Church Planters

Starting a new organization is a risky business. Most startups fail; half of them do not reach the five-year mark. Protestant churches are not immune to these trends. Most new churches are not established with denominational support—many are actually nondenominational—and, therefore, have many of the vulnerabilities other infant organizations must overcome. Research has revealed that millions of Americans are leaving churches, half of all churches do not add any new members, and thousands of churches shutter their doors each year. These numbers suggest that American religion is not a growth industry. Yet, more than 1,000 new churches are started in any given year. What are the forces that move people who might otherwise be satisfied working for churches to the riskier role of starting one as a religion entrepreneur? In Church Planters, sociologist Richard Pitt uses more than 125 in-depth interviews with church planters to understand their motivations. First he uncovers themes in their sometimes miraculous, sometimes mundane answers to the question “Why take on these risks?” Then he examines how they approach three common entrepreneurial challenges—recognizing opportunities, marshaling resources, and framing success—in ways that reduce uncertainty and lead them to believe they will be successful. The book combines their evocative stories with insights from research on commercial and social entrepreneurship to explain how these religion entrepreneurs come to believe that their organizational goals must be accomplished, that those goals are capable of being accomplished, and that they would accomplish those goals over time.

Does the sector matter? An analysis of high-growth firms and industry growth rates

PurposeThis paper aims to analyze the effect of industry growth rates on the characteristics of high-growth firms (HGFs) that are active in a particular industry. By making a distinction between HGFs active in stable and declining industries and HGFs active in growing and high-growing industries, it is analyzed if the main dimensions of firm performance are significantly different for HGFs active in one of these different industry types. Gaining more insight into this industry aspect of high firm growth is important as governmental measures towards HGFs may be more effective if they have a specific sectoral focus.Design/methodology/approachA subset of 740 Belgian HGFs was analyzed. Data were gathered from the Belfirst database. HGFs were classified within their corresponding industry type: a declining industry (negative growth), a stable industry (0 −5% growth), a growing industry (5 −10% growth) and a high-growth industry (>10% growth). Four dimensions of structural firm performance that are expected to correlate with high growth were taken into consideration: productivity (value added per FTE), profitability (ROA), innovativeness (intangible assets) and financial health (solvency and liquidity).Tukey's range tests in conjunction with post-hoc analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests were carried out to test for significant differences in all the mentioned variables for the HGFs in the four different industry types.FindingsResults show that HGFs active in a stable industry are not significantly more profitable or innovative than HGFs active in a growth industry. However, significant differences could be encountered when it comes to the other two dimensions of structural firm performance: productivity and financial health. It is shown that HGFs active in declining and stable industries are significantly more productive than HGFs active in growth industries and high-growth industries. Also, HGFs active in declining and stable industries have significantly higher liquidity ratios than firms active in growth industries, pointing towards a better financial health for HGFs in nongrowing industries.Research limitations/implicationsThe results confirm the conceptual logic that the differences between resource-based view (RBV) and industrial organization (IO) propositions will have an impact on the drivers of firm performance and high business growth. Every future study that focuses on the growth determinants of HGFs should be aware that considering the subset of HGFs as one homogenous group may be suboptimal. It is likely that the growth determinants of both HGF types will indeed be fundamentally different.Originality/valueUntil now, all studies on HGFs have considered the subset of HGFs as a whole. This paper tried to disentangle the subset based on the growth rate of the industry in which HGFs are mainly active. In this proposition, a reason for the lack of knowledge about characteristics of HGFs may – at least partially – be found in the fact that industry membership plays an important role in determining the characteristics of a high-growth firm. Future studies focusing on high-growth determinants may benefit from systematically taking the industry growth rates into account, with the knowledge that the propositions of two different theories – IO and RBV – may be the fundamental drivers of a firm's high-growth rates.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FINTECH INDUSTRY

In this article, we review some recent developments in the field of Financial Technology or “FinTech.” We begin with an overview of what FinTech is and why it has become an important growth industry in the financial services area and therefore an important research topic in finance. In the next section, we review some of the academic literature in the FinTech area. In the subsequent section, we characterize the financing of FinTech startups, especially by venture capital firms. In the following section, we characterize innovation by FinTech firms as well as by incumbent financial intermediaries. In the next section, we move on to discuss potential sources of value creation by FinTech start-up firms relative to existing incumbent firms: we conjecture that one source of value creation may arise from FinTech startups being able to provide a superior customer experience relative to incumbent firms in various areas of consumer finance. In the following section, we discuss the regulatory environment facing FinTech firms, in their banking as well as in their financial market activities. In the penultimate section, we analyze the buy-versus-build decision facing firms choosing to enter the FinTech sector and discuss the trade-offs that may drive such decisions in practice. We conclude with some remarks about the future directions that may be taken by the FinTech industry.

PESANTREN SEBAGAI PUSAT SERTIFIKASI DAN EDUKASI SDI PARIWISATA SYARIAH DALAM PENGUATAN INDUSTRI HALAL DI INDONESIA

Sertifikasi profesi bagi sumber daya insani di Indonesia adalah hal yang sangat penting. Apalagi jika melihat growth industry keuangan maupun bisnis syariah yang cukup pesat, maka dirasa sangat perlu adanya upaya penanaman ilmu ekonomi ilahiyah tersebut pada generasi yang lebih muda yakni pondok pesantren yang menjadi pusat edukasi dalam pembentukan kreatifitas dan keahlian.Pendekatan yang digunakan dalam penulisan karya tulis ini adalah deskripsi kualitatif berdasarkan kajian kepustakaan. Sumber sekunder didapatkan dari buku-buku yang relevan dengan topik penulisan, karya tulis ilmiah, artikel, serta jurnal dari internet.Penelitianini menemukan bahwa industri halal akan menjadikan sertifikasi sebagai bekal menghadapi segala kemungkinan yang akan terjadi pada persaingan kompetensi di pasar kerja. Adapun konsep pengintegrasian sertifikasi syariah dengan pondok pesantren secara sistematis merupakan suatu strategi yang cukup jitu untuk menghasilkan generasi-generasi muda muslim calon praktisi maupun akademisi yang mafhum akan ekonomi syariah. Kompetensi yang didukung dengan sertifikasi ini, akan menghasilkan SDI-SDI berkompeten yang akan mampu menggerakkan pariwisata syariah dengan kualitas dan daya saing yang tinggi. Kata kunci: Edukasi, Pariwisata Syariah, Industri Halal, Sumber Daya Insani, Sertifikasi Syariah

Otorhinolaryngology emergency department hospitalizations in a secondary medical center

Introduction/Objective. Overall number of emergency department visits, including otorhinolaryngology, has increased. Due to population growth, industry and traffic expansion, workload of the otorhinolaryngology emergency department is steadily on the rise. The objective of this study was to determine most common indications for emergency hospitalization in otorhinolaryngology department in secondary medical center. Also, we examined course of diagnostics and treatment upon admittance, outcome of hospitalization and possible referral to tertiary medical center. Methods. Retrospective study included patients who were urgently hospitalized on the Department of otorhinolaryngology and maxillofacial surgery in Djordje Joanovic General Hospital in Zrenjanin in a two-year period. The data were obtained by processing patients? medical charts. Results. The study included 428 patients who were urgently hospitalized on the Department of otorhinolaryngology of the secondary medical center in two-year period. 245 (57.2%) were male and were 183 (42.8%) female, with average age of 48.5 years. Patients were most frequently hospitalized because of tonsillopharyngitis and its? complications, followed by head and neck trauma. Most of the patients were treated conservatively with medication therapy (72%), and 28% underwent surgical or other invasive intervention. 27 (6.3%) patients were referred to tertiary medical center, which was correlated significantly with number of comorbidities and consultative exams. Conclusion. Otorhinolaryngology inflammatory/infectious diseases are the most frequent indication for urgent hospital admission in secondary medical center. Most of the patients were treated conservatively. Referral to tertiary medical center was significantly correlated to number of comorbidities and consultative exams.

PENCAPAIAN TARGET LEVERAGE MELALUI SPEED OF ADJUSTMENT KARAKTERISTIK PERUSAHAAN

This paper aims to determine the effect of company characteristics on target leverage with the relation of the speed of adjustment to target leverage. The speed of adjustment is examined to complete the analysis of the concept of dynamic capital structure in Indonesia. The characteristics of the companies studied are profitability, company size, company growth, industry, tangibility, inflation and the deficit and financial surplus of companies in the property, real estate and construction sectors listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2008 to 2015. The results of this study show that property, real estate, and construction sector companies are significantly implementing leverage targets. The data also shows that there is a significant effect of speed of adjustment to the leverage target which is faster when the company has a financial surplus compared to when the financial deficit.