Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.), Franklin University, 2022, Business Administration

The practical sense of business in female entrepreneurship as it relates to the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic creative behaviors of female entrepreneurs working in the United States is the main focus of this study. The field of female entrepreneurship is growing with the participation of women with or without full-time jobs in standard employment, with or without formal business education, and with or without equal access to financial resources compared to their male counterparts. This study aims to capture the definition of success and how female entrepreneurs perceive success. Utilizing convenience sampling, this qualitative study conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 successful female entrepreneurs in a major Midwest metropolitan area. With dual roles in work and family, the female entrepreneurs engage in a role of chaotic business management and self-branding with a quest for work/life balance. Their pursuit of a lifestyle business brings about a direction of working within an area of great interest, commonly called a passion. This passion allows for exploring what the female entrepreneur enjoys and a quest to produce a profit from that inspiration. Emergent themes resulting from this study are definitions of success, pandemic challenges, entrepreneurial credibility, social networking, business investment, brand management, creativity, innovation, profit design, and authentic leadership. One core result of this qualitative study is a theory called female entrepreneurial design. The female entrepreneur creates an organizational life unique to her personal style and business brand through personal self-care and professional investment.

Committee: Kenneth Knox (Committee Chair); Bora Pajo (Committee Member); Timothy Reymann (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Business Community; Business Education; Communication; Design; Educational Leadership; Entrepreneurship; Management; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior; Social Research; Systems Design; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Economics

Wealth inequality has always been part of American life, but not until recently has it risen to a level not seen since the Great Depression. In this dissertation, I present three essays in which the wealth gap issue is investigated in depth from three different perspectives. The first essay deals with entrepreneurs, a group of people significantly more affluent than the rest of the population. Inspired by vastly different results from Hurst and Lusardi [2004] and Fairlie and Krashinsky [2012], I examine how liquidity constraints affect business entry using a new dataset. My essay not only resolves the conflict between these two studies, but most of all, delivers a unified message about the topic. In the second essay, I incorporate a non-parametric estimate of earnings into a two-asset model to explore how much wealth owned by the richest 1% and 5% of the households can be accounted for. By relaxing the normality assumption imposed on earning shocks, my model can better fit the upper tail of the wealth distribution and generate fewer households with negative or zero wealth. The third essay explores two other wealth-generating channels: differential returns and intergenerational link in returns on assets. By building them into an overlapping generations framework, my model can almost perfectly match the wealth of the top 5% of the households and well replicate the wealth of the top percentile.

Committee: Pok-sang Lam (Advisor); Hijame Miyazaki (Committee Member); Lucia Dunn (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Arts and Sciences: Communication

In this study, protocol roles at academic institutions are explored, particularly how they are created and by whom. The research is guided by a growing trend among universities and colleges to incorporate protocol roles into an organization in order to help elevate their ceremonies, events, and overall reputation. This is an interesting development as the 21st century academic institution is turning attention on ways to leverage access to global thinkers and resources. There are two theories driving this study. The first is institutional theory, providing insight into how change is practiced in an institution and by whom. Key concepts that are used to explore this study are: the institutional entrepreneur, institutional work, and stages of institutionalization. Research indicates that anyone inside the institution who has an interest in establishing protocol can be an institutional entrepreneur. This study examines behaviors associated with creating a protocol role through the stages of institutionalization. The second theory used to explore this topic is the communicative constitution of organizations, or CCO. This is a useful perspective for examining how organizations perform and discursively communicate. The presence and use of authoritative texts are analyzed to identify how, if at all, changes are communicated by an institutional entrepreneur. Using qualitative research methods, data from interviews are analyzed to find out `what is happening' with regards to authoritative texts and stages of institutionalization. This iterative analytical approach seeks insight into how an institutional entrepreneur moves an innovative idea, such as creating a protocol role on campus, to a taken-for-granted practice.

Committee: Gail Fairhurst Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Zhuo Ban Ph.D. (Committee Member); John Lynch Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Doctor of Management, Case Western Reserve University, 2016, Weatherhead School of Management

Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SME) are a significant contributor to USA employment and GDP but are disappointingly understudied. Small firms may often carry a label of “entrepreneur” yet it is now commonly understood that not all small firms are necessarily entrepreneurial nor does lacking that orientation mean that SMEs uniquely fail to innovate. We conducted two sequential studies to identify what other factors besides entrepreneurial orientation (EO) contributed to small firm innovation and whether those constructs could stand on their own in the absence of EO. What we found in our qualitative study was that firm-wide culture—namely empowerment, play, and organizational learning (OL)—were more prevalent in our 29 successful SME than EO. When we tested those firm- wide cultural factors' effects on innovation in the absence of EO, we found that small firms did innovate without EO, but more surprising was the substantive increase in predicting innovation in small firms when BOTH EO and OL were present. These studies are important for scholars in that we have added to the literature concepts of small firm innovation that eschew EO as a requisite for innovation. For practitioners, this is even more important in that small firm owners and senior leaders need not be entrepreneurially inclined to innovate but when they are and also support certain internal culture development, they are more likely to innovate than when only EO or OL exist on its own.

Committee: Kalle Lyytinen, Ph.D. (Advisor); Kathleen Buse, Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Entrepreneurship

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Business Administration

This dissertation is comprised of three essays that examine entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial mentoring, and the logic of Bayes and Bayesian analysis. The first essay delves into the cognitive mechanisms involved in learning under fundamental uncertainty by entrepreneurs engaged in the process of forming new opportunities. An examination of the emergence of the pet health insurance marketplace in the United States during the period 2002-2012 drives a qualitative analysis that integrates propositions concerning the entrepreneurial process with theoretical assertions from the hierarchical Bayesian theory of learning. The second essay examines how entrepreneurial career mentoring, mentoring in support of a transition to entrepreneurial employment, leads to increased entrepreneurial intentions mediated by entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The final essay provides a commentary and suggestions for best usage of new techniques developed in Bayesian structural equation modeling, through a Bayesian based analysis of entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

Committee: Sharon Alvarez PhD (Advisor); Raymond Noe PhD (Advisor); Benjamin Campbell PhD (Committee Member); Robert Lount PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Entrepreneurship

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, East Asian Languages and Literatures

This dissertation examines how Chinese modern drama, or huaju, provided intellectual play-makers a vital but tension-ridden venue to (re)produce forms of “self” as “enlighteners” to the masses and “participatory citizens” of the nation for the task of building a modern China by (re)defining social norms within the huaju “stage.” I present a three-fold understanding of “play-making” that incorporates its textual, performative/theatrical, and meta-theatrical senses while dealing with specific huaju plays that were written and staged in Columbus, Ohio (Chapter 1), Shanghai and Ding County (Chapter 2), Jiang'an (Chapter 3), and Chongqing (Chapter 4). My narrative focuses on four cosmopolitan dramatists—Hong Shen (1894-1955), Xiong Foxi (1900-1965), Yu Shangyuan (1897-1970), and Xia Yan (1900-1995)—while they mobilized self and huaju against the backdrop of successive wars and (re)constructions on domestic and global scales in the first half of the 20th century. I demonstrate how play-making, seen and practiced as a “democratic institution,” attempted to form a “unity” incorporating the metropolitan masses, a rural base for the Mass Education Movement, and shelters for war refugees during the Second Sino-Japanese War. My three-fold approach to play-making problematizes understandings of huaju in extant scholarship and significantly revises the deficient discourse of modern Chinese theatre. Huaju has been designated in both China and theatre studies as being oriented toward intellectuals and informed by “Western modernity,” particularly so during the genre's formative phase in the 1920s. Although such an identity earned for huaju the glory of being an ideal modern cultural form and a social-educational frontier for May Fourth intellectuals, it also rendered huaju an “undesirable other” in the 1990s when scholarly attention shifted from elite May Fourth culture to popular culture and alternative modernities. Today, while “traditional” and popular cultural forms ha (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kirk Denton (Advisor); Patricia Sieber (Committee Member); Christopher Reed (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; History; Literature; Performing Arts; Theater

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Geography

Scholars, politicans, and planners posit entrepreneurship and cultural industries as central to economic growth. My examination of crafters' mentalities, practices, and material conditions for starting and maintaining their businesses shows that such faith in entrepreneurship requires critique. When entrepreneurs try to start new businesses they not only produce new monetary value in a calculated quest for profits, but also consume goods and services within the urban economy and beyond in an effort to earn multiple types of fulfillment (e.g. personal satisfaction, autonomy). Crafters' consumption yields income for others, signifying their importance in the circulation of capital, even if they reap little to no monetary rewards themselves. Thus, the majority of aspiring craft entrepreneurs experience entrepreneurship as a consumer industry that is booming on their backs rather than a new paradigm for economic growth and sustainable livelihoods. They consume more monetary value through their purchases than they earn from their sales, thereby resulting in a credit debt. Aspirants see through their neoliberal subjectivities these failures to earn a livelihood as personal faults, which can be corrected by self-disciplining for stricter adherence to discourses built on market logics. Craft economies serve as one example of what I call `aspirational economies,' systems of production and consumption of resources that embed multiple notions of value, and are practiced by people who focus more on experience and hope for future successes than on immediate material gains. I mean for this concept to trouble the static categories associated with professionalized occupations and consider the lengthy and uncertain trajectories people negotiate in order to establish and sustain livelihoods. Researchers tend to focus on professional artists and formal arts events when studying arts economies, but examining only professionals obscures the informal arts economy and an often larger (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Nancy Ettlinger Dr. (Advisor); Malecki Edward Dr. (Committee Member); Munroe Darla Dr. (Committee Member); Gibson Chris Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Economics; Gender Studies; Geography

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Psychology/Industrial-Organizational

Entrepreneurs' attitudes toward risk have been researched in the past with mixed and often contradictory results. Utilizing Blais and Weber's (2006) domain specific approach to understanding risk taking attitudes (DOSPERT), the present study investigated the relation of risk taking attitudes of entrepreneurs across risk-taking domains. In addition, we examined the relation of domain-specific risk attitudes to self-reported entrepreneurship. Results show that entrepreneurs show the greatest amount of risk taking in the social domain, and are generally more risk taking than non-entrepreneurs on most DOSPERT dimensions. Of the outcome variables examined (self-report success, firm creation, & business survival), financial risk taking and self-report success showed a significant relation. Contrary to what was hypothesized, there were no other significant relations between entrepreneurship, financial risk taking and any of the outcome variables, nor was there any interactional effect between financial risk taking and entrepreneurship. Additional analyses show that social risk taking is a significant predictor of self-reported entrepreneurship. Also, social risk taking provided significant incremental variance in the prediction of entrepreneurship above and beyond the Big Five.

Committee: Scott Highhouse (Advisor); Margaret Brooks (Committee Member); Robert Carels (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

MFA, Kent State University, 2014, College of Communication and Information / School of Visual Communication Design

No matter how an entrepreneur defines failure, statistics on the success rate of start-up businesses is disheartening. Around 30 to 40 percent of start-up businesses liquidate all assets, losing all investor funding, while 70 to 80 percent fail to produce the projected return on investment. There is a strong need for effective incubation facilities which compress the learning curves of the start-ups and provide them with necessary initial support in order to improve their sustainability. There are around 1,200 business incubators operating in the United States. Joining an incubator is a great way for inexperienced entrepreneurs to receive funding and guidance to help get their ideas off the ground. It blends office spaces with mentoring programs, financial assistance, business services and the opportunity to network with experts and fellow entrepreneurs. Most incubator facilities in the U.S. are public-private partnerships, with initial support coming from the federal, state and local government bodies. Approximately half of these total facilities are affiliated with universities. While traditional business models are adequate for many established companies, the types of problems that face new businesses have changed. A decade ago, entrepreneurs were not expected to start their own brands from scratch, they were simply too hard and expensive to create and could survive by simply differentiating themselves based on product or service. Since then, expectations have risen as the start-up field has grown. It's not enough to stand out with a single idea; you have to combine it with a great product, engaging consumer experience and a voice that sets it apart from the competition. Creating a brand isn't a project with a beginning, middle and end. Instead it requires constant vigilance and must be monitored throughout the course of the brand's life. In the process of starting a company, people are often too focused on raising the capital to grow, rather than building (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ken Visocky O'Grady (Advisor); David Middleton (Committee Member); Julie Messing (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Administration; Business Community; Business Education; Design; Entrepreneurship

Master of Public Administration (MPA), Wright State University, 2011, Public Administration

Using a comparative framework and based on interviews with the primary actors involved in the debate for and against humane farm animal standards in Ohio, this thesis examines the roles of special and public interest groups, bureaucrats, technocrats, and the public in the rulemaking process of the Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board. This study finds that the creation of the board as a policy solution was likely impossible without the efforts of a policy entrepreneur and a “fixer;” that the board's relevance relies on a problem-setting approach to developing standards that includes a multitude of interests; and that continued public interest group pressure prevents the board from being captured by special interests. The author concludes that Ohio's approach, slightly modified, can be used as a model for other states and that a collaborative process, accountable to the public, can result in strong public policy recommendations even when interests seem divergent.

Committee: Myron A. Levine PhD (Committee Chair); Jack L. Dustin PhD (Committee Member); Jerri Killian PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Public Administration; Public Policy

MCP, University of Cincinnati, 2011, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Community Planning

Small businesses have generally been considered an engine of job creation and economic growth in the United States since the 1970s. This can be attributed to two factors. First, economic restructuring—characterized by the transformation from a manufacturing into a service-oriented economic base—left many formerly prosperous communities fragmented by corporate downsizing and industrial departure. Second, groundbreaking research published by David L. Birch of MIT during this era showed that job creation was being driven primarily by enterprises of twenty or fewer employees; a trend postulated to continue indefinitely. Small-business development efforts arose in this context as a strategy to overcome unemployment and to stimulate potential growth industries. Also known as entrepreneur-led economic development, many state and local governments made small-business assistance a policy priority. It is an empirical fact, however, that despite their role in job creation and economic development, small businesses have very high failure rates and their attrition occurs within a narrow timeframe. Therefore, efforts to help small-businesses start needed to be compounded with efforts to help them survive and grow in order to realize their economic benefit. Becoming mainstream in the 1980s, the business incubator is one policy innovation designed specifically to accomplish this task. There is no single definition for business incubation or a business incubator. Conceptually, business incubators nurture the development of entrepreneurial companies, helping them survive and grow during the start-up period, when they are most vulnerable. Client companies are co-located within a single incubator facility and each benefits from flexible reduced rents, business support services and resources tailored to young firms such as networking assistance. Business incubators can public, private or nonprofit entities or sponsored by an educational institution, although many are developed collabor (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Beth Honadle PhD (Committee Chair); Michael Romanos PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Urban Planning

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2010, Curriculum and Instruction: Educational Technology

Numerous studies show that small business and entrepreneurism are vital to the health of our nation's economy. In fact, over the last decade, these types of ventures account for 70% of economic growth, 75% of new jobs, and represent 99% of all employers. However, there remains a high rate of failure in these ventures, with over 60% of them failing within 6 years. Studies show that one reason for this failure is that entrepreneurs fail to learn new knowledge/skills as their organizations grow.Unfortunately, only a limited number of studies have been conducted to investigate the learning process of entrepreneurs. The purpose of this descriptive ethnography was twofold: (1) explore the learning and development challenges experienced by entrepreneurs in the various phases of organizational growth, and (2) explore how entrepreneurs recognize the need to learn and develop plans to address the challenges. Once learning and development challenges, along with corresponding knowledge and skills, are identified, then learning solutions can be developed and offered to help entrepreneurs acquire them. This descriptive ethnography was conducted with nine entrepreneurs from Northwest Ohio and Southeastern Michigan. Results included primary themes of learning challenges and the knowledge/skills needed to overcome them. Means of recognizing the need to learn new knowledge/skills and learning tools to acquire them were identified. Finally, participants gave nine pieces of advice for fellow entrepreneurs. This study resulted in 14 findings regarding entrepreneurial learning. Recommendations were provided for entrepreneurs, learning solution providers, and lending institutions. Several additional recommendations for future research emerged from this study, which are noted.

Committee: Robert Sullivan PhD (Committee Chair); Clint Longenecker Phd (Committee Member); Sonny Ariss PhD (Committee Member); Robert Schultz PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Business Education; Management; Organization Theory

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2011, Labor and Human Resources

This study examined that the role of entrepreneurs' different cognitive styles in pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities. In addition, the present study investigated the impact of affect as a potential moderator of the relationships between cognitive styles and opportunities. Based on data from 44 undergraduate students, this study found that entrepreneurs' cognitive preference for intuitive and analytic styles has positive influences on two types of opportunities, creation and discovery, respectively. Furthermore, this study found that affect moderated the relationship between entrepreneurs' cognitive styles and opportunities. When entrepreneurs with intuitive cognitive style pursue opportunities, positive affect at the moment strengthened this relationship. When entrepreneurs with analytic cognitive style pursue opportunities, negative affect at the moment moderated this relationship. Implications are discussed and directions for future research are provided.

Committee: David Greenberger (Advisor); Sharon Alvarez (Committee Member); Robert Heneman (Committee Member) Subjects: Entrepreneurship

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Arts Policy and Administration

Professionalization of Studio Glass Artists is an attempt to learn more about how studio glass artists are working in the United States today. This is a significant undertaking because it is the first of its kind and will hopefully prove to be a valuable resource for those working in the field. Because the arts are often understudied, this investigation attempts to create an introduction to the glass field by defining techniques, creating an abbreviated timeline, culling what little demographics are available and mapping the field. It is important to note that this investigation was limited by the lack of information regarding studio glass artists that is often readily obtainable for other occupations. Available information was supplemented by the author's own knowledge of the field. By reviewing the literature on professions and professionalization, an analytical framework that includes four attributes was created to determine where along the professionalization continuum studio glass artists are currently located. The four attributes are systematic theory, field structuration, professional authority and community recognition, with four to six indicators being explored for each. Another significant concept in this investigation is that of portfolio careers, which legitimizes the way artists often work and allows them to be included in the discussion of professions. The application of the analytical framework to the field revealed that studio glass artists are a semi-profession, with the indicators for systematic theory and field structuration being well developed, professional authority being somewhat developed and community recognition almost entirely undeveloped. Recommendations for improving the professional status of the occupation include: increased critical writing and information regarding the business administration of operating a studio; broadening the group of contributors; the establishment of an umbrella association for the profession; increased advo (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Margaret Wyzsomirski PhD (Advisor); Richard Harned MFA (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Business Education; Fine Arts

BA, Kent State University, 2012, College of Communication and Information / School of Communication Studies

The marketing, logistics, and business-related functions of the sole proprietorship Ivy Summer Special Events, to be launched in Colorado, is tied together by economic and market research. The tentative business plan is divided into eight parts: Executive Summary, Company Description, Products and Services, Industry and Research Economics, Marketing Plan, Financial Plan, and Growth Plan. These parts conclude the history and inspiration of the business, the way the organization is run, how the company creates a competitive edge amongst others in the event planning industry, and an exit strategy. The culture of the business is reinstated throughout and implemented in each function of the entrepreneurial venture.

Committee: Rozell Duncan (Advisor) Subjects: Entrepreneurship