Screening Practices of New Business Incubators: The Evaluation of Critical Success Factors

New firms are an important mechanism through which new jobs are created. However, the new venture failure rate is greater than the rate of creation. Business incubators have been organized to bring new businesses together to increase the probability of success. Incubators do not guarantee success; however, evaluating potential clients on Critical Success Factors can minimize failures once the firm joins an incubator. This research investigates the screening practices of incubators and identifies unique groups of incubators. The screening practices were found to relate to sponsorship but not to physical characteristics or objectives.

“Who is an Entrepreneur?” Is a Question Worth Asking

This paper is a response to Gartner's critique of definitions posited by Carland, Hoy, Boulton and Carland (1984) for “entrepreneur” and “small business owner.” The paper concludes that both trait and behavioral approaches to research are necessary in order to understand the concept of entrepreneurship.

Toward a Theory of Small Firm Performance: A Conceptual Model

A conceptual model of small firm performance is developed based on extant theory in strategy, entrepreneurship and organization theory. It provides a framework for the study of the interrelationships among entrepreneurial characteristics, contextual factors and performance outcomes. It is considered a first step toward a limited domain theory of small firm performance.

“Who Is an Entrepreneur?” Is the Wrong Question

Entrepreneurship is the creation of organizations. What differentiates entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs is that entrepreneurs create organizations, while non-entrepreneurs do not. In behavioral approaches to the study of entrepreneurship an entrepreneur is seen as a set of activities involved in organization creation, while in trait approaches an entrepreneur is a set of personality traits and characteristics. This paper argues that trait approaches have been unfruitful and that behavioral approaches will be a more productive perspective for future research in entrepreneurship.

Validation of an Innovative Teaching Approach for Entrepreneurship Courses

Don Sexton and Nancy Bowman-Upton's excellent article represents the first of a series of different authors on the general topic of teaching entrepreneurship. The series on teaching entrepreneurship is focused on what to teach students and particularly, how to teach it. Future coverage can include other areas besides undergraduate and graduate teaching, assuming papers of high quality are forthcoming. Our intent is to expedite the review process, so if you have a paper on teaching entrepreneurship, I can promise you a timely response.

Power, Conflict and Satisfaction: Perceptions of Shopping Center Based Small Retailers

With shopping centers capturing an increasing share of the consumer dollar, many small retailers have located in these complexes. In so doing, they agree to operate within a elaborate set of regulations which prescribe many merchandising practices and which are enforced by the shopping center manager. This paper deals with the satisfaction of small retailers with these arrangements and the extent of conflict they experience with the center manager. Several variables are examined to determine their ability to predict these conflict and satisfaction levels.

Using Subjective Evaluations of Organizational Performance in Small Business Research

Frequently small business researchers cannot obtain accurate objective information on organizational performance. However, an important research study of 26 large firms completed by Dess and Robinson (1984) has suggested that researchers can, in certain instances, use subjective evaluations of organizational performance when accurate objective measures are unavailable. The present study of 34 small firms was designed to partially replicate and to extend the Dess and Robinson study. However, none of the significant correlations in the Dess and Robinson study were replicated in the present study. Reasons for these discrepancies are discussed within the context of developing a set of guidelines for using subjective evaluations in small business research.

A Comparison of Women in Small and Large Companies

Survey results from 177 female managers indicate that there is very little difference between those employed by small firms (less than 100 employees) and those employed by larger firms. This study indentified only four areas of difference between the groups. Most biographical and job-related data examined were not significantly different for both groups, and both groups wanted essentially the same rewards from their jobs.