Nothing but good ownership makes long-lasting family companies. Yet, during our international consulting, research, and teaching engagements, we have encountered many ill-equipped next generation owners or owners-to-be, especially among women. We coined this phenomenon 'the daughters' inclusion challenge'. The Power of Inclusion in Family Business is a guide for grooming the next generation of responsible women owners, so they can thrive, achieve, and become leaders and wealth stewards in their multigenerational family businesses and family offices. We aspire to help enterprising families come across the power of including valuable women pertaining to the business-owning family in the family firm management, governance, ownership, and investment structures. In this book, outstanding global family business scholars and practitioners from 10 different countries, come together to serve a common purpose: provide novel insights, gender sensitive-consulting practices and culturally-adapted recommendations to advance the daughters' inclusion challenge and to shape a more inclusive family-in-business and family firm environment.

Unlike other economies, family businesses in China are greatly affected by the derived Confucian culture, excessive marketization, as well as the seemingly endless institutional supervision by a transitional Chinese government. China has a strong historical legacy, devoted to patriarchal values and strong family-centered traditions. This volume discusses the current status, upcoming challenges, and future prospects for family businesses in China. It explores unique organizational characteristics that are associated with Chinese family firms, such as being entrepreneurial, having concentrated power in the hands of the family business owners, and extensive family and semi-family involvement in the business. It also discusses shared features of strategic actions among Chinese family firms that include technology innovations, diversification, and internationalization, as well as the political connections that Chinese family firms often have. This book offers researchers a comprehensive overview of small family firms that are likely to be home-based microenterprises as well as large publicly traded business groups that are frequently owned by business families.

An examination of how small firms in developing countries acquire technological capability, the knowledge and skills required to operate technology effectively, and the ability to adapt it to local conditions. It aims to fill a gap in the established literature on technological capability, which has neglected the small scale sector in spite of the important role it plays in employment generation. The author develops a methodology for a quantitative assessment of the learning process, using case material from the small scale capital goods sector in Pakistan's Punjab Province.

This book is a collection of the up-to-date experience and knowledge about the implementation of sustainable business excellence in a particular context of SMEs. The book uses empirical and practical approach to tackle this issue, which is underdeveloped in the literature. Hence, it could constitute a relevant reference for SMEs managers seeking to manage their operations sustainably, efficiently and resiliently. The book also integrates the smart component to the sustainable business excellence and proves for those who are still skeptical that SMEs could benefit from smart and digital technology in the favor of sustainability and business excellence. Overall, we build on successful initiatives we experienced in real life to guide SMEs in order to be sustainable smart and resilient in the post COVID context which is highly demanding in terms of business excellence and efficiency.

Offers concrete ways to navigate the uncertainty of freelancing to build a life that is financially and emotionally rewarding. In The Freelance Mindset we discover our illusions about the way we work are just that--stories we make up, or, worse, stories that were made up for us. The current way of work is, in fact, not working for us, but there is another path forward: one that leverages our innate creativity and human need to make a living. Readers here discover what pulls us toward freelancing, develop tools to meet its challenges, and realize that we can succeed as either freelancers or traditional employees. What we cannot do is go back to seeing the world in the limited nine-to-five way we once did. Author Joy Batra compares traditional employment with the freelance lifestyle and keenly observes the gaps between the two. She shares concrete ways to help current and future freelancers navigate the uncertainty of freelancing in order to build a life that is both financially and emotionally rewarding.

This book identifies the potential of intellectual property as a competitive asset for Latin American firms. The authors employ a cognitive approach that involves identifying why small firms are reluctant to register patents, resorting rather to alternative IP competitive strategies. This, in turn, results in the undercapitalization of intellectual assets, thus creating hurdles for the development of capital venture markets. Using new data gathered from highly innovative SMEs in Latin America and the Caribbean, the authors bring a fresh cognitive approach towards understanding the institutional role of intellectual property, and outline various new policy recommendations.

The current trend towards globalization is posing a substantial challenge to SME clusters to restructure and reach out to distant markets and knowledge sources, while at the same time exploiting the advantages of local factors and agglomeration. This book represents a first attempt to analyze these issues in detail, employing novel empirical evidence. The authors focus on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Italy and Taiwan, two countries in which these businesses characterize the national industrial structure. They find that in the current climate of globalization, there is no best practice model for organizing an industrial cluster since a diversity of successful institutional arrangements is possible. They demonstrate that over time SME clusters can evolve and that globalization can reshape their upgrading options by providing a variety of international knowledge linkages. Thus, the authors conclude that the development of local and global networks and new interactive modes of knowledge creation, which have co-evolved as a result of globalization, have provided the necessary conditions for competitive survival. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, the authors utilize a number of analytical tools to evaluate their survey data and present an original comparison between the experiences of two countries that are facing the challenges of globalization, often with differing strategies. This book will be of great interest to industrial and international economists, policymakers, and corporate and SME managers.

This book will help small business owners and marketers feel comfortable using social media to promote their businesses, regardless of their past experiences or level of expertise. Social networking plus small business is a slam dunk! Small Business Smarts: Building Buzz with Social Media explains why that's so and helps small business owners decide whether social media tools are right for them. Assuming the answer is yes, the book offers concrete advice and implementation suggestions that make using tools to start building word-of-mouth quick and easy. Built around actual success stories from small businesses, such as the Roger Smith Hotel, Dutch Bros. Coffee, Cafe Yumm, and the Tattered Cover Bookstore, the book illustrates how different social media can help achieve different business goals, how the Internet can be used to "listen" to customers, how networks and relationships are built online for both B2C and B2B, and how effective messages can generate awareness and attract customers. Measurement strategies and techniques for a social media audit are included. For the complete novice, step-by-step instructions on getting started with popular social media applications are provided as well. Interviews with 25 small business owners and marketers detailing how they are using social media successfully right now An evaluation tool and example spreadsheets for conducting a social media audit Call-outs that show how different types of businesses can implement various marketing ideas Action-item tips that can be used in online messaging today

The current trend towards globalization is posing a substantial challenge to SME clusters to restructure and reach out to distant markets and knowledge sources, while at the same time exploiting the advantages of local factors and agglomeration. This book represents a first attempt to analyze these issues in detail, employing novel empirical evidence. The authors focus on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Italy and Taiwan, two countries in which these businesses characterize the national industrial structure. They find that in the current climate of globalization, there is no best practice model for organizing an industrial cluster since a diversity of successful institutional arrangements is possible. They demonstrate that over time SME clusters can evolve and that globalization can reshape their upgrading options by providing a variety of international knowledge linkages. Thus, the authors conclude that the development of local and global networks and new interactive modes of knowledge creation, which have co-evolved as a result of globalization, have provided the necessary conditions for competitive survival. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, the authors utilize a number of analytical tools to evaluate their survey data and present an original comparison between the experiences of two countries that are facing the challenges of globalization, often with differing strategies. This book will be of great interest to industrial and international economists, policymakers, and corporate and SME managers.

How do I know if my idea will work?How do I decide on the business model?How do I find my audience?

Your digital business start-up journey begins here.

From the bestselling author of "The Small Business Start-up Workbook," Cheryl Rickman brings you a thoroughly practical guide to starting up a digital business, covering the full journey from idea to exit, with easy-to-implement strategies to make your online venture an ongoing success. With a combination of tips, exercises, checklists, anecdotes, case studies and lessons learned by business leaders, this workbook will guide you through each step of digital business.

Learn how to:

- Assess whether your business idea will work online/digitally- Choose the right business model for your proposition and avoid wasting time- Assess demand, viability and uncover untapped needs and gaps in the market- Build a usable, engaging website and mobile app- Create a buzz using social networking- Drive high quality traffic to your site and convert visitors into paying customers- Use search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing (SEM) tools effectively- Raise finance and protect your business- Build and maintain a strong brand- Recruit and retain a strong team- Sell the business or find a suitable successor.

Reviews for the book:

" "If you want advice on starting your own internet business, don't ask me, read this book instead. It is more up-to-date and costs far less than a good lunch." "Nick Jenkins, Founder of Moonpig.com""

""This book excels in providing practical guidance on how to create a successful digital business which exceeds customer expectations and keeps customers happy each step of the way." "Scott Weavers-Wright, CEO of Kiddicare.com, and MD of Morrison.com (non-food)""If you read just one book on digital business, make it this one... It is inspirational, informative and interactive in equal measure. Highly recommended " "Rowan Gormley, Founder and CEO of NakedWines.com

""Interspersed with inspiring and useful stories from successful entrepreneurs, this book can help aspiring business owners through a step-by-step process of refining their start-up ideas and building a solid business." "Elizabeth Varley, Founder and CEO of TechHub

Lawrence W. Tuller pens an invaluable resource for business owners or buyers looking for accurate small business appraisals. How much a small business is worth can be difficult to determine, but when a business is about to change hands, a fair and objective valuation is crucial to the sale. This completely revised and updated book outlines the major valuation methods, including discounted cash flow, excess earnings, asset value, and income capitalization. This edition includes completely new material on the following topics: exploring the 8 myths of business valuations; using the Internet for research; and advice on startups and first generation service businesses. With this book, appraising a business has never been easier-or more accurate!

Typically, business tenets advise: never go into business with your family. This book proposes that this discrepancy may actually be at the core of modern problems: social harm and environmental problems are largely related to advancements focused on current dualistic metaphors that value only the business dimension and devalue the family. This book aims to offer an alternative viewpoint, by discussing how core beliefs linked to various metaphors change the way we conduct and perform in our lives and businesses, so that the reader can practice sustainable methods, which also includes the family. Situating family businesses as the primordial way of social organizing, chapters explore definitions of organizational symbolism, metaphors, and archetypes in order to guide readers and change the way we consider the family role within business and the economy.