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.

This exciting new book provides the 'big picture' on small business and entrepreneurship. Written by two recognised experts, active teachers and researchers at one of the world's most respected business schools, it explores both the prevalence and importance of small and start-up businesses. Entrepreneurs and small businesses are highly diverse, so the book looks to apply broad brush strokes to learn from general patterns where possible. It identifies evidence where it is clear, but equally acknowledges where knowledge is limited or certain conclusions are impossible to draw. Perhaps most importantly, it makes clear that small businesses are not just scaled-down big businesses: they behave, respond, and are organised differently to large organisations. For Students: Financial Times video interviews with entrepreneurs and small business owners, weblinks to organisations cited in the book, flashcard glossary to help with revision. For Instructors:instructor manual, PowerPoint slides.

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 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.

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

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.

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!

Sport Startups: New Advances in Entrepreneurship examines the global growth of startup enterprises in the sports sector and addresses how they contribute to new developments in business innovation and entrepreneurship. Highlighting the unique challenges faced by startups in this sector, Vanessa Ratten explores approaches to business model development, branding and marketing, and the utilization of new technologies to build successful enterprises, underpinning her study with a clear theoretical framework rooted in institutional theory. Sport Startups is one of the first books to specifically focus on the role of startups in sport. Analyzing the inherent start-up aspect of the sporting sector, due to the combination of profit and non-profit ties, which means that many sport enterprises are developed as new start-up business ventures as they link in with the community. The book foregrounds how startups in sport are vital in developing a better global society that emphasizes the role of health and fitness in communities. Sport Startups will be illuminating reading for all scholars of innovation, entrepreneurship, sports management and business studies.

Tourism microentrepreneurship is defined as the process of launching a new, or adding value to an existing, enterprise with no more than five employees, providing tourism experiences, food, lodging or transportation, with the aim to support the owner's livelihood and desired lifestyle. Volume 12 of Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice provides an overview of emerging scholarship and best practices on the development and integration of tourism microentrepreneurship in destination stewardship. Tourists have been breaking out of staged tourism enclaves for many decades, but only recently have information technologies empowered: a) tourists with information about destinations and supply, and b) entrepreneurial hosts with marketplaces. Tourism microentrepreneurs' business activity is often informal and fluid, therefore, they have only recently become a visible and increasingly influential stakeholder group. As a result, they are not yet well studied, and practitioners struggle to support and integrate them into destination stewardship. Nevertheless, emerging evidence suggests that fuelling tourism microentrepreneurship and its integration in destination systems can generate added benefits to the host populations while making the destination more competitive and unique. Conversely, there is evidence that when left unbridled, tourism microentrepreneurship can erode the local character of neighborhoods and hurt the image of an entire destination. Tourism Microentrepreneurship shares scholarship and best practices to educate practitioners and to encourage more research on the development of microentrepreneurship and its impact on destination communities.

Are Small Firms Important? Their Role and Impact proposes and supports the claim that small firms make two indispensable contributions to the economy. First, they are an integral part of the renewal process that pervades market economies. New and small firms play a crucial role in experimentation and innovation that leads to technological change, productivity and economic growth. Second, small firms are the essential mechanism by which millions enter the economic and social mainstream of American society. The public policy implications for sustained economic growth and social well-being is the continued high-level creation of new and small firms by all segments of society. It should be the role of government policy to facilitate that process by eliminating entry barriers, lowering transaction costs, and minimizing regulation.

This open access book explores the experience of working as a craftsperson or designer maker in the contemporary creative economy. The authors utilise evidence from the only major empirical study to explore the skills required and the challenges facing contemporary makers in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Drawing upon 180 interviews with peak organisations, established and emerging makers, and four years of fieldwork across Australia, this book offers a unique insight into the motivations informing those who seek to make an income from their craft or designer maker practice, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing them as they do so at this time of renewed interest internationally in the artisanal and handmade. Offering a rich and deep collection of real-life experiences, this book is aimed both at an academic and practitioner audience.

INCREASE THE LIFE SPAN OF YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

The average small business has a life span of about five years, and inadequate internal controls are the main cause of failure. Cyber fraud, the leading culprit today in internal criminal activity, occurs when advanced technologies are used to steal money or property. The majority of such crimes occur in-house, and the lack of sufficient capital and technological resources committed to protecting company assets makes small businesses especially vulnerable. Awareness of the dangers of internal theft by computer, illegal access to information systems, credit card fraud, and Internet scams is integral–especially as auditors, business owners, and managers are increasingly held responsible for negligence.

Providing critical guidance on what auditors and businesses can do to better prevent and detect the growing number of occurrences of cyber fraud, the information in this one-of-a-kind manual:

• Protects outside auditors by supplying the knowledge to ensure they meet their responsibilities
• Protects small business owners by providing them with the necessary tools to meet due diligence requirements in cyber fraud prevention
• Focuses on the key areas of vulnerability

Take the first step in protecting your company–and your future–with Avoiding Cyber Fraud in Small Businesses, the only book committed to helping you keep your small business free of computer crime.

'This is exactly the kind of book, and collection of essays that we need.' - From the Foreword by R. Edward Freeman Ideas like corporate social responsibility (CSR) and stakeholder value creation are becoming second nature to businesses across the globe. Addressing the weakness of current CSR research, this Research Handbook provides a unique perspective on small business social responsibility in both the developed and developing world. Bringing together leading international experts, and including a foreword by R. Edward Freeman, this Research Handbook defines and contextualizes CSR in small businesses across the globe. It explores issues surrounding supply chains, responsible finance, and social enterprise, offering both practitioner insights and succinct case studies to go beyond the usual Western perspective and enable a globally relevant understanding of small business social responsibility. This Research Handbook will be an invaluable tool for researchers and educators, as well as for students of business and CSR, social enterprise, development and management. Contributors: A. Al Faruq, C. Ball, M. Beckmann, E. Benjamin, R.K. Blundel, G. Buchenrieder, D. Dore, R.E. Freeman, J.G. Frynas, R. Gapp, M. Gulati, M. Handley-Schachler, B. Hatipoglu, N. Hermes, P. Hind, D. Holt, S. Jeppesen, R. Lensink, D. Littlewood, P. Lund-Thomsen, F. Lyon, E. Maduekwe, A. Meesters, J.N. Muthuri, J. Navare, I. Patsch, M. Punt, S. Sahasranamam, R. Sanwal, A. Schaefer, A. Smit, V. Soundararajan, L.J. Spence, H. Stewart, S. Suresh, A.N. Tran, D. Vazquez-Brust, A.I. Wahga, A. Zeyen

This book responds to the growing demand for a scientific approach to the concept of startups, which are a manifestation of the digital revolution and an innovation-driven economy. With a focus on digital enterprises, the author presents empirical research carried out over 4 years in collaboration with the Startup Poland Foundation, and provides a developed universal definition of a startup. This book highlights the necessity of a clear definition, in order for startups to be treated as a permanent economic phenomenon, rather than a temporary whim. Addressing the crucial need for an effective startup management methodology and more education on this form of entrepreneurship, Digital Startups in Transition Economies offers guidance for those researching entrepreneurship and innovation, as well as entrepreneurs, public institutions, startup accelerators and technology transfer centres.