Access to Finance for African SMEs: Do Women Entrepreneurs face Discrimination.

This study examines the gender disparity in Africa‟s small and medium business (SME) credit market. It shows how capital market imperfections can lead to second best solutions, so this research is significant for emerging economies. The gender gap between men and women is still there in Africa, and unless particular efforts are made to address the underlying issues today, it will continue to increase. The fact that black women make up the majority of the self-employed population isn't reflected in present industry targets for company activity, which is a problem. Women-owned businesses in Africa face unique problems, and this study evaluates whether financial service providers in the country are adequately aware of these issues

Effectual Entrepreneurship: Book Review

This review offers an overview of the new textbook, titled “Effectual Entrepreneurship” (2011, Routledge), by Read, Sarasvathy, Dew, Wiltbank, and Ohlsson (hereafter RSDWO). The book addresses large audiences of students, scholars, latent and current entrepreneurs, offering a new insight on the study and practice of entrepreneurship. This is achieved via the overview and critical evaluation of the stylized facts of the entrepreneurship literature, and the provision of the principles of effectual entrepreneurship for startups, growing ventures and social enterprises. This synthesis is presented in a unique non‐technical way that makes the book a valuable handbook for individuals from all backgrounds with an interest in entrepreneurship as a discipline or as practice. The authors envisage the role of entrepreneurial education based on the view that entrepreneurship is not necessarily innate, and this is exactly what they achieve: the production of a remarkable entrepreneurship education tool

MOTIVATION STRATEGIES FOR KNOWLEDGE WORKERS: EVIDENCES AND CHALLENGES

Many studies have been performed previously to investigate different theories of motivation and, more specifically, how to motivate technical professionals. Through a questionnaire survey carried out on 376 development engineers, identified as "knowledge workers" by managers in their firms, this study identifies what methods are used in industry to motivate these individuals , what works and what does not. While many aspects of standard incentives and reward systems used to motivate technical professionals in general are also motivating for technical visionaries, these results indicate that they are motivated by additional factors not generally discussed in the literature

Tutkijamotivaatio – tapaustutkimus suomalaisessa tutkimus- ja kehitysorganisaatiossa

Motivation and especially work motivation have been popular and extensively studied topics, but not much attention has been paid to motivation in a research context. To address the knowledge gap, this thesis aims to contribute to the researcher motivation theory by studying motivation in a Finnish research and development organization. This thesis examines motivation from three viewpoints: (1) researchers’ motivation towards research, (2) researchers’ motivation to cooperate with industry, and (3) researchers’ motivation to engage in self-managing research teams. The study is a quantitative case study, and data was collected with a self-administered internet survey. The survey was sent to all of the case organization’s researchers (1318 in total), which resulted into 421 answers. The data from the survey was analyzed using non-parametric methods, such as frequency distribution tables and non-linear principal component analysis (NLPCA). In addition, the influence of researchers’ organizational position (senior, mid, junior, support) and their professional orientation (entrepreneurial vs. traditional) was examined. Finally, a non-linear principal component analysis was performed to discover typical combinations of motivational factors, i.e. different motivational profiles of researchers. The most significant driver behind researcher motivation towards research was helping industry and stakeholders to solve complex problems. Concerning motivation to cooperate with industrial partners, the most important factor was application and exploitation of research results. Finally, the most important reason to join self-managing research teams (substance nodes) was the researcher’s own interest and curiosity towards the substance node’s topic. An interesting finding was that senior researchers had a tendency of giving overall highest importance rates throughout the survey. The main theoretical contribution of this thesis is the development of a refined framework consisting of four different motivational profiles introducing the primary factors behind researcher motivation. These profiles are referred to as (1) personal benefit seeker, (2) industry-oriented problem-solver, (3) knowledge sharer and (4) conventional researcher. The main practical contribution, in turn, is the possibility to use the above-mentioned framework to identify, understand and truly address the motivational needs of researchers with different motivational profiles.Motivaatio ja erityisesti työmotivaatio ovat olleet suosittuja ja laajasti tutkittuja aiheita, mutta motivaatio tutkimusympäristössä on jäänyt vähemmälle huomiolle. Vastatakseen tähän puutteeseen, tämä työ pyrkii tuottamaan uutta tieteellistä tietoa tutkijamotivaatiosta tutkimalla motivaatiota suomalaisessa tutkimus- ja kehitysorganisaatiossa. Tämä työ tarkastelee motivaatiota kolmesta eri näkökulmasta, jotka ovat (1) tutkijoiden motivaatio tutkimustyötä kohtaan, (2) tutkijoiden motivaatio toimia yhteistyössä teollisuuden kumppaneiden kanssa ja (3) tutkijoiden motivaatio toimia itseohjautuvissa tutkimustiimeissä. Tämä tutkimus on kvantitatiivinen tapaustutkimus, jonka aineisto kerättiin internet-kyselyllä. Kysely lähetettiin kaikille kohdeorganisaation tutkijoille (yht. 1318), mikä tuotti 421 vastausta. Kyselystä saatu data analysoitiin ei-parametristen menetelmien avulla, kuten hyödyntämällä frekvenssijakaumataulukoita ja suorittamalla epälineaarinen pääkomponenttianalyysi (NLPCA). Motivaatiota tarkasteltiin lisäksi tutkijoiden organisatorisen aseman (senior, mid, junior, support) ja ammatillisen suuntautumisen (yrittäjähenkinen vs. perinteinen) kautta. Lopuksi tyypillisiä motivaatiotekijöiden yhdistelmiä, eli tutkijoiden erilaisia motivaatioprofiileja, tarkasteltiin epälineaarisen pääkomponenttianalyysin avulla. Merkittävin tekijä tutkijoiden motivaatiossa tutkimustyötä kohtaan oli teollisuuden ja muiden sidosryhmien auttaminen monimutkaisten ongelmien ratkaisemisessa. Mitä tulee motivaatioon toimia yhteistyössä teollisuuden kumppaneiden kanssa, merkittävin tekijä oli tutkimustulosten hyödyntäminen ja soveltaminen. Tärkein tekijä itseohjautuviin tutkimustiimeihin (substanssinoodeihin) liittymisessä oli puolestaan tutkijan henkilökohtainen mielenkiinto ja tiedonhalu tutkimusaihetta kohtaan. Mielenkiintoinen löydös oli, että senioritutkijat antoivat kauttaaltaan korkeimpia merkittävyysarvioita eri motivaatiotekijöille läpi koko kyselyn. Tämän työn merkittävin kontribuutio motivaatioteoriaan on sen tuottama viitekehys neljästä eri motivaatioprofiilista, jotka tuovat esiin ensisijaisia tekijöitä tutkijamotivaation taustalla. Nämä profiilit ovat (1) henkilökohtaisen edun tavoittelija, (2) teollisuusorientoitunut ongelmanratkaisija, (3) tiedonjakaja ja (4) perinteinen tutkija. Edellä mainitusta viitekehyksestä on lisäksi käytännön hyötyä, sillä se luo yrityksille mahdollisuuden tunnistaa, ymmärtää ja todella keskittyä tutkijoiden eri motivaatioprofiileissa tunnistettuihin keskeisiin tarpeisiin

Everyday Leaders

For years business writers and speakers have focused on larger than life, charismatic Leaders, with a capital “L”. The implication is that the success of an organization is dependent on this one person and his or her ability to inspire everyone else to follow a unique vision. This focus on the Leader is at least a partial cause of the lack of trust we are witnessing in business organizations today. Leaders believe they must behave in some larger than life way. With the expectation that they must see things the rest of us do not, they make riskier and riskier decisions, desperate to prove they deserve the role. Perhaps now that we have seen the problems resulting from this Leader-focused approach to running our organizations, we can return to a more reasonable approach - one that is actually attainable by mere mortals - where many are called upon to be good, competent, everyday leaders. If educational institutions begin to focus on developing the skills and character of these everyday leaders, our organizations will not only be more successful, but surely more trusted than they are today

Factors Affecting Acceptance of Organizational Change: A Qualitatitive Analysis in the Pharmaceutical Industry

This exploratory qualitative study examines the relationships between organizational change factors including the occurrence of change, personal and work related barriers, and employee buy-in. The sample consisted of 20 individuals from seven different departments of a pharmaceutical products manufacturing firm that had recently undergone a major organizational change that impacted the entire workforce. Research questions were formed to examine the acceptance of organizational change, the perceived occurrence of organizational change, as well as personal and work force barriers. Results from the interviews suggest that the occurrence of change as well as personal and workforce barriers contributed to the participants’ acceptance levels towards change. These findings suggest that it is vital for organizations to understand factors that relate to employees’ willingness to accept change

Lived experience of Argentine microbusiness growth : It is not what you do, but how you do it

Company growth is one of the most widely studied topics in economic literature. Yet, there is still a lack of research on microbusiness growth in Argentina. The purpose of this thesis is to bring new knowledge on how Argentine microbusinesses grow and distinguish their main growth strategies using ethnographic methods. The theoretical background of this research includes literature on microbusiness growth and their growth strategies. Particularly important was to understand the stages of small business growth, the key variables affecting microbusiness growth and different growth strategies. The data for this ethnographic study was collected from six different companies during the fall of 2016 and spring of 2017, while I worked in Fide, a business incubator in Córdoba, Argentina. Four businesses were chosen from the business incubator Fide and two businesses were chosen outside the business incubator. My aim as a researcher was to build close relationships with the owners of these businesses in order to gather relevant and trustworthy information. The main research methods used were non-participant observations, participant observations and in-depth semi-structured interviews with a life-story approach. All information on the companies and interviews gathered were in Spanish and later translated to English. In general, the results on key variables affecting microbusiness growth appeared to be consistent with previous findings in literature. The results on entrepreneur characteristics additionally highlighted the importance of language skills and how entrepreneurs typically start primarily with their own savings. The findings on company attributes provided new insight into the difficulties entrepreneurs face with government financial support. The results on networks offered powerful evidence that being part of a government-funded startup program or a business incubator enhanced the possibilities of obtaining broad professional networks. Economic fluctuations and inflation were seen as the strongest macroeconomic factors constraining growth. Flexibility was the key to success and also needed in determining the best-suited growth strategy and in some cases a mixture of more than one strategy. This research provided an interesting insight on how digital platforms may offer microbusinesses in Argentina possibilities to expand more rapidly and profitably to customers globally. Future research should be done in determining whether digital platforms offer new opportunities for all developing countries

KNOWLEDGE AS A SOURCE OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN KNOWLEDGE BASED COMPANIES

Modern company in today\u27s economy is no longer solely dependent on its tangible assets such as real estate, factories or facilities. Doing business in today\u27s global economy creates new types of companies which are becoming increasingly dependent on their intangible assets such as information and knowledge. Today\u27s new economy has become global and information driven, and the first time in the history of the organization theory knowledge becomes companies the most valuable resource. Knowledge affects the creation of new value in the company, but it also affects on the creation of new knowledge. The use of the Internet enables its distribution in the global context. Knowledge can not be fully diminished. On the contrary, the more being used, it increases, expands and deepens. Therefore modern knowledge based companies need to continually work on their knowledge-based strategy as a source of the competitive advantage. This paper discusses the impact of organizational culture on creation of such companies