Responding to the Challenges and Opportunities of Workforce 2000

We report results of a national study examining the impact of demographic changes in the American workforce on small business management practices.    Telephone interviews with a national random sample of 94 small business owners explored a) if small business owners are aware of changing workforce demographics,  and b) if these small  business  owners are proactively responding to these changes by modifying their personnel practices.   Findings indicate that while small business managers are aware of changing workforce demographics, only a minority have changed their practices to take advantage of the new population available to them

Idea or Prime Opportunity? A Framework for Evaluating Business Ideas for New and Small Ventures

 Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship educators recognize that only a small percentage of venture ideas actually represent viable business opportunities. This paper addresses the important issue of opportunity recognition using a framework designed with a mnemonic structure for easy recall and based on the extant literature on opportunity recognition. The framework prompts users to examine Product/service, Resource, Individual, Market, and Economic start-up issues. Thus, the PRIME analysis is a heuristic designed for initial opportunity evaluation of a business concept prior to preparing a full-blown business plan. We discuss and apply this framework, demonstrating its effectiveness in the classroom and in practice.

Financing Complexity and Sophistication in Nascent Ventures

Although scholars have considered the financing challenges facing small businesses for some time, little work has focused on financing issues at the venture's nascent stage. In this study, we investigate the sources of funding sought by nascent entrepreneurs and the relationship between the complexity of these funding sources, business plan formalization, and expectations of future firm growth. Using data from the Entrepreneurship Research Consortium/Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics, we find that nascent entrepreneurs, even those associated with high-growth ventures, favor simple rather than complex sources of funding at the nascent stage. Funding complexity and business plan formalization are also found related to expectation of firm growth. An additional contribution is the development of a funding complexity continuum scale, which should be useful in future studies of nascent as well as later stage entrepreneurial finance and firm growth

Providing High-Quality Care for Limited English Proficient Patients: The Importance of Language Concordance and Interpreter Use

Background: Provider–patient language discordance is related to worse quality care for limited English proficient (LEP) patients who speak Spanish. However, little is known about language barriers among LEP Asian-American patients. Objective: We examined the effects of language discordance on the degree of health education and the quality of interpersonal care that patients received, and examined its effect on patient satisfaction. We also evaluated how the presence/absence of a clinic interpreter affected these outcomes. Design: Cross-sectional survey, response rate 74%. Participants: A total of 2,746 Chinese and Vietnamese patients receiving care at 11 health centers in 8 cities. Measurements: Provider–patient language concordance, health education received, quality of interpersonal care, patient ratings of providers, and the presence/absence of a clinic interpreter. Regression analyses were used to adjust for potential confounding. Results: Patients with language-discordant providers reported receiving less health education (β = 0.17, p < 0.05) compared to those with language-concordant providers. This effect was mitigated with the use of a clinic interpreter. Patients with language-discordant providers also reported worse interpersonal care (β = 0.28, p < 0.05), and were more likely to give low ratings to their providers (odds ratio [OR] = 1.61; CI = 0.97–2.67). Using a clinic interpreter did not mitigate these effects and in fact exacerbated disparities in patients’ perceptions of their providers. Conclusion: Language barriers are associated with less health education, worse interpersonal care, and lower patient satisfaction. Having access to a clinic interpreter can facilitate the transmission of health education. However, in terms of patients’ ratings of their providers and the quality of interpersonal care, having an interpreter present does not serve as a substitute for language concordance between patient and provider