Understanding how immigrant entrepreneurs view business opportunity formation through ethnicity

Given that international research is now consistently showing higher rates of entrepreneurial activity from immigrants above native people, research regarding our understanding of how immigrant entrepreneurs view business opportunity formation remains underdeveloped. Based upon a review of the literature, this chapter examines how ethnicity relates to business opportunity formation through constant interactions. It also introduces the Visual Mixed Embeddedness Framework as an empirical lens for understanding the differences in the business opportunity formation process models between immigrant and native entrepreneurs. By explaining how factors and traits from both home and host countries impact upon the immigrant entrepreneurial business activity process, the framework clearly identifies how the concept of ethnicity influences immigrant entrepreneurial opportunity formation activities in different ways. The framework contributes to existing knowledge by offering a novel method for examining the influence on business opportunity formation of ethnicity, the role of home and host countries and variations between immigrant and native entrepreneurs

Judgments, forecasts and decisions: an analysis of fund managers over time

Decision theory is the study of models of judgement involved in, and leading to, deliberate and (usually) rational choice. In real estate investment there are normative models for the allocation of assets. These asset allocation models suggest an optimum allocation between the respective asset classes based on the investors’ judgements of performance and risk. Real estate is selected, as other assets, on the basis of some criteria, e.g. commonly its marginal contribution to the production of a mean variance efficient multi asset portfolio, subject to the investor’s objectives and capital rationing constraints. However, decisions are made relative to current expectations and current business constraints. Whilst a decision maker may believe in the required optimum exposure levels as dictated by an asset allocation model, the final decision may/will be influenced by factors outside the parameters of the mathematical model. This paper discusses investors' perceptions and attitudes toward real estate and highlights the important difference between theoretical exposure levels and pragmatic business considerations. It develops a model to identify “soft” parameters in decision making which will influence the optimal allocation for that asset class. This “soft” information may relate to behavioural issues such as the tendency to mirror competitors; a desire to meet weight of money objectives; a desire to retain the status quo and many other non-financial considerations. The paper aims to establish the place of property in multi asset portfolios in the UK and examine the asset allocation process in practice, with a view to understanding the decision making process and to look at investors’ perceptions based on an historic analysis of market expectation; a comparison with historic data and an analysis of actual performance

Critical success factors that influence the corporate venturing process

Title: Critical success factors that influence the corporate venturing process Seminar date: 2013-05-02 Course: ENTN39 Internship and Degree Project Authors: Martin Zündorf & Marcus Holgersson Advisor/s: Joakim Winborg Purpose: We investigated the influence of different factors on the corporate venturing process. Therefore we combined several factors from the organizational level with characteristics from the individuals involved in the project. We used the theory and compared it to primary data which we got from interviews with business developers from our case company. This helped us to analyze the influence also from the perspective of the individuals itself, which attracted very little attention by scholars until now. Methodology: The primary data is collected through semi-standardized interviews and the secondary data includes literature, earlier studies and information from “Company A”. Data collection has been done to get a deeper insight and enable for us to understand the phenomenon of corporate venturing. The goal with this study is to get an understanding of the corporate venturing process for “Company A” and therefore qualitative data collection tools have been used. Theoretical perspectives: The theories used in this study are within the area of corporate entrepreneurship and focus on the different factors influencing the venturing process as described in literature. Empirical foundation: This study includes interviews with employees at “Company A” working with the two different projects, managers and the founder. The interviews were semi-standardized and executed after an interview guide that was developed when the authors got more insight into the company. Conclusions: Based on the earlier explained models and theories about corporate venturing, product development and critical success factors, we created an own holistic new product development model, which we used to analyze data from case X and Y. The factors we included in our model were investigated regarding their influence and importance for the project’s success. All included factors were deemed to be crucial for the outcome of the specific projects in our cases. We delivered practical examples on how these factors influence the process and should be managed

To formulate a conceptual model for innovation: Reframing theoretical constructs of bim adoption within sme organisations

© 2019 Association of Researchers in Construction Management, ARCOM 2019 - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference. All rights reserved. The Construction industry is facing a paradigm shift in the adoption of new innovative ways of designing and delivering of projects. This innovative process includes building information modelling (BIM) which have shown significant impact on efficiency and effectiveness during a project development process within the construction industry. However, the shift to its acceptance, adoption and implementation in the emerging markets has brought distortion in the organisational culture, behaviour, and business processes of small medium enterprises (SMEs). This is often associated to the lack of clear orientation of the impact of BIM adoption to the firms. Although several theories have explained different concept relating to acceptance of innovative technologies within an organisation, however, it is crucial to understand this concept through the lens of BIM. Thus, this paper identifies the different theories concerning BIM acceptance within organisations and highlights the relationship between different factors that influence BIM acceptance within organisations. This was achieved by identifying the key factors that influence the acceptance of innovation and the process of adopting an innovation within organisations. The study involved a two-step analysis; systematic literature review and theoretical formulation. The systematic literature review was used to identify various theories and models that explains the acceptance process and behaviour of individuals during adoption of new innovations within SMEs organisations. The theoretical formulation was achieved by synthesizing the key influencing factors and indicators identified from the systematic literature review which were categorised into four groups namely; organisation, human, technology and relationship. The output was consolidated to form the conceptual model that would be the basis of further research and will help in understanding the relationship between factors that influence BIM acceptance process within SMEs organisation in the construction industry

Family Careers Reloaded: Lessons for the 21st Century Workforce

In the United States, family businesses are at the heart of entrepreneurship, accounting for approximately 59% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and employing 58% of the workforce. Given their overwhelming significance in the economy, few studies have captured the levels of familial influence on the career decisions of those involved in the family business. The dynamic of the familial influence on career decisions and the development of individuals had been researched for 58 years; however, research from a HRD perspective had not been considered, especially with the move towards seeking career development interventions geared toward accomplishing life goals, having purposeful careers, and family development. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to understand the nature of family career legacies from the personal experiences of family members who sought positions in the family’s business. This study uses a narrative analysis guided by the conceptual framework of career construction theory with a generative lens and the legacy model (an emerging competency model) to understand the career stories of 15 participants from six racially diverse families involved in their family career legacy. Purposeful sampling, semi-structured interviews, and career genograms were used to explore how family career legacies were created, experienced, and maintained, and how the familial influence affected feelings, thoughts, and outlooks toward career decisions. The findings from this study suggested access to role models, a sense of belonging and community, and a desire to continue the family legacy were instrumental in the career decision making of family members. This resulted in a standard process, explained by the legacy model, where major life turning points, thoughts of immortality, and aspirations to provide for future generations initiated a need to become involved in the family business. An individual’s vicarious experience of careers from the perspective of their role models, the development of their career identity, and eagerness to make a greater impact in the community were reasons for involvement in the family business. Results from this study provide knowledge on the development of individuals through the utilization of postmodern career development theory in the setting of family dynamics. The study further implicates an understanding of the factors affecting the career decision making process for the enhancement of the 21st century workforce

Determinants of sucess and failure in internationalisation of the cork business : a tale of two iberian family firms

The trajectories of internationalisation followed by family firms can be viewed from several theoretical approaches: phases and models of the internationalisation process; international entrepreneurship, the sociological perspective and family business theory. A historical perspective of internationalised family firms, allowing for the integration of the abovementioned approaches, is useful to obtain a deep understanding of the internationalisation process of different sectors and of different countries. The main purpose of this paper is to identify the facilitating and restricting factors during the internationalisation path of family firms, whilst considering the influence in their competitive advantages, of ownership structure, management attitudes and other intangible assets, as well as external factors to the firms, like location. The research involved a long run analysis (of more than one century) of two firms which operate in the cork business in Spain and Portugal: Mundet & C.ª, Lda and Corticeira Amorim. One of these companies - Mundet - was closed down in the 1980s and the other – Corticeira Amorim – became, and still is, the leading firm worldwide in the cork industry. A detailed comparison of these two histories - one of failure, and the other of success - permits an accurate identification of the determinants of successful internationalisation. In fact, this comparison is useful for understanding several characteristics of both firms, some of which are similar and others which are different, allowing to test several hypotheses within the context of the theoretical approach of the internationalisation of family firms. This methodological option can be justify by several aspects. Firstly, both are family firms operating in the same business and both were concentrated on the foreign market since their conception. Secondly, both their histories encompass most of the 20th Century and both faced similar national and international constraints, which were overcome, as they both ended up becoming the leading firms in the cork business, although at different periods of time. Thirdly, their choices of location were different and, although in both cases they benefitted from agglomeration forces during certain phases of the business, location was an important determinant of the opposing destinies of these two emblematic cork family firms from Iberia

Predicting Intake of Applications for First Registration in the Property Registration Authority

The motivation for this dissertation is rooted in a real business need. The Property Registration Authority is the state organisation tasked with maintaining a register of land ownership on the island of Ireland. The PRA currently faces a series of challenges; a high level of staff retiring and the inherent loss of knowledge associated with this trend, a lack of recruitment in recent years and a large increase in lodgement of applications for first registration as a result of legislation. The organisation therefore requires a reliable system for predicting future intake. Prior to this project, there has also been a lack of understanding of the factors that influence intake, and that go much of the way to explaining the peaks and troughs in intake levels that have been seen over recent years. Therefore, this dissertation seeks to identify the factors that influence intake of applications for first registration, and to ascertain if these features may be used to build models to predict future intake. To answer these questions, an exercise in data analytics has been designed and implemented, following the industry standard CRISP-DM methodology. As part of this process, a review of contemporary literature has been carried out, on the subjects of the Irish property market, the factors that influence the level of demand for registration, and modelling approaches applied to variable selection and predictive modelling. Using the insights gleaned from this research, a varied dataset has been sourced, assembled, explored and prepared which includes property registration data, house sale data and economic indicator data. The final dataset has been used to build a series of predictive models, and after evaluation the results show the Random Forest model to be the most effective. A further finding is that the combined outcome of all of the models indicates that the number of houses sold is the single most important factor in predicating volume of applications for registration. The series of experiments conducted and the body of research analysed have presented several valuable insights into the housing market and the factors that influence it, the modelling techniques that can be applied to intake prediction and the key prediction factors that influence intake. The overall conclusion of the study is that the null hypothesis has been rejected and that intake of ‘first registration’ applications in the Property Registration Authority can be predicted through analysis of historical intake data and external factors. However, it is acknowledged that further work will be required to develop a data gathering and analysis process that can be operationalised in the PRA context

An Integrative Model of Clients\u27 Decision to Adopt an Application Service Provider

Application Services Providers (ASPs) exploit the economics of delivering commercial off-the-shelf software over the Internet to many dispersed users, but the decision-making process to adopt the ASP business model can be complex requiring a comprehensive consideration of various factors. As a new form of outsourcing, the ASP business model differs from traditional outsourcing models with respect to the attributes associated with vendors, clients, and applications. These differences are expected to demand decision models that are distinct from those in the traditional IS outsourcing. In this study, an integrative model for ASP adoption that incorporates economic determinants, strategic determinants, and social determinants is developed. This integrative model includes the individual effects of these determinants, as well as the moderating effects of the social determinants upon the economic and strategic determinants. To test this research model and its associated hypotheses, two self-administered surveys, one among clients of a leading ASP and the other among nationally selected top computer executives, are conducted. The findings from the two surveys show that economic, strategic and social factors impact a client’s decision on ASP adoption. Moreover, among prospective ASP adopters, trust had a strong tendency to influence the effect of cost benefits and IT deficiency removal on ASP adoptions. This study empirically examines the determinants of ASP adoption from an integrative perspective. This model contributes to the academic literature by presenting a broad view for understanding ASP adoption decision. The findings from the survey elucidate the independent impact of the economic, social and strategic perspectives as well as interactions among the three perspectives for ASP adoption. For practitioners, this study can shed insight on special determinants in ASP adoption. It can help ASPs gain a better understanding of clients’ concerns for ASP adoption and make corresponding adjustments in the services in order to attract clients and increase application usage

Understanding land-use trade-off decision making using the analytical hierarchy process: Insights from agricultural land managers in Zambia

Understanding factors that influence trade-offs between agricultural expansion and forest conservation is important in managing competing land-use objectives. This paper applies elements of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to distinct farming business ownership models in Zambia to gain insights into factors that agricultural land managers take into account when considering land-use trade-off decisions which involve agricultural expansion into natural habitats. Results showed that the market domain was weighted above other domains, followed by the financial domain. When environmental considerations were pitted against other factors such as markets and finance, agricultural land managers were likely to trade off environmental concerns. Furthermore, availability of input subsidies via the agricultural Food Input Support Programme (FISP) influenced the decision to expand, particularly for the small-scale ownership model. This suggests that agricultural policies and strategies aimed at promoting agricultural productivity may require accompanying measures to safeguard forest ecosystems from agricultural expansion. Key differences in the factors influencing expansion decisions were evident among ownership models suggesting that ownership types do have an impact on factors considered. This highlights the need to advance tailored strategies that address differences in priorities and decision making emanating from variations in farming business ownership models