Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Entrepreneur and business start-ups'

Bakgrund

Entreprenörer som startar nya företag kommer troligtvis att behöva antingen kapital, eller kompetens i hur ett företag drivs, men mest sannolikt är att de behöver både och. Affärs-änglar är individer som investerar sina privata pengar mestadels i företag som befinner sig i en utvecklingsfas eller en tidig tillväxtfas. Affärsänglar kan också bidra med icke-finansiella resurser till företag såsom kompetens, färdigheter, kunskap och erfarenhet.

Problem/Syfte

Vad kan entreprenörer som är i behov av både kapital och kompetens göra för att hitta den ”rätta” affärsängeln, hur kan entreprenören attrahera denna, samt vilka faktorer är avgö-rande för att en arbetsrelation med en affärsängel ska bli lyckad? Syftet med denna uppsats är att utifrån entreprenören som investeringsobjekt så väl som kapitalsökare, beskriva olika faktorer som entreprenörer kan beakta för att öka sina möjligheter till att inleda och genomföra ett lyckat samarbete med en affärsängel.

Slutsats

Vi fann ett antal faktorer som kan påverka utgången av en arbetsrelation med en affärsäng-el. Dessa är den personliga relationen, att entreprenörens behov stämmer överens med vad affärsängeln kan erbjuda, överensstämmande avsikter, och ett väl genomarbetat aktieägar-avtal.

Background

Entrepreneurs who start a new venture will probably need either capital, or competence in how to run a business, but most likely they need them both. Business angels are individuals who invest their private money in companies in a start-up or early growth phase. Business angels can also contribute non-financial resources to companies such as competence, skills, knowledge and experience.

Problem/Purpose

What can entrepreneurs who are in need of both capital and competence do to find the “right” business angel, how can they attract these investors, and which factors are decisive for a successful working relationship with a business angel? The purpose of this thesis is, with a starting point in the entrepreneur as an investment project and capital seeker, to de-scribe a number of factors entrepreneurs can consider in order to increase their possibilities in initiating and carrying out a successful working relationship with a business angel.

Conclusion

The authors found a number of factors affecting the outcome of a working relationship with a business angel. These are the personal relationship, a match between the entrepre-neur’s needs and the business angel’s competence, an agreed agenda, and a thoroughly worked out shareholder agreement.

There is no reason to refuse the fact that, in the coming years, Europe is going to face a new wave of immigration. The birth rate is in decline and life expectancy in the European continent is higher than before. As a consequence, there are two major problems: a shortage of labour and the financing of the pensions (Kohler, Billari & Ortega, 2002). World Bank warns European Union that for stabilizing the amount of working age population in 2050 like in 1995, would involve a net migration of 79 million within the EU25. There should be new flow of immigration. As a consequence, the phenomenon combines immigration and entrepreneurship will be vital for countries’ future growth within Europe. However, consider Sweden as the area of study by combining the immigration entrepreneurship study and business start-up abroad. Therefore, the questions of why the entrepreneurs choose to go to other countries for business venture and why they choose Sweden as the host country become a topic to study in this research paper.

The purpose of the research is going to find out the motivations for the initiative of entrepreneurial immigrants’ choice of Sweden as a host country. In order to find the result for the purpose, the research chose to use an inductive and exploratory approach to find out why those entrepreneurial immigrants indented to come to establish business in Sweden. Those reasons were investigated from previous research; experts working with foreigners who arrived in Sweden for business purpose, and the entrepreneurial immigrants who arrived in Sweden for new ventures. The data collection based on a qualitative method. According to the research purpose, the theories were chosen in the field of migration and entrepreneurship. Determinants of immigration and entrepreneurship were listed and explained. Based on the interview, information was categorized with the determinants listed in the theoretical frame work.

Based on the analysis, the empirical information shows that entrepreneurs came to Sweden not only for business reasons. All of the Local Development Managers and entrepreneurs interviewed considered that entrepreneurial immigrants chose to create business in Sweden with immigration purpose. However, if we want to apply this result to all entrepreneurial immigrants, further quantitative study would be required.

Previous entrepreneurship research has shown that networks are of great importance when discovering and exploiting business opportunities, i.e. in the start up process of new venture (e.g. Davidsson and Honig 2003; Evald, Klyver, and Svendsen 2006; Klyver, Hindle, and Meyer forthcoming). The value of a network is referred to as social capital, which refers to the amount of resources, both tangible and intangible, that an entrepreneur or entrepreneuse might have access to through the members of their network (Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998). Social capital is the product of social interactions (Anderson et al. 2007), implying that a person’s social abilities, i.e. social competence, can influence the creation of social capital (Baron and Markman 2000, 2003). Social capital the factor that helps the entrepreneur “get through the door”, while the entrepreneur’s social abilities determine the outcome of that interaction (Baron and Markman 2000:107). The focus of this study is, thus, to explore whether entrepreneurs and entrepreneuses utilize different types of the social capital in the process of starting a new venture and whether they perceive social competence to have an influential role in this process.

The theoretical framework consist of three main theoretical areas; social capital, social competence, and psychological gender. The first part is based on Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s (1998) model of social capital and describes theories explaining factors influence social capital embedded within a person’s network relationships. The second part covers social competence and the abilities that constitute this concept. Further, five dimensions are identified as comprising social competence, i.e. social astuteness, interpersonal influence, networking ability, apparent sincerity, and social manipulation (Baron and Markman 2000, 2003; Hoehn-Weiss et al. 2004; Ferris et al. 2005, 2007; Riggio 1986). The last part discusses whether there might exist differences between entrepreneurs and entrepreneuses regarding their behaviours and their psychological gender (Bem 1974, 1975, 1977; Spence et al. 1975).

The research design show similarities with both an inductive and a deductive approach, with a focus on the induction since little research within the entrepreneurship field has combined the different topics comprising the scope of this study. Further, this implies qualitative research methods and the empirical data was collect through conducting 14 semi structured interviews with entrepreneurs and entrepreneuses as well as through a questionnaire aiming at determine the respondents’ psychological gender.

The results of the present study indicate that entrepreneurs and entrepreneuses utilize different the types of social capital in the stages of the start up phase. Further, the study show that social competence plays and important role in the start up process and that there is a circular relation between social capital and social competence. Moreover, the results of the study indicate that male and female entrepreneurs behave differently in the start up phase and that their perceptions about and usage of their social competence might differ.

Almost everyday we can read about or listen to the radio the creation of a new company, which is of course successfull and just started several months ago. One succeed but for how many other failures. In our everyday life we only know the companies which exist. We never consider all the high number of companies that have failed. In addition to that, by analyzing some cases, we can notice that some"good"companies, with good team, good concept can failed too. In order to understand the views that exist, one needs to elucidate this problem. The early stage of a new-created company is the most important phase of the firm´s life, according to the fact that it will determine the evolution of its whole structure, and therefore will deeply affect its future. All the more so a firm in order to be successful must be able to growth in the long run. With this thesis, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of the key- success factors ofyoung companies. Therefore we will try to clarify issues concerning this early stage. In particular we will highlight and describe that the early development in a firm is a very important phase in its life. And to determine which factors must be take in consideration in order to avoid future difficulties.

Relationships of entrepreneur vary automatically over time; however, entrepreneurs themselves are the ones who create relationships. This process requires self-motivated action in order to gain good relationships and trusts. In this research, the particular ways that entrepreneurs use to create relationships with customers, suppliers and financial institutions follow each step of interest, commitment, adaptation and trust. The authors find that entrepreneurs use both similar and different methods in each stage depending on type and size of their business. In addition, we examine how organizations supporting entrepreneurs to start business influence the networking of entrepreneurs. The authors select Idélab as our case study. During joining Idélab’s activities, the attendants would gain more relationships from both inside and outside of Idélab which are apart from their backgrounds and experiences. Therefore, the entrepreneurs attending Idélab reach more relationships than entrepreneurs who do not.

Digital presentation

Background: The inflow of immigrants in Sweden is not a new phenomenon. Over the years this country has harbored hundreds and thousands of immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers on its soil. However, due to economical problems faced by Sweden during the last decade, the labor market is not unable to produce adequate jobs. Due to this amongst other consequences, immigrants in Sweden have started establishing their own small businesses which they are handling quite successfully till date.

Problem discussion: In this thesis we are trying to unveil some of the situations and obstacles of immigrants’ businesses particularly in Sweden. We felt that there are not many studies done today in connection to immigrant business in Sweden though it could be one of the most burning topics in the research field. There is plenty of literature covering the international situation of immigrant business but it is difficult to find in Swedish contexts. The objectives are to know why they perform, how they perform and what they perform, and also to find out if there is sufficient support available to them from local to central level and from ethnic to private institutions.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore and explain why immigrants start their own small business in Sweden.

Method: To perform this study and to gather appropriate information pertaining to immigrant small business, we have conducted 14 interviews, out of which 8 were immigrants (4 new and 4 old immigrants business houses) and 6 were from different organizations (both represented by government and private organizations). They help immigrants to start their business in Sweden. Finally, we have prepared a model based on immigrants’ business network and the situation.

Results: The results of our findings show that the main reason for immigrants starting their own business is because of scarcity of specific jobs (matching their qualification and experiences) in the Swedish labor market and immigrants being ambitious to making money and wanting to be self sufficient and not to stay un-employed for longer period of time. The network connected to the immigrants is very important in order to start their own business, both for success and establishment. Again, support from friends, family and relatives are the critical point of departure for their business establishment.