Entrepreneurship & Organization Management

Entrepreneurial service firms continuously seek new opportunities, trying to integrate identified opportunities as part of their service portfolio. Successful implementation of new opportunities requires effective management of human resources and development of competences required in these firms. The concept of resource orchestration offers a theoretical framework for strategic human resource management in entrepreneurial firms. However, there is limited research on how the firms orchestrate their human resources in the process of implementation of entrepreneurial opportunities. This paper is a case study of five small technology service firms. The paper examines how the case firms have managed and developed their human resources while implementing new business opportunities and how they have adopted the concept of resource orchestration. Results of this study show that the importance of different subprocesses of resource orchestration varies among small service firms and that often several sub-processes must be managed simultaneously. Successful implementation of new business opportunities requires good managerial abilities and is connected to the sub-processes of resource orchestration. Based on the findings of the study, this paper proposes a revised model for human resource orchestration for the process of entrepreneurial opportunity implementation.

Based on our research, the most difficult elements were risk management and change management, and since unexpected change is a risk, we will discuss both as one. The balanced scorecard is one of the performance management tools we will utilize to elaborate our proposition, the scorecard and its content cannot be considered as static objects: they must be upheld and updated to remain applicable and useful for the organization. Two events can be recognized that activate deviations in the scorecard and the metric selection: The scorecard does not anymore support the control of all or part of the business, since during performance review sessions it can seem that business areas or current or new challenges are not considered in the scorecard. Then additional requirements are articulated for the next version of the scorecard.

The papers discusses the effect of demography on world communication, the effect of Food on world security, the effect of the natural environment on food supplies, the effect of energy supplies on world security and finally the effect of technology on the natural environment. In the spirit of full disclosure, the author of the paper would like to confess that he is a bit of a pessimist and this will be reflected in his writing. Nature is cyclical and since humans are part of nature, we also behave in a cyclical fashion; we make extreme, shortsighted, and self-serving decisions only to realize that we were wrong and spend much more time and resources fixing the mistake than it took to make it in the first place. Therefore, excuse us if this seems to be a recurrent theme throughout the paper.

Each year, many entrepreneurial, growing, and developing companies contemplate international enlargement as a marketing and growth strategy. When developing a strategic blueprint to launch an international business program, developing companies and their consultants must always ponder the potential barriers and modifications they might need to make to their products and services. In this paper, we put forward four analysis tools, which can help companies minimize any negative impact.

The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) environment in India has undergone a drastic change since the economic reforms in 1991. The positive changes can be particularly attributed to the evolving policy framework. The main thrust of the financial sector reforms has been the creation of efficient and stable financial institutions and development of the markets, especially the money and government securities market. Indian banks going global and many global banks setting up shops in India, the Indian banking system is set to involve into a totally new level it will help the banking system grow in strength going into the future. India offers attractive investment opportunities for foreign companies and has adopted a number of policies to attract foreign direct investment into the country and the country seems to offer perhaps one of the most liberal FDI regimes in Asia. It’s even reviewed that the investment climate has not improved in India as a result of lack of good governance, corruption, political instability and disturbance, bureaucratic inertia, and poor law and order situation. Indian government incentives to foreign investors, particularly Special Economic Zones, the Indian regulatory environment as it affects investment, and the effect of India’s global, regional, and bilateral trade agreements on investment from the United States and other countries.

E-Government success is associated with various factors. This paper is concerned with exploring such factors and investigating, through a survey, how e-government professionals view them, as this would help finding ways for the future promotion of e-government success. The work identifies “35” success factors associated with seven levels including: “the international level, the national level, the sector level, the organization level, the requirements level, the services level, and the user level”. The survey asks e-government professionals to assess each factor from the viewpoints of importance and current state or impact. This assessment has six grades starting from “no” importance or impact and moving up to: “low, below average, average, above average, and high”. “88” Saudi e-government professionals participated in the survey. The results obtained show that the importance of most success factors considered has been above average or close to “high”, except for few which were slightly less. The results also emphasized the gap between importance and current state or impact for each factor. This gap ranged from “40%” to over “80%”. The work provides useful knowledge for the future development of e-government. It is an example of a knowledge sharing exercise that should become a normal practice for the purpose of achieving development based on collective wisdom. This practice can be expanded to include users for whom the services are provided.

Purpose: The basic intention behind this article is to find that how legal bindings and financial developments sector influence the capital structure of micro finance institutions.

Design/methodology/approach: Panel data of 87 countries is used in the analysis from 2004 to 2013 with annual frequency. Random effect is used after Hausman specification.

Findings: Result shows that good and prudential legal tradition, may pave way for foreign investments by gaining trust and in this way economic development of country move towards progress. But one variable (depth of credit information) shows inverse relationship with leverage. This is because some time when MFIs fully disclose their financial structures and terms and conditions, they fail to get the investors’ confidence because of gap between investors and MFIs interests.

Originality/value: We found limited research work which has been carried out to answer the question that how capital structure respond to the legal traditions and geographical bindings of country.

The business environment is changing. In the past, just selling products proved to be sufficient. Internationalization, decreasing revenues and technological competition are forcing companies to rethink their products and thus their business models. Today’s technological products offer new functionalities and therefore potential for services. However, more and more electronics and information technology is required. Consequently, the understanding of value creation is changing and accordingly traditional value chains have to be extended to meet these demands. Nevertheless, the extended value chain can help companies in developing proper business models; allow for a differentiation from competitive companies and for the identification of required competences. Shape memory actuator systems are good examples to illustrate these issues. This paper starts by shortly defining products, services and industrial productservice systems. Additionally, an overview about existing services in mechanical engineering is given and compared to services in general. The attention is then drawn to shape memory actuators in that their possible and existing services over their lifetime are discussed. Based on this, an integrated value chain for shape memory actuator systems is created which considers traditional value-added steps for products as well as new steps due to changing technology and the increasing importance of service. In relation to this, existing business models for shape memory actuator systems are analyzed and hypotheses for future business models are developed. For these hypotheses, opportunities and challenges as well as necessary competencies within this integrated value chain are highlighted. In this context, especially features of small and medium-sized companies are taken into account. Further studies should be performed to investigate shape memory applications regarding its value chain and its potentials for services. Moreover, value chains in combination with services as well as technology in general should be analyzed. Especially small and mediumsized companies are excellent examples to illustrate the developed business models.

Study background: While the strategic advantage of Medical Value (MV) products is widely accepted in developed markets, it remains unclear if varying societal wealth influences the perception of customers on MV products.

Methods: 231 of 240 Internal Medicine physicians from 8 countries participated in a survey with 5 multiple choice questions on MV. Responses from countries have been allocated to income levels according to world-bank data. Three groups have been defined (high-income countries: Canada, Norway and Switzerland=developed markets, upper-mid income markets: Argentina, China, Mexico and Turkey, lower-mid income counties: India=emerging markets). Answers have been statistically analyzed in subgroups (emerging markets vs. developed markets).

Results: The majority of physicians believed that reliable and clinically validated treatment algorithms should accompany a product qualifying for MV. Algorithms should be created, predominantly for existing markers. Emphasis has been given to the discovery of better markers for well-known diseases in developed markets. Physicians` answers on pivotal factors for MV products yielded highest emphasis for generalizability (global technical standardization and data comparability). Technical excellence was given lower priority in developed markets comparing to emerging markets. Cost control was emphasized mainly in high-income markets.

Conclusion: Both developed and emerging markets demand more clinical trials to establish algorithms for diagnostic tests. The prove of clinical utility is a pivotal factor for sustainable business success.

Finance is an important input for an industry. For a small scale industry the need for finance is very essential due to its limited resources. The sources of finance for small scale industries are of two types-internal and external. The role of commercial banks in the process of economic development is well recognized. The year 1969 was a major turning point in Indian financial systems when 14 major banks were nationalized. Different national and state level institutions operating in the country for meeting the credit requirements of the SSIs sector include Small Industries Development Bank of India, Commercial Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Co-operative Banks (State, Central and Primary), State Financial Corporations/ State Industrial Investment Corporations, State Small Industries Development Corporation, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, statutory bodies (KVIC, COIR Board, Handloom Board and Handicraft Boards), National Small Industries Corporations Limited and the like. The State bank of India lending to the small-scale industries in Theni district, compared to the public sector and the priority sector lending. The trend values showed that the target has increased faster than the actual amount of advances. The recovery rate of the SSI advances is a maximum of 69% in Theni district.