realist perspective and analyzed through systematic thematic analysis. The study is completed through a conceptual study that aims at building a theoretical model of collective-level entrepreneurship drawing from existing literatures on organizational theory and social-psychology. The theoretical work applies a positivist perspective. This study consists of two parts. The first part includes an overview that introduces the research background, knowledge gaps and objectives, research strategy, and key concepts. It also outlines the existing knowledge of entrepreneurial team literature, presents and justifies the choices of paradigms and methods, summarizes the publications, and synthesizes the findings through answering the above mentioned research questions. The second part consists of five publications that address independent research questions but all enable to answer the research questions set for this study as a whole. The findings of this study suggest a map of relevant concepts and their relationships that help grasp collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams. The analyses conducted in the publications suggest that collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams stands for cognitive and affective structures in-between team members including elements of collective entity, collective idea of business, collective effort, collective attitudes and motivations, and collective feelings. Collectiveness within entrepreneurial teams also stands for specific joint entrepreneurial action components in which the structures are constructed. The action components reflect equality and democracy, and open and direct communication in particular. Collectiveness emerges because it is a powerful tool for overcoming individualized barriers to entrepreneurship and due to collectively oriented desire for, collective value orientation to, demand for, and encouragement to team entrepreneurship. Collectiveness emerges and reinforces in processes of joint creation and realization of entrepreneurial opportunities including joint analysis and planning of the opportunities and strategies, decision-making and realization of the opportunities, and evaluation, feedback, and sanctions of entrepreneurial action. Collectiveness matters because it is relevant for potential future entrepreneurs and because it affects the ways collective ventures are initiated and managed. Collectiveness also matters because it is a versatile, dynamic, and malleable phenomenon and the ideas of it can be applied across organizational contexts that require team work in discovering or creating and realizing new opportunities. This study further discusses how the findings add to the existing knowledge of entrepreneurial team literature and how the ideas can be applied in educational, managerial, and policy contexts.

Benefits and challenges of Enterprise Resource Planning for Pakistani SMEs

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software is used to combine all the functions happening inside the organization with the help of one software. All the data is centralized which makes it easy to manage information for all participants. The literature on ERP is studied thoroughly the whole process of adoption till the implementation and final evaluations. But studies that focus on small and medium sized enterprises are limited in number when compared to the large scale enterprises. In case of Pakistan, research is very limited. In this thesis, the author tries to analyze the current status of SMEs usage of ERP system. The benefits obtained and challenges faced by SMEs of Pakistan are studied. Framework presented by Shang and Seddon (2000) is used to understand the benefits obtained by the SMEs in Pakistan. This is a comprehensive framework that classifies the benefits obtained by the ERP adoption, into five categories: operational benefits, managerial benefits, Strategic benefits, IT benefits, and Organizational benefits. The results show that SMEs of Pakistan are also getting many benefits after adoption of ERP. Most of the firms had implemented SAP software. Operational benefits were mentioned by all the firms. The most important benefits were report generation, quick access to critical information, better product and cost planning. Respondents also mentioned that they had reduced corruption as a result of ERP implementation. It is also an important benefit considering high corruption rate in Pakistan. Along with benefits, challenges faced by Pakistani SMEs included infrastructure problems like electricity, difficulties with integration of one module with other module, costs of adoption and lack of skilled ERP consultants. Further studies in this regard can be conducted on cloud based ERP which is fast growing all around the world.

The Role of HR Management in the Corporate Matrix System

The successful performance of company in the market relates to the quality management of human capital aiming to improve the company's internal performance and external implementation of the core business strategy. Companies with matrix structure focusing on realization and development of innovation and technologies for the uncertain market need to select thoroughly the approach to HR management system. Human resource management has a significant impact on the organization and use a variety of instruments such as corporate information systems to fulfill their functions and objectives. There are three approaches to strategic control management depending on major impact on the major interference in employee decision-making, development of skills and his integration into the business strategy. The mainstream research has focus only on the framework of strategic planning of HR and general productivity of firm, but not on features of organizational structure and corporate software capabilities for human capital. This study tackles the before mentioned challenges, typical for matrix organization, by using the HR control management tools and corporate information system. The detailed analysis of industry producing and selling electromotor and heating equipment in this master thesis provides the opportunity to improve system for HR control and displays its application in the ERP software. The results emphasize the sustainable role of matrix HR input control for creating of independent project teams for matrix structure who are able to respond to various uncertainties of the market and use their skills for improving performance. Corporate information systems can be integrated into input control system by means of output monitoring to regulate and evaluate the processes of teams, using key performance indicators and reporting systems.

Synthesis of chiral homoallylic alcohols and phthalans through the asymmetric allylation of carbonyl compounds /

The implementation of chiral centres within biologically active compounds has been a perplexing yet motivational force in chemistry. This work presents the attempted formation of a concurrent or sequential tandem catalyzed methodology of enantioselective nucleophilic addition and electrophilic cyclization. The 2'- arylalkynyl- aldehyde, ketone, and imine substrates used within were adeptly chosen with a dually activated structure; 1) for nucleophilic addition to the electrophilic substituents; and 2) for carbophilic activation of the alkyne substituent to undergo cyclization. To accomplish the nucleophilic addition, two distinct allylation methodologies were pursued: (/?)-BINOL catalyzed-allylboration and (5)- BINAP-AgF catalyzed-allylsilylation. BINAP catalyzed enantioselective allylation of 2'-arylalkynyl-aldehydes, to form chiral homoallylic alcohols, was successful. Homoallylic alcohols were isolated with high enantio-purity (>80%), which then underwent sequential cyclization to form chiral allylic phthalans, in moderate yields. An application of this methodology towards the construction of biologically active compounds was included with the partial synthesis of the natural product and H. pylori inhibitor, (+)-Spirolaxine methyl ether.

Ethics in government and business

Canadians appear to hold the activities of those in government and in big business in low esteem. Media reports of several high-profile political and corporate instances of unethical conduct have reinforced the public's concern for the status of ethical conduct and honesty in government and in big business. The response by public and private sector managers to unethical conduct by employees is largely in the form of 'ethical rules' which both sectors agree provide a measure of certainty as to the ethical conduct expected from employees. Since research on ethics in the public and private sectors is limited and since ethics is a topic of increasing concern to both sectors, this thesis provides data that could assist managers in dealing with the issue of ethical conduct within their respective organizations. The purpose of this thesis is to compare the state of ethical conduct within public and private sector organizations in Canada. This is accomplished through a description and analysis of the approaches taken by the public and private sectors as well as the four professions of law, engineering, accountancy and medicine. Ethical conduct within the public sector focuses on the ethical behaviour of public servants rather than elected officials. The underlying intent of this thesis is to discover if contemporary ethical problems are similar in the public and iv private sectors with respect to the four ethical areas of conflict of interest, political activity, problem public comment and confidentiality. The comparative data on both public and private sector ethics are assessed and similarities and differences are identified. One major finding emerges from this study. Codes of ethics in both the public and private sectors are perceived by management to play an important role in the prevention of unethical conduct. A procedure for developing a code of ethics is presented along with recommendations as to the administration of a code of ethics. Finally, recommendations are made as to the role of education in ethics.