Journal of Enterprising Culture

The conventional image of the small business owner is that of a highly independent individual, taking risks and 'doing it tough' with limited assistance from others. However, research conducted in the United Kingdom and Australia with high performance small firms suggest that this is not so. A multivariate data analysis of the relationship between business management practice and sales growth performance identified the importance of partnering. This refers to the process of working in partnership with people who affect the business. Partnering involves creating and maintaining partnerships with everyone who affects your business. Working in partnership involves the creative talents and energies of everyone who can affect your business. The effect is that everyone, from staff through to supplier and customers, works together for mutual gain. These findings suggest that the owner of a small business needs to view himself or herself less as a lonely, isolated battler and more as someone who can gain from partnering. A willingness to seek strategic alliances can prove a valuable source of potential growth for small firms.

This exploratory study examined differences between Japanese- and American joint ventures in Indonesia in relation to culture. Especially leadership-styles and stress are examined as effects of differences in national cultures. It was expected that the Japanese management-style would better fit in with the expectations of Indonesian workers and that the level of stress experienced by Indonesian workers would subsequently be lower in these Japanese/Indonesian joint-ventures, compared to the American/Indonesian joint-ventures in our study. In decision making we expected the Japanese managers to focus more on consensus, which would result in a more 'human-oriented' leadership-style. American managers on the other hand would be more 'task-oriented' as a result of their focus on goal-attainment. Result indicate that the leadership-style of Japanese managers fits in better with the expectations of Indonesian workers than do the leadership-styles of American managers. However, we found that both Japanese and Indonesian managers are more human-oriented than American managers and more task-oriented as well. They simply seem to be more active than the American managers. Indonesian employees managed by American managers experienced less stress than Indonesian employees managed by Japanese or Indonesian managers.

The aim of this study is, based on intensive comparative case studies, to analyze structure and process of entrepreneurial networks in the internet communication era. We then imply general insights on entrepreneurial networks, some of which suggest solutions to urgent problems concerning industry restructuring in Japan.

Although during the long-term recession in Japan the value of entrepreneurship has been widely recognized, the number of business startups, however, has not readily increased, in spite of various efforts by many public institutions at developing support programs. On the other hand, it has been observed recently that some internet-based entrepreneurial networks have emerged spontaneously, which let business startups help each other and acquire Internet potential.

This paper begins with proposing a conceptual typology for positioning various entrepreneurial networks on it. We then analyze two cases intensively by examining their emergence process and characteristics, guided by the conceptual framework. One is an internet-based entrepreneurial network to help business startups in Japan while the other is a non-internet-based entrepreneurial network that has been in the United States for fifteen years. We conducted participated observation in the former case for two years while we carried out interviews and material-based research for the latter. Finally, we derive general insights on entrepreneurial networks from the case studies.

The major findings of this study are as follows: (1) Network polarity, loose and tight, is determined by two primary variable, i.e., expectations and membership. (2) Inter-personal networks can provide the infrastructure of inter-firm networks. Especially loose inter-personal networks tend to generate cooperative and tight inter-firm network, because a wide variety of members naturally enjoy opportunities to encounter potential business partners there. (3) We find different aims in inter-personal networks and inter-firm networks. The former is primarily for mutual aiding while the latter is for dealing with businesses. (4) The internet communications can simultaneously make networks both looser and tighter. (5) Loose inter-personal networks facilitated by the internet communication should have power to reorganize old industry structure in Japan by creating new business and new business relationship if the government support it with minimum intervention and maximum understanding.

This paper examines and compares the promotion strategies used by clothing and shoe retailers in the Asia Pacific region, namely Hong Kong, New Zeal and Australia. To undertake this study, we postal surveyed the clothing and shoe retailers' perceptions of the importance of various promotion tools across the three countries. The results show that there are significant differences among the three countries in terms of promotion mix usage. Our main conclusion is that there are two approaches to strategic promotion, namely traditional and new age marketing. The paper ends by isolating the managerial implications of the research and identifies related areas that might be fruitfully exploited by international retailers.

It has become common advice furnished to family businesses that in order for them grow and further develop, they need to professionalise their management. The literature suggests that firms that follow this advice will perform better and show higher survival and growth. This paper presents the findings of a study on the professionalisation of family businesses in Singapore. It examined whether family businesses that have professionalised their management differ from these that have not. It is anticipated that the professionalised Chinese family businesses would benefit from the introduction of professional managers. It was anticipated that they would be older in age (since succesion is not confined to family member), report better business performance, and adopt aggressive growth strategies. Firm differences were studies using three dimensions: firm characteristics like age and size when professionalised; performance differences using growth and business volume measures developed by Chandler and Hanks (1993) and growth strategies using the Miles and Stones typology (1978) of growth oriented firms. The study found that the professionalised family businesses did not differ in age but showed significant difference in size, better performance and aggressive growth strategies from those that were not.