Bricks vs clicks: entrepreneurial online banking behaviour and relationship banking

Purpose – Little research has been conducted on the effects of information technology on financing entrepreneurial businesses or small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of entrepreneurial online banking and relationship banking on the severity of financial problems perceived by entrepreneurs and their interactive effect. It also investigates how characteristics of individual businesses and entrepreneurial demographics influence SMEs’ financial situation. Design/methodology/approach – An ordered logistic model is used on a UK dataset to empirically test the hypotheses derived in this paper. The empirical evidence is drawn from the 2004 UK survey of SME finances, which contains a sample of 2,500 firms. Findings – This paper finds that both entrepreneurial online banking behaviour and relationship banking alleviates the severity of financial problems perceived by entrepreneurs. The relationship affect is less evident for entrepreneurs who most frequently use an online approach to communicate with their banks than for those using traditional methods. Business and entrepreneur characteristics also have a strong impact on the severity of the financial problems suffered by SMEs. Originality/value – This paper provides evidence supporting the favourable impacts of the application of information technology on entrepreneurial finance from the perspective of entrepreneur/business. It also identifies a substitute relationship between entrepreneurial online banking behaviour and relationship banking, a relationship which contradicts existing evidence.

Higher education engagement in leadership development: using autobiographical narrative to understand potential impact

The paper explores the lived experience of leadership learning and development in a single case study of an entrepreneur participating in a major leadership development programme for owner-managers of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Based on autobiographical research, it provides a rich contextual account of the nature and underlying influences of leadership learning throughout the life-course, and as a consequence of participation in the programme. Whilst the paper should interest scholars, policy makers, and those concerned with programme development, it may also resonate with entrepreneurs and help them make sense of their experience of leadership development.

What matters in business incubation? A literature review and a suggestion for situated theorising

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a critical assessment of the literature on business incubation effectiveness and second, to submit a situated theoretical perspective on how business incubation management can provide an environment that supports the development of incubatee entrepreneurs and their businesses. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a narrative critical assessment of the literature on business incubation effectiveness. Definitional issues, performance aspects and approaches to establishing critical success factors in business incubation are discussed. Business incubation management is identified as an overarching factor for theorising on business incubation effectiveness. Findings – The literature on business incubation effectiveness suffers from several deficiencies, including definitional incongruence, descriptive accounts, fragmentation and lack of strong conceptual grounding. Notwithstanding the growth of research on this domain, understanding of how entrepreneurs and their businesses develop within the business incubator environment remains limited. Given the importance of relational, intangible factors in business incubation and the critical role of business incubation management in orchestrating and optimising such factors, it is suggested that theorising efforts would benefit from a situated perspective. Originality/value – The identification of specific shortcomings in the literature on business incubation highlights the need for more systematic efforts towards theory building. It is suggested that focusing on the role of business incubation management from a situated learning theory perspective can lend itself to a more profound understanding of the development process of incubatee entrepreneurs and their firms. Theoretical propositions are offered to this effect, as well as avenues for future research.

Interdiscursive collaboration in public relations contexts

Interdiscursive collaborative construction of professional genres (Bhatia, 2004 & 2010; Bremner, 2006; Smart, 2006) within the framework of “communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) can be viewed as a useful instrument for developing writing expertise to initiate novice writers into the conventions of corporate writing. Drawing on evidence from public relations (PR) writing contexts in Hong Kong, the paper focuses on the dynamics of participation in collaborative PR practice and on the deconstruction of the collaborative process as evidenced in the deconstruction of various drafts (from brainstorming to the final product) and through the perceptions of some of the key PR practitioners in the industry. The paper will have implications for our understanding of interdiscursivity in genre theory (Bhatia, 2010) and for the collaborative writing process within the academy as well as in the workplace.

Adapting Web content for low-literacy readers by using lexical elaboration and named entities labeling

This paper presents an approach for assisting low-literacy readers in accessing Web online information. The oEducational FACILITAo tool is a Web content adaptation tool that provides innovative features and follows more intuitive interaction models regarding accessibility concerns. Especially, we propose an interaction model and a Web application that explore the natural language processing tasks of lexical elaboration and named entity labeling for improving Web accessibility. We report on the results obtained from a pilot study on usability analysis carried out with low-literacy users. The preliminary results show that oEducational FACILITAo improves the comprehension of text elements, although the assistance mechanisms might also confuse users when word sense ambiguity is introduced, by gathering, for a complex word, a list of synonyms with multiple meanings. This fact evokes a future solution in which the correct sense for a complex word in a sentence is identified, solving this pervasive characteristic of natural languages. The pilot study also identified that experienced computer users find the tool to be more useful than novice computer users do.

Det personliga nätverkets funktion : Etablering och underhåll av presonliga nätverk inom ljuddesign för rörlig bild

The aim of this paper was to discover the functions and workings of personal networks and their advantages for self-employed sound designers and producers whose focus was upon the moving image (film, advertising, tv, etc). Investigations on how entrepreneurs develop their networks were made, as well as inquiries on how these networks are used for generating work. Another important aspect perused was whether or not the networks are dependent on specific geographical locations in order to function. A case study and comparative analysis was undertaken, based upon three qualitative interviews with entrepreneurs whose operations shared several similar characteristics. The results pointed out the importance of constantly making new contacts, and maintaining and managing current ones. There was no evidence that traditional marketing strategies or advertising were used by the interviewees. New commissions were often gained from former clients or acquaintances, or through referrals from them. There are definite advantages to having one's business in the geographical area where one's contacts exist. This also makes it easier to keep up these contacts for future prospects. However, it is very feasible to take on contracts, do the job, and to deliver work to clients in far away locations, due to the high speed internet connections available today.Målet med denna uppsats var att ta reda på hur personliga nätverk fungerar och verkar till fördel för egenföretagande ljuddesigers för rörlig bild (Film, Reklam och tv etc.). Hur entreprenörerna utvecklar nätverken utforskades, även hur de används för att generera arbete samt om nätverken bör vara lokaliserade på en speciell plats för att fungera. En fallstudie och komparativ analys utfördes, baserad på tre kvalitativa intervjuer med entreprenörer vars verksamheter liknade varandra på flera plan. Resultatet påvisade vikten av att hela tiden skapa nya kontakter och underhålla befintliga sådana. Inget tydde på att traditionell marknadsföring eller reklam används. Nya uppdrag uppkommer oftast genom tidigare kunder, kontakter eller rekommendationer från dessa. Det finns klara fördelar med att bedriva sin verksamhet i det område där kontakterna finns och det är även lättare att underhålla dem i dessa fall. Det är dock fullt möjligt att åta sig, utföra och leverera uppdrag för befintliga kontakter på långt håll tack vare dagens snabba internetuppkopplingar.

Ökad förståelse bland företagsledare för nyttan av utvecklingsinsatser inom arbetsmiljöområdet

Sammanfattning Föreliggande rapport avser en delstudie inom projektet Attraktiv Konkurrenskraft (AKK) Syftet med detta arbete är att utvärdera fem metoder som kan ”väcka insikt” om nyttan av att starta utvecklingsaktiviteter för att bättre ta tillvara de mänskliga resurserna i arbetet. Baserat på detta ska en metod väljas för fördjupade studier. Drivkrafterna för att skapa bra arbetsmiljöer är många. Den primära kan sägas vara den humanitära drivkraften. Förutom de överväganden som ligger till grund för arbetsmiljölagstiftning och avtal mellan arbetsmarknadens parter finns alltså goda skäl för företagare att prioritera arbetsmiljöarbete. Den fråga som berörs i detta arbete är i vad mån det är möjligt att genom enkla insatser påverka en arbetsmiljöansvarig chefs benägenhet att gå till beslut om att genomföra insatser för att utveckla förutsättningarna för att bättre nyttja de mänskliga resurserna i organisationen. Målet är att chefen bestämmer sig för att påbörja en beslutsprocess om utvecklingsaktiviteter för att ta tillvara de mänskliga resurserna i arbetet vilket ökar förutsättningarna att rekrytera, behålla och engagera kompetent personal. Som resultat av förstudien har fem olika insiktsmetoder utvecklats och anpassats. Dessa metoder har kallats GAP-analys, Fokusgrupper Attraktivt Arbete, Visit, Riskanalys och Scenario. De tio företagen som deltog hade mellan 11 och 39 anställda, och deras verksamheter var inom områdena tillverkning, reparation och underhåll. Resultat från användning av metoderna visar att alla metoderna uppfyller kriterierna att vara enkla att förstå och snabba att genomföra. Fokusgrupper, Visit och Riskanalys ger konkret vägledning för fortsatt utvecklingsarbete. Fokusgrupper ger ett brett underlag för en fortsättning som bygger på dialog, en djupare analys på individnivå samt har psykiska och sociala dimensioner. Därmed sågs Fokusgrupper som den mest intressanta metoden att gå vidare med. Denna studie indikerar att det finns möjlighet att påverka ledare att ta beslut om aktiviteter för att utveckla den mänskliga resursen. Det finns därmed anledning att ytterligare studera ett antal företag där en och samma metod används. Valet har fallit på Fokusgrupper, även om andra metoder skulle vara tänkbara. Abstract This report concerns a sub-study of the project attractive competitiveness (AKK). The aim of the work is to evaluate five methods that are supposed to” raise awereness” about the advantages of initiating activities to better utilize human resources at work. Based on that shall one method be elected for depend studies. The driving forces for creation of good work environments are many. The primary can be said to be the humanitarian driving force. Except for the considerations that are behind the work environment legislations and agreements between social partners is therefore good reasons for entrepreneurs to give priority to work environment work. The focus of this study is to which extent it is possible by a limited input influence the liability of a manager with responsibilities for the work environment to take decisions to start a process aimed at improving the use of the human resources in the company. The goal is that the manager decides to start such a process which also is supposed to recruit, retain and engage competent staff. In the sub-study have five insight methods been developed or adapted. Those methods have been named gap-analysis, focus groups attractive work, visit, risk analysis, and scenario. The ten participating companies employed between eleven and thirty-nine persons. The companies represented different branches as production, repair work and maintenance. The results from the test of the methods shows that they all meet the criteria’s to be simple to understand and quick to carry through. Focus groups attractive work, visit, and risk analysis gives substantial guidance for further development work. Focus groups attractive work gives a broad base for a continuation built on a dialogue, a deeper analyses of individual level as well as mental and social dimensions. Of that reason chosen for deepened studies. This study indicates that there are possibilities to influence managers to decide about activities aimed at better use of human resources. There are therefore reasons to make further studies in a number of companies where the elected method is used.

The role of entrepreneurial networking on internationalization of a micro-sized Born Global Swedish fashion company : A narrative ethnographic research

Background: In recent studies a lot of attention is drawn to the connection between networking and entrepreneurship. Many scholars consider successful business and networking inseparable. Taking into consideration the topicality of the two notions discussed above the authors of this thesis decided to conduct the research dedicated to these phenomena in the field that interests them most – in the field of Swedish fashion. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to gain a deeper insight into entrepreneur’s experiences to point out the role of entrepreneurial networking in the process of internationalization of a micro-sized Swedish fashion company and to contribute to the research in this field by telling its unique story. Method: To achieve the purpose of the research a narrative ethnographic research was conducted. This research strategy was chosen because it suits the purpose best by giving an opportunity to get fresh insights into the field of entrepreneurial networking from the point of view of the entrepreneur. The data collected has a narrative nature therefore narrative analysis is used to present it. The methods of gathering the data are face-to-face interview and documents. Conclusion: we can define the most important role of entrepreneurial networking on the internationalization process of Odeur as an effective accelerator and a tool to fulfil the knowledge and expertise gaps in certain areas through other actors in the network.

Att leva och sälja sin dröm : Livsstilsföretagaren mellan familjeliv, marknadoch politisk retorik

Living and selling a dream: Lifestyle entrepreneurship in the intersection between family, market and political rhetoric The article focuses on lifestyle entrepreneurship, characterised by a balancing work between personal lifestyle motives and economic motives. It builds on a qualitative study of business owners who have realized a life dream of starting a countryside business in the tourism and hospitality industry in Sweden. Through the notion of ”balancing work”, the analysis focuses on the tension between a personal life sphere and a market. In particular, the analysis highlights how the notion of ”the life dream” emerges as a narrative practice of self-realization, simultaneously as it is offered as an experience product. The analysis demonstrates how the entrepreneurs balance between personal stories of togetherness and marketing practices, between images of right and wrong commodification, and between constraining working conditions and a popular image of the successful entrepreneur, reinforced by a political discourse on rural entrepreneurship. It is concluded that balancing work between personal identities and economic practices is a practice of valuation, offering new insights into working conditions and markets situated in the intersection between markets and personal life spheres.

Den grafiska identitetens betydelse i småföretagarens värld : En undersökning för ökad förståelse om den grafiska identitetens betydelse för småföretagare

För att skapa ett bra varumärke krävs en tydlig grafisk identitet. Syftet med föreliggande rapport var att undersöka med semi-strukturerade djupintervjuer hur småföretagare (1-10 personer) ser på och arbetar med sin grafiska identitet. Studien avsåg även med en enkätundersökning förstå konsumenters attityder mot företag som har eller saknar en tydlig grafisk identitet. Resultatet av intervjuerna visade att företagarna anser att deras grafiska identitet inte är den viktigaste resursen. Det viktigaste är företagets rykte och kunders omdömen. Företagarna nöjer sig med en signatur och en hemsida, utvecklandet av den grafiska identiteten har inte hög prioritet. Av enkätundersökningen framgick det att företag som har en konsekvent grafisk identitet har större sannolikhet att bli anlitade än de som inte arbetar konsekvent med detta. Resultatet visar även att de som arbetar konsekvent med sin grafiska identitet uppfattas som mer seriösa än de som inte är konsekventa i detsamma.

Samurai in the surf : the arrival of the Japanese on the Gold Coast in the 1980s

Samurai in the Surf explores the history of Japanese investment in the 1980s, following a money-trail that leads back to a ballooning Japanese economy and a colorful array of investment sources. The book also explores the local community's views of this unprecedented stream of foreign investment and provides a convincing illustration of the links between 1980s Queensland and Pauline Hanson's One Nation movement of the 1990s.

Entrepreneurial opportunities on the internet

This chapter highlights and discusses entrepreneurial opportunities on the Internet. It provides a brief introduction to entrepreneurship, examines the characteristics of entrepreneurs, and talks about cyber entrepreneurs. It includes a case study which demonstrates the opportunities and challenges of cyber entrepreneurship. The case study illustrates the ease of setting up a business on the Internet by the younger generation with little capital and resource requirement. It highlights the fact that an intensive marketing campaign, perseverance, and some technical knowledge are important traits of cyber entrepreneurs. The other issues apparent from the case study are an opportunistic mindset, innovation, and the ability to create value where there was none before.

The making of modern scientific personae: the scientist as a moral person? Emil Du Bois-Reymond and his friends

This article examines the notion of the 'scientist as a moral person' in the light of the early stages of the commodification of science and the transformation of research into a big enterprise, operating on the principle of the division of labour. These processes were set in train at the end of the 19th century. The article focuses on the concomitant changes in the public persona and the habitus of scientific entrepreneurs. I begin by showing the significance of the professional networks that were built up and maintained to further a group's research ideas and the careers of its members, thus demonstrating one condition on which depended their practice of science and their ability to earn a living. This leads to a characterization of the changing styles of work, thought and life, and to a consideration of public perceptions and of the ways in which a new self-image of scholarship and science was fashioned. A critical discussion of the public role of these mandarin scientists follows in order to highlight the strains created by the commodification of science at a time of international tensions and conflicts, when shared beliefs in scholarly cosmopolitanism were subverted by appeals to science and scholarship to work in the service of one's own nation as its 'courtiers'. Various considerations of peculiar analogies between national styles of research and the style of social organization are then noted. In the final section, the article queries the long-term impact of these developments on the ideal of the scientist as a 'moral person'. Taking a cue from Max Weber and pursuing reflections by Zygmunt Bauman on 'science moralized', I argue that the emergence of a type of 'specialists without spirit' was an unintended but fatal consequence of the changes in research practices promoted by scientific entrepreneurs such as Du Bois-Reymond. I conclude that the temptation to sever the ties to a general ethos of civil virtues lay in the rationalization, specialization and potential de-humanization of the objectifying scientific outlook once advocated for its efficiency.

Role of knowledge and ability in student nurses` clinical decision-making

Little is known about the acquisition of decision-making skills in nursing students as a function of experience and academic ability. Knowing how experience and academic skills interact may help inform clinical education programs and formulate ways of assessing students' progress. The aims of the present study were to develop a problem-solving task capable of measuring clinical decision-making skills in novice nurses at different levels of domain-specific knowledge; and to establish the relative impact on decision-making of domain-specific knowledge and general ability as determinants of the acquisition of decision-making skills. Three types of clinical problems of increasing complexity were developed. Sixty second-year and third-year student nurses with high and low academic scores were studied in terms of their ability to generate hypotheses for a hypothetical case, recognize disconfirming information and the need to access additional information, and diagnostic accuracy. The results showed that general academic ability and knowledge function partly independently in the acquisition of expertise in nursing. Academic ability affects decision-making in low complexity tasks, but as case complexity increases, domain-specific knowledge and experience determines decision-making skills. There are important differences in the way novices with different levels of knowledge and ability make clinical decisions and these can be studied by systematically increasing the complexity of the decision task. These results have implications for the way in which clinical education is structured and evaluated.

Driven to abstraction: doctoral supervision and writing pedagogies

The writing of academic abstracts is more than a tiresome necessity of scholarly life. It is a practice that goes beyond genre and technique to questions of writing and identity. In this article we deconstruct a series of abstracts from a variety of refereed journals to 'read' for the representation of data, argument, methodology and significance. We describe one strategy for writing abstracts, developed as part of a long-term project on postgraduate writing pedagogies. We propose that the art of writing abstracts is neglected in the academy, is given scant attention by journal editors, and has produced a motley and often bland array of conventions and genres. We suggest that abstract art should be an important aspect of supervision if graduate students and novice researchers are to stake a claim in the academy.