Influence of social network structure on entrepreneurship participation — a study of 20 national

By investigating differences in social networks among entrepreneurs in 20 cultures, this paper contributes to the debate on whether there is universality in the process of entrepreneurial networking. Representative samples of entrepreneurs were identified in the same manner in 20 countries from 2000 to 2004 (N=€‰304,560). The sampling methodologies and the questions asked were similar across all countries. Logistic regression was used to test for significant regional interaction effects involving personally knowing an entrepreneur. Results are contrary to the existence of any mono-dimensional form of networking practice but do strongly support the existence of both variform universality (culture moderates the importance of networking) and functional universality (cultural similarities in networking practice exist).

Entrepreneurship in Mexico : lessons for stakeholders in New Zealand

A “neighbour” separated by 6,000 km of Pacific, Mexico is by far New Zealand’s largest trading partner in Latin America and its 15th largest overall. With two-way trade worth NZ$584 million in 2002, many Mexicans grow up on New Zealand milk powder and baby formula. Not only is Mexico’s population of 100 million a huge potential economic partner in its own right, through its network of free trade agreements, Mexico has preferential access to 860 million consumers in 32 countries covering sixty percent of the world’s GDP.

Like New Zealand, Mexico is a “New World” country open to new ideas and innovation. Also like New Zealand, Mexico is known internationally for economic reforms that have created two outward-looking, world-trading, and competitive economies. During the last 50 years, the Mexican economy has shifted away from the once dominant sectors of agriculture and mining toward more industrial activities, especially in the major urban centres of Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, and other regional centres, where entrepreneurs are concentrated. With this shift, a new class of entrepreneurs arose with the support of the government.

One of those regional centres is the State of Sinaloa, with its capital city, Culiacán. Spearheaded by a visionary government and personified by the Secretary of Economic Development, Heriberto Felix Guerra. Secretary Felix is himself restaurant entrepreneur who owns a growing chain of “concept food” restaurants in the region.

It is no accident that when New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark visited Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada on 15 November 2001, one of the topics of conversation was the fact that very day their two countries had been benchmarked as two of the world’s most entrepreneurial countries in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2001 survey.

More germane, both countries have low-aspiration entrepreneurs who generate low levels of wealth and have low potential for growth. Both are dominated by micro-businesses that do not have high-value-added components and are not investment-ready and pre-qualified for risk capita.

This leads to the question, what can New Zealanders learn from the experience of Mexican entrepreneurship?

Educating generationE in Australasia : US lessons, New Zealand experience

Australasian countries have huge numbers of young entrepreneurs. Yet the state of entrepreneurship education in this region has yet to come to grips with their needs. Elsewhere in the world, the growth and development in the curricula and programs devoted to raising the level of enterprise and new venture creation has been remarkable. The researcher undertook field study in North America and Europe to examine inter-disciplinary initiatives that take the study of entrepreneurship and personal enterprise out of the Business School, integrate it across the campus and make it available to the widest range of students. The paper first describes GenerationE in Australasian countries and in New Zealand. It then classifies and categorises best-practice models of enterprise education, focussing especially on non-business entrepreneurship and university-wide enterprise requirements. The paper summarises these data and formulates “models of enterprise education” outside the business school environment. It offers generalisations that may prove helpful to educationalists and government policy planners about how to accelerate the development of personal enterprise within individuals and thereby to increase the supply of young people who launch their own businesses and social enterprises. The goal of this paper is to help universities in our region and elsewhere move toward infusing entrepreneurship throughout the curriculum.

Blended learning in entrepreneurship education in the Asia-Pacific : a grounded theory approach to entrepreneurship pedagogy

Using a grounded theory approach, this pedagogical study explores “What are the key content areas and pedagogical interventions around which to build a blended learning method for Generation Y (also known as the Net Generation) entrepreneurship students (as opposed to other business students)?” The study uses a variety of “information-rich cases” and presents the argument that entrepreneurs learn
differently from other students. The author develops the Etappe Method of Training Entrepreneurs, a blended learning approach for the technology-savvy generation under the motto “Teaching is best done online and learning is best done in the classroom”. Drawing upon the theory of experiential learning as concretised by learning styles inventories, this learning method provides entrepreneurs, in their unique teachable moments, with active and concrete pedagogical interventions that can be enhanced through a blended learning environment of online and face-to-face modalities leading them step-by-step through deepening learning in the theory, process and practice of entrepreneurship. In conclusion, the author presents suggestions for further research that can verify this emerging theory in an empirical fashion.

The importance of informal investing to New Zealand's new and growing firms

As part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project, we asked 2,000 adult New Zealanders if they have made a personal investment in a new firm in the past three years as well as the magnitude of their supPort, the nature of the businesses they sponsored, and their relationship with
the recipient. We compared these data on informal investment to data on venture capital obtained from national sources. We are thus able to compare New Zealand's performance to cross-national measures. We also surveyed 20 key informants/experts on questions on financing.
In New Zealand, venture capital accounts for only 0.80/o of total investment in new and growing start-ups. Yet New Zealand is world-ranked in terms of informal investment. In New Zealand, informal investment activity is 3.5olo of the national GDP amount. New Zealand is also a world leader in the prevalence of informal investors (percentage in the adult population). Seventy-three percent of informal investors put their money into a relative's or a friend's business. Fifty-eight Percent of New Zealand's informal investors are female, quite the reverse of the world pattern.

When we compare Australia and New Zealandlo the rest of the GEM world, Australia ranks favourably with the GEM globat measures in terms of venture capital as a percentage of GDp, while New Zealand does poorly. Australia also does about 40olo better than New Zealand in terms
of the amount of VC invested in individual companies. But New Zealand is clearly higher in the measures of informal investment.

We conclude with implications for entrepreneurs, policy makers, educators, researchers, and journalists. In a nutshell, they should pay more attention to the critical role of the four F's - family friends, founders, and "foolish" investors - in start-up ventures. Informal investment is a critical component of New Zealand's entrepreneurial process and thus to its economic growth. Perhaps fifty superstars with extraordinary opportunities will receive financing from the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund to launch their businesses. Meanwhile, the vast majority of firms rely on the 4Fs - friends, family founders, and "foolish" lnvestors.

The relationship between familiarity and expectations

This study examines the effects of prior experience in the context of a cultural arts service. This is an exploratory study designed to investigate the role familiarity plays in shaping visitor expectations. A cross sectional sample of novice and experienced visitors to a major art exhibition was conducted to investigate expectations, perceptions and service quality. Although the results are inconclusive, the findings provide some support for the proposition that novices have more fragmented expectations in certain dimensions.

Turning entrepreneurship research findings into practical action guidelines : the example of opportunity assessment

It is argued that entrepreneurship researchers do not place sufficient emphasis on making their research findings relevant to entrepreneurs and their advisors. The paper provides a Specific example demonstrating five general principles that can be used to turn a complex range of entrepreneurship research findings into useful action guidelines for practising entrepreneurs. The existing research-based knowledge concerning opportunity assessment is distilled into a diagrammatic framework. This framework and a sequence of ten, plain-English questions, provides entrepreneurs and SME operators with a tool for discovering, evaluating and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities.

Curriculum for entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness in New Zealand

This thesis asks: ‘How can tertiary education nurture entrepreneurial creativity?’ Entrepreneurship is considered to be a vital determinant of economic growth and the entrepreneur is understood as someone who innovates and commercialises their own innovation. The setting is New Zealand which is struggling to make the shift from relying on primary production to becoming a ‘creative economy.’ The creative individual has been identified as a new mainstream but it is argued that in New Zealand, education provision is inadequate for supporting the development of the practice of entrepreneurship. The problem is not unique. Various writers are critical of business education generally, and of the mismatch between the passion and chaos in entrepreneurs’ lives and the way education programs are typically organised as a linear sequence of discipline-based courses with prescribed content, activities and outcomes. Rich data were gathered from in-depth interviews with twelve nascent, new or experienced entrepreneurs and two associates (one a marketer, the other a scientist). Each participant was drawn from a different area of economic endeavour. They were asked to share their stories and views about creativity, the connections between creativity and entrepreneurship, business success, formal and informal education, and ways to improve tertiary education programs. The research found that a suitable environment for nurturing creativity will most likely have structure but will also enable chaos. It will present opportunities for experiencing diversity, and will stimulate unconscious and conscious mental processes. It will provide scope for hard work that is fun and involves authentic risk-taking, and will enable both individual and purposeful teamwork. The study also found that business success is not based on knowledge but is rather about being resourceful. The becoming of the creative entrepreneur thus includes developing capability to network with peers and mentors and communicate with customers and staff, and developing passion for and resilience in the pursuit of a dream. The findings suggest that in an age of uncertainty, nurturing entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness requires learning to be viewed as a practice-based community process where knowing and doing are interwoven with being. It is argued that this needs to align with Ronald Barnett and Kelly Coate’s (2005) notion of ‘a curriculum for engagement.’ It is suggested that an entire program might simply invite students to work collaboratively to identify and exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity by producing and commercialising an appropriate product/service innovation; to undertake this work as two separate projects – one within an existing organisation, and the other as a new venture; and to theorise their work. It is proposed that a suitable framework lies in William Doll’s (2002) advocacy for a curriculum based on a matrix of five Cs: ‘currere,’ complexity, cosmology, conversation, and community. To these, creativity is added as a sixth C.

Ideal golf swing : an evaluation of its characteristics and the assumptions underlying its acquisition during coaching

The game of golf requires hitting a ball from a range of lies over a range of distances in environments that include many obstacles to be avoided. Each of these different golf shots arc designed to move the ball from the tee to the hole in the least number of strokes. However, the fundamental assumption that seems to underlie the coaching of golf, particularly to novice players, is that acquisition of an ideal basic golf swing is the most important outcome of coaching. Implicit in this view are three further assumptions. The first is that once this ideal basic golf swing is acquired by players, they are able to complete a game of golf in a competent manner even though this requires a range of different shots. The second is that there is a close correspondence between the quality of execution of any golf swing as judged in terms of this ideal swing, and the quality of outcome of the golf shot of which the swing is a part, as judged by where the ball comes to rest. The third assumption is that visual inspection of the golf swing by a coach can reveal inadequacies which can be remedied leading lo improved performance in the game of golf. The research reported in this thesis is an investigation of these assumptions. The rationale underlying coaching of golf was examined by reviewing the golf coaching literature (Chapter 1) and conducting a survey of professional golf coaches (Chapter 2). Results of the literature review and the survey indicated that the major emphasis of golf coaching of novices was on their acquiring what might be described as an ideal basic golf swing. This typically involved identifying components in sequence. Little emphasis was placed during this stage of coaching on what might be described as the complete action of a golf shot which involves hitting a ball to some target location. To examine the assumption that there was a close correspondence between the quality of execution of the golf swing and the quality of the outcome of a golf shot, two studies were conducted. In Chapter 3 the development of a 70-item checklist to be used to evaluate the quality of execution of a golf swing is reported. This checklist was based on a detailed behavioural analysis of the golf swing involving collaboration with relevant experts (i.e., golf coaches, biomechanist, kinesiologist), and information derived from a review of golf coaching materials. Development of the checklist was an iterative process in which earlier versions were used to evaluate sample golf swings, and problems identified during this lest process were used to improve the checklist. The final 70-item checklist comprised of a static component with three parts (left-hand grip; right-hand grip; stance) and a dynamic component with six parts (half backswing; full backswing; half downswing; ball contact; half followthrough; finish position). This version of the checklist was used in a study (reported in Chapter 4) of the relationship between the judged quality of execution of a golf swing and the outcome accuracy of a golf shot. Three groups of golfers with varying ability and experience were required to hit 50 balls with a 9-iron club to a target. Outcome accuracy for each shot was assessed in terms of the distance between the target and the resting location of the ball. Edited videotapes (showing only execution of the golf swing) of the five most, and five least accurate shots produced a sub-sample of these golfers (four professional players; four novice players) were subsequently viewed by three expert coaches. They independently rated using the checklist, the quality of execution of the 80 golf swings in random order without having information about the accuracy of any shot. As expected, the professional golfers completed more accurate golf shots than did the novices, and the golf swings completed by the professionals were rated more highly than those completed by the novices. However, for both groups of golfers the results indicated that there was no clear relationship between the rated quality of execution of golf swings and the outcome accuracy of the shots of which the swing were the initial part. Chapter 5 provides a summary and overview of the research reported in Chapter 1 to 4. It is argued that this research suggests a need for a change of emphasis in golf coaching away from consideration of the golf swing in isolation to consideration of the golf swing as part of a complete action. That is, the quality of execution of a golf swing should not be judged simply in relation to some ideal set of golf-swing components, but rather in relation to how well the completed swing (i.e., the golf shot) achieves the desired aim of propelling the ball from its present location to the target location.

Information-based regulation of high-velocity foot-targeting tasks

Judging time-to-contact with a target is an important criterion for avoiding harm in everyday walking and running tasks, and maximizing performance in high-velocity sporting tasks. The information-based regulation of step length and duration during target-directed locomotion was examined in relation to gait mode, approach velocity, target task, expertise, and sporting performance during a series of four experiments. The first three experiments examined novice performers (Each n=12, 6 males, 6 females), whilst the last experiment examined expert gymnasts (n=5). Two reference strips with alternating 50cm black and white intervals were placed on either side of the approach strip for all of the experiments. One 50Hz-panning video camera filmed the approach from an elevated position. In Experiment 4, two stationary 250Hz cameras filmed the post-flight performance of the gymnastic vaults and, in addition, two qualified judges provided a performance score for each vaulting trial. The panning video footage in each experiment was digitized to deduce the gait characteristics. In Experiment 4, the high-speed video footage was analyzed three-dimensionally to obtain the performance measures such as post-flight height. The utilization of visual stimulus in target-directed locomotion is affected by the observer's state of motion as characterized by the mode of locomotion and also often the speed of locomotion. In addition, experience plays an important role in the capacity of the observer to utilize visual stimulus to control the muscular action of locomotion when either maintaining or adjusting the step mechanics. The characteristics of the terrain and the target also affect the observer's movement. Visual regulation of step length decreases at higher approach speeds in novice performers, where as expert performers are capable of increasing visual regulation at higher approach speeds. Conservatism in final foot placement by female participants accounts for the observed increase in distance from the critical boundary of the obstacle relative to toe placement. Behavioural effects of gender thus affect the control of final foot placement in obstacle-directed locomotion. The visual control of braking in target-directed locomotion is described by a tau-dot of-0.54. When tau-dot is below -0.54 a hard collision with the obstacle will occur, however, when tau-dot is above -0.54, a soft collision with the target will occur. It is suggested that the tau-dot margin defining the control of braking reveals the braking capacity of the system. In the target-directed locomotion examined a tau-dot greater than -0.70 would possibly exceed the braking capacity of the system, thus, leading to injury if performed. The approach towards the take-off board and vaulting horse in gymnastics is an example of target-directed locomotion in sport. Increased visual regulation of the timing and length of each step is a requirement for a fast running approach, a fundamental building block for the execution of complex vaults in gymnastics. The successful performance of complex vaults in gymnastics leads towards a higher judge's score. Future research suggestions include an investigation of visual regulation of step length in curved target-directed locomotion.

Helping teachers surf the information and communication technology tsunami

A range of factors, both internal and external, is creating changes in teaching and teachers’ professional lives. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is just one of the major changes impacting on the teaching profession. As teachers face intense pressure to adapt to this tsunami, this study aims to investigate ways in which teachers can be helped. In South Australia, where this study is set, all teachers in Government schools are expected to be "ICT Smart", i.e. able to use appropriate forms of ICT to enhance the teaching and learning environment of their classrooms. From the researcher’s involvement for over a decade in professional development for teachers, and from visits to many schools, it appears that numerous teachers have not reached this standard. The greatest need is in Reception to Year 7 schools where the average age of teachers is nearly 50. Because no state-wide data exists, this study is intended to establish if there is a problem and if there is, to identify specific needs and offer possible solutions. The study is comprised of four parts: Part A, the Introduction gives an overview of the inter-relationships between these parts and the overall Folio. It establishes the setting and provides a rationale for the study and its focus on Professional Development in Information and Communication Technology. Part B, the Elective Research Studies, follows the writer’s involvement in this field since the 1980s. It establishes the theme of "Moving best practice in ICT from the few to the many" which underlies the whole study. Part C, the Dissertation, traces the steps taken to investigate the need for professional development in ICT. This is achieved by analysing and commenting on data collected from a state-wide survey and a series of interviews with leading figures, and by providing a review of the relevant literature and past and existing models of professional development. Part D, Final Comments, provides an overview of the whole Folio and a reflection on the research that has been conducted. The findings are that there is widespread dissatisfaction with existing models and that there is an urgent need for professional development in this area, because nearly 20% of teachers either do not use computers or are considered to be novice users. Another 25% are considered to be below not yet "ICT Smart". Less than 10% of ICT co-ordinators have a formal qualification in the field but more than 85% of them are interested in a Masters program. The study offers solutions in Part B where there is a discussion of a range of strategies to provide on-going professional development for teachers. Chapter 9 provides an outline of a proposed Masters level program and offers suggestions on how it could be best delivered. This program would meet the identified needs of ICT co-ordinators. The study concludes with a series of recommendations and suggestions for further research. The Education Department must address these urgent professional development needs of teachers, particularly those in the more remote country regions. There needs to be a follow-up survey to establish to what extent teachers in South Australia are now "ICT Smart ".

Instructional strategies integrating cognitive style construct : a meta-knowledge processing model

The overarching goal of this dissertation was to evaluate the contextual components of instructional strategies for the acquisition of complex programming concepts. A meta-knowledge processing model is proposed, on the basis of the research findings, thereby facilitating the selection of media treatment for electronic courseware. When implemented, this model extends the work of Smith (1998), as a front-end methodology, for his glass-box interpreter called Bradman, for teaching novice programmers. Technology now provides the means to produce individualized instructional packages with relative ease. Multimedia and Web courseware development accentuate a highly graphical (or visual) approach to instructional formats. Typically, little consideration is given to the effectiveness of screen-based visual stimuli, and curiously, students are expected to be visually literate, despite the complexity of human-computer interaction. Visual literacy is much harder for some people to acquire than for others! (see Chapter Four: Conditions-of-the-Learner) An innovative research programme was devised to investigate the interactive effect of instructional strategies, enhanced with text-plus-textual metaphors or text-plus-graphical metaphors, and cognitive style, on the acquisition of a special category of abstract (process) programming concept. This type of concept was chosen to focus on the role of analogic knowledge involved in computer programming. The results are discussed within the context of the internal/external exchange process, drawing on Ritchey's (1980) concepts of within-item and between-item encoding elaborations. The methodology developed for the doctoral project integrates earlier research knowledge in a novel, interdisciplinary, conceptual framework, including: from instructional science in the USA, for the concept learning models; British cognitive psychology and human memory research, for defining the cognitive style construct; and Australian educational research, to provide the measurement tools for instructional outcomes. The experimental design consisted of a screening test to determine cognitive style, a pretest to determine prior domain knowledge in abstract programming knowledge elements, the instruction period, and a post-test to measure improved performance. This research design provides a three-level discovery process to articulate: 1) the fusion of strategic knowledge required by the novice learner for dealing with contexts within instructional strategies 2) acquisition of knowledge using measurable instructional outcome and learner characteristics 3) knowledge of the innate environmental factors which influence the instructional outcomes This research has successfully identified the interactive effect of instructional strategy, within an individual's cognitive style construct, in their acquisition of complex programming concepts. However, the significance of the three-level discovery process lies in the scope of the methodology to inform the design of a meta-knowledge processing model for instructional science. Firstly, the British cognitive style testing procedure, is a low cost, user friendly, computer application that effectively measures an individual's position on the two cognitive style continua (Riding & Cheema,1991). Secondly, the QUEST Interactive Test Analysis System (Izard,1995), allows for a probabilistic determination of an individual's knowledge level, relative to other participants, and relative to test-item difficulties. Test-items can be related to skill levels, and consequently, can be used by instructional scientists to measure knowledge acquisition. Finally, an Effect Size Analysis (Cohen,1977) allows for a direct comparison between treatment groups, giving a statistical measurement of how large an effect the independent variables have on the dependent outcomes. Combined with QUEST's hierarchical positioning of participants, this tool can assist in identifying preferred learning conditions for the evaluation of treatment groups. By combining these three assessment analysis tools into instructional research, a computerized learning shell, customised for individuals' cognitive constructs can be created (McKay & Garner,1999). While this approach has widespread application, individual researchers/trainers would nonetheless, need to validate with an extensive pilot study programme (McKay,1999a; McKay,1999b), the interactive effects within their specific learning domain. Furthermore, the instructional material does not need to be limited to a textual/graphical comparison, but could be applied to any two or more instructional treatments of any kind. For instance: a structured versus exploratory strategy. The possibilities and combinations are believed to be endless, provided the focus is maintained on linking of the front-end identification of cognitive style with an improved performance outcome. My in-depth analysis provides a better understanding of the interactive effects of the cognitive style construct and instructional format on the acquisition of abstract concepts, involving spatial relations and logical reasoning. In providing the basis for a meta-knowledge processing model, this research is expected to be of interest to educators, cognitive psychologists, communications engineers and computer scientists specialising in computer-human interactions.

Social entrepreneurship and partnerships with regional and remote schools

This paper explores how notions of social entrepreneurship have inspired the author to engage in innovative partnerships with two small rural schools in Central Queensland, Australia. It explores practical ways in which to help rural schools contribute to the transformation of their schools, considering that we are now in an information-based society operating in a postmodern world where change happens quickly and continually. The paper explores the mapping of the journeys undertaken both by the schools and by the author as a university lecturer, and analyses how the concept of social entrepreneurship is used to empower schools with these changes. Two partnerships with local schools are examined in terms of helping the participants become social entrepreneurs by deploying innovative problem solving strategies that can provide ways forward to help to begin to revolutionise the regional and rural education 'industry' and in the process engage regional and rural communities.

The Sawankhalok ceramic industry

A techno-historical study of a commercial initiative by 13th century Thai village potters to produce domestic stoneware ceramics. However their enterprise's success attracted the exploitative interest of regional trade entrepreneurs whose specialisation of the industry created a fatal lack of efficiency and flexibility.

Was there much blood kid? : cadet journalists in Australian media

This thesis established the ways in which novice journalists formulate their own professional ideologies and identified the key influences in this process. The research focused on the dominant oral traditions operating within newsrooms and established the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of the current systems of training young journalists.