Entrepreneurship in the Fashion Industry

The fashion industry employs more than 300 million workers in the world with a turnover of more than a trillion dollars, which is equivalent to being the seventh economic power on the planet. The presence of Latin America and the Caribbean in this industry is growing, where Carolina Herrera is of fundamental importance. The objective of this chapter is to analyze the critical success factors of this company to recognize it internationally as an icon-brand and to study the entrepreneurial spirit of the company to be an example for new generations (and even to competitors). A SWOT analysis will be made complemented by a PESTEL analysis to achieve these goals. The chapter ends with conclusions and perspectives after COVID-19.

Monopolistic Business Practices

Monopolistic business practices result is a situation that, while it creates a unique set of challenges, can also be a compelling opportunity for new ventures to enter the market. This chapter aims to explore the market conditions that enable and encourage monopolistic behavior, specifically in the accounting and audit services sector. The big four auditing firms, as industry leaders, have been identified as creating monopolistic market conditions. The integrated literature review approach is used to explore the existing research on the topic. Findings indicate that there are three causes of monopolies in this sector: partner's compensation, revenue-generating purpose, and better auditing service and disclosure advice compared to other companies. The influence of the increasing prices in the audit industry and fraud are included in the work. The chapter contributes to the body of knowledge related to an understanding of how monopolies can occur, and how new ventures can seek to enter into competition with those firms.

Social Entrepreneurship

This chapter presents the fundamental elements related to the success factors of social organizations. The first step was bibliographic research on social entrepreneurship. This research established that social entrepreneurship improves the quality of life of vulnerable communities, which stands out for the social construction of products, services, and processes that allow social inclusion. Social entrepreneurship in Colombian companies has become a topic of analysis; however, it is still a developing area. The second step was to conduct a quantitative and descriptive investigation in the Colombian coffee region, specifically in the departments of Caldas, Risaralda, and Quindío. The sample distribution of the proportions determined the sample. The information was collected from non-profit companies. The results showed that the success factors are to offer quality services, to have committed human talent, and the adequate management of resources that the competitive advantage is the social need they satisfy, and the social benefit is the reduction of poverty.

From Displacement to Entrepreneurship

The violence that hits Colombia for more than 50 years forced many people, families, and communities to leave their original territories and seek refuge in the principal cities, especially in Bogotá, where displaced people from various regions of the country arrived. Victims of this situation, the Wounaan-Nonam community, were relocated in the periphery of Bogotá, under challenging conditions, some without the necessary infrastructure to live with a minimum quality of life standards, and in a completely different context and culture than the one they were used to live. This research seeks to help artisan women for developing production processes around Wérregue products. As a result, this community will improve their productivity, structure their organization, define marketing strategies, and promote their sustainability and growth while protecting and respect their cultural essence and heritage to generate higher and sustainable income for the artisans.

Open Collaborative Innovation at Colombia's National Spectrum Agency

This chapter describes the implementation of the Open Collaborative Innovation Program in Colombia's National Spectrum Agency (from Spanish, ANE). Six universities participated in the program. The model implemented was based on previous models developed by Ramírez-Salazar; Chesbrough; VanGudy; and Davila, Epstein, and Shelton (2008). The objective of the implementation was to propose solutions to reduce the number of complaints related to the illegal use of the spectrum in Colombia. The innovation challenge for universities was to find answers to solve the problem previously mentioned. Three solving teams were formed. Movimiento Espectral was the winning team with its solution called “Clausula de la Cultura.” The model was validated by ANE executives who deemed it adequate to conduct external projects that provide solutions to institutional challenges.

Values and Administrative Practices for Generations Associated With Organizational Innovation

Generational analysis and studies are a recent research trend that analyzes social, cultural, political, and economic changes within the framework of the digital revolution. In this work, an approach is made to the generational phenomena in the SMEs. The objective is to identify the correlations between entrepreneurship and management operations from the logic of individual values and the practices of SMEs managers and owners in Bogotá, from the Blackman model, according to their correspondence with the generational classification taking into account your date of birth. The sample is 383 entrepreneurs from Bogotá, and it was found that there are significant differences associated with generations in skills and abilities, risk management, honesty, responsibility, and work in the provision of services and facilities.

Chamber of Popular Micro-Businesses, Popular Brands, and Multi-Place Fairs

Monte Sinai is a town located in the northwest of the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, and has about 99,325 hectares. There are some signs that this population is in the process of being transformed into a satellite city, given the increasing number of startups and the formation of small markets to buy and sell raw materials. Also, extreme poverty has increased from 7.9% to 15% from 2010 to 2020. There are approximately 12,152 businesses: cyber shops (spaces for renting internet services by the hour or fraction thereof), grocery stores, canteens, pharmacies, bazaars, hairdressers, chicken restaurants, creative entertainment services, among others. This fact implies an economically active population of 34,584 (there are no rigorous statistics on the population), which means a possibility of a very varied supply at the retail level. The objective of this chapter is to propose a Chamber of Popular Entrepreneurs that will lead to the continuous creation of popular brands. For this goal, the authors analyze the Multiplazas Itinerant Fairs as a strategy for popular micro businesses.

Inventory Control and the Use of Technology in Businesses

This research explores the relationship that exists between inventory control and the use of technology. A survey was conducted in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico, covering 466 micro-companies. A logit analysis was used to calculate the probability for the micro-companies to implement formal inventory controls. The study found that using technology in micro-companies fosters formal inventory control. This chapter contributes to other management control studies which claim that technology might foster the use of formal inventory controls. Furthermore, this chapter aims to advise practitioners to adopt technology in their business as a way to facilitate the implementation of formal inventory controls.

Scope for Sustainability in the Fashion Industry Supply Chain

This chapter seeks to determine whether entrepreneurial technological innovation can mitigate the intrinsic contradiction between short-term fashion and the long-term fashion industry in the supply chain to achieve environmental, economic, and social sustainability. The current fashion industry is driven by the ephemeral nature of fashion and its associated wastes which are not very sustainable. Although literature has demonstrated that operations research can be used to reduce inventory wastes, whether emerging technologies can reformat the whole mode of production in the fashion industry to be more sustainable remains unknown. Through interviewing professionals who specialize in the three key stages in the supply chain, this chapter concludes that the transition to sustainability is possible if technology is not just regarded as a tool to reduce carbon emissions, but used to materialize the sustainable design philosophy and integrated into the sustainability rebranding process in the whole supply chain from beginning to end.

A Proposal for the Transformation of Fossil Fuel Energy Economies to Hydrogen Economies Through Social Entrepreneurship

The world is growing at an ever-increasing rate, but this growth has occurred alongside an energy model based on fossil fuels, which presents serious sustainability problems. The current study seeks to illustrate one of the new alternative energy schemes which could replace fossil fuels in the future: hydrogen. The promise of hydrogen fuel has led large nations to invest in transitioning their fossil fuel economies to a hydrogen-based model. This will result in significant social impacts, leading to the question, How should it be done? Social entrepreneurship can integrate socio-economic actors and agents and help them to devise and implement new forms of energy innovation, which will open spaces for new business models. The current study conceptualizes within a present-day context the connotations of the hydrogen economy at an international level, its implications to society, and its synergy with social entrepreneurship. The authors observed the rapid growth that these entrepreneurship initiatives are generating and how the models used to manage these undertakings play a vital role.