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This paper focuses on the role of the Small Business Institute® (SBI) program in academic program expansion and sustainability by embedding the student consulting model throughout the curriculum. East Carolina University has used the SBI model since 1974, and it served as a foundational element in the creation of a comprehensive School of Entrepreneurship. A central theme has been the focus of experiential learning as a key tool in expanding curricular and co-curricular offerings. This includes integration into multiple courses and impactful community partnerships. Best practices are provided on how to utilize the SBI student-consulting model to guide program development, expansion, and longevity.

Prior research shows that rural entrepreneurship has its own distinct elements and deserves additional attention within the research community. The frameworks and methodologies from studies focused on high-growth and technology-based entrepreneurship are often used to explore rural entrepreneurial activities. This incongruence limits our understanding of the true impact entrepreneurship can have on rural communities. The articles in this special issue help advance our knowledge of rural entrepreneurship as a distinct field of study, and add to our understanding of its impact in the rural context. Additional research avenues are suggested.

What should researchers say when recruiting entrepreneurs to participate in their study? Using a sample of entrepreneurs (N = 1,450) who were being asked to participate in an academic research project, we conducted an experiment to determine recruitment message efficacy. Drawing on best practices from the behavioral insights literature, we developed different email message recruitment statements that were randomly assigned across four phases of our experiment. Results indicate that a message grounded in the “descriptive norms” (i.e., social norms) approach resulted in the highest percentage of participants who clicked on the link to participate in our online survey. We discuss the theoretical as well as practical implications of our work.

Innovation seems to be a fundamental requirement for the growth and sustainability of small businesses. While previous research revealed a strong correlation between intellectual capital and performance, the role of intellectual capital in facilitating the innovativeness and performance of a firm has not been thoroughly examined in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) context. This study examines the role of innovativeness in the intellectual capital and organizational performance relationship using a sample of small firms. The results of a survey conducted on 460 small business owners indicate a positive relationship between two components of intellectual capital, human capital and organizational capital, and organizational performance. Further analysis finds that innovativeness partially mediates the relationship between intellectual capital and organizational performance. Our findings indicate that efficiently and effectively organized firms can leverage well skilled and innovative employees to achieve the best performance through innovation.

IntroductionTo be successful, a business owner must be well-versed in all aspects of the business from the creative (e.g., idea generation, product development), to the more routine (e.g., hiring and retaining employees, financing operations). Because most entrepreneurs tend to favor the creative side, one of their biggest challenges is the finance and accounting aspects of the business operations from start-up, to sale or transition (Chrisman and Leslie, 1989; Gibson, McDowell, and Harris, 2011; Harris, Grubb and Herbert, 2005; Harris, McDowell, Zhang, and Gibson, 2011).This study has two objectives. First, provide initial empirical evidence about the knowledge of family business owners in five ubiquitous finance and accounting topics. Second, finding the overall knowledge base is not as strong as might be desirable to promote long-term business success, provide practical discussions and informative examples as a primer about the five topics. In doing this, the study seeks to narrow the gap between what business owners should know about a subset of finance and accounting topics and, based on the results of a sample of family business owners, what they actually know.The findings and discussion are accessible and useful to both business owners and educators. Business owners can use the information to improve their financial and accounting knowledge. Educators may find the information useful as a classroom case study.Literature reviewSmall businesses serve as an important source of economic growth and job creation in the U.S. national economy. According to the latest available data of the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy, more than 99% of all current employers are classified as small businesses and employ approximately 50% of private-sector workers (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2012, 2010). In addition, the Office of Advocacy estimates that most of the future job growth will come from the small business sector (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2012, 2010).While there is no denying the impact of small business ownership on the U.S. economy, there are many obstacles that can negatively impact the longterm survival rates of these ventures. Although the situation may not be as dire as U.S. Senator, Paul Rand's claim that nine out of 10 businesses fail (Kessler, 2014), the latest statistics suggest that approximately 66% of small businesses survive their first two years, but the survival rate drops to 39.5% after six years of operation, and to less than 20% after ten years (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2010).Appropriate financial decisions are critical for long-term business survival (Van Auken, Kaufman and Herrman, 2009); and effective financial management is a critical concern of small business owners (Chrisman and Leslie, 1989; Gibson et al., 2011; Harris et al., 2005, 2011). Financial literacy requires both a depth and breadth of knowledge related to, among other things, funding sources, cash flow, debt management, contracting, and inventory control (Koropp, Grichnik, and Kellermanns, 2013).For family businesses to enjoy long-term business viability and success, it is necessary for owner-managers and their family collaborators to commit to developing adequate knowledge of these financial issues. While many family business owners acknowledge shortcomings in terms of understanding finance and accounting matters, they typically do not perceive these to be as important as other functions of the business, such as the operations and marketing functions (Brown, Saunders, and Beresford, 2006). By "testing" the finance and accounting knowledge of a sample of family business owners, the study provides evidence of a meaningful gap in what owners know-compared to what they should know.The paper proceeds as follows. In the next section, we describe the methodology used to collect data. The following section describes the survey's findings and provides practical discussions and examples intended to deepen the finance and accounting literacy of family business owners. …

This study adds the Oman context to our knowledge base investigating the entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of university students across multiple nations. This individual level study examines how gender and the previous work exposure are associated with the entrepreneurial attitudes of the Omani university students. The entrepreneurial attitudes orientation (EAO) survey instrument (with four subscales) was used to measure the entrepreneurial attitudes of 144 Omani students. Exposure was measured through current or previous small business ownership, previous work exposure and family exposure. The research adds to the literature in the cultural and regional context and contributes to the existing knowledge by suggesting a theory-based understanding of the role of attitudes in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions. The study proposes how the policy makers can support young entrepreneurs to start novel business ventures in the region by creating a comprehensive entrepreneurial ecosystem which can contribute in the socio-economic development of the Sultanate of Oman.

Women entrepreneurs have long been argued to suffer from disadvantages in initial resource stock, which makes it difficult to establish and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. Prior work suggests that planning may assist in overcoming these disparities; however, few studies have examined these relationships while considering context. We explore the role of strategic business planning activities on entrepreneurial firm performance and whether such planning activities yield greater benefit for women than men. We find that business planning provides greater performance benefits to women, which we argue may give women an opportunity to compensate for initial resource disadvantages.

Purpose – The paper aims to clarify a debate about the legitimacy of entrepreneurship as a field of study. Katz and Kuratko continued this discussion by evaluating the legitimacy as an academic discipline. Their work extends the earlier contributions of Stephenson, Meyer, Finkle et al., and Fiet. Their research focused on the use of secondary data to consider this research question. This study uses an empirical evaluation of the actors that form the basis of this field of study, the faculty that teach entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – This study used an online survey to ascertain the academic background, dissertation subject, doctoral course work, teaching assignments, and research output of individuals that described themselves as entrepreneurship faculty. Findings – The results show that a significant percentage of the sample of college instructors did not have a doctorate in entrepreneurship, nor did they study entrepreneurship in their curriculum thereby potentially undermining perceptions of legitimacy. Research limitations/implications – This study was based upon feedback from 112 faculty. A test using a χ2 goodness-of-fit showed there was no significant difference between the geographic location of respondents to non-respondents. The findings paint a distressing picture of the academic qualifications of the faculty assigned to teach entrepreneurship. In addition, the results were disappointing for the research productivity of faculty in the field. The fact that so many of them view themselves as entrepreneurship and small business faculty reinforces the significance of the findings. In general, the authors find empirical evidence in the sample that entrepreneurship and small business may not be viewed as a legitimate field due to the lack of academic credentials and the extensive professional credentials of their instructors. Practical implications – The findings demonstrate that entrepreneurship is likely not considered legitimate, in part, due to a lack of academic preparation or research productivity of instructors within the field of entrepreneurship. The lack of doctoral preparation is a critical problem. This issue would not be paramount where faculty publishing solely in the field. However, the findings demonstrate self-described entrepreneurship instructors publish in other fields of study. Thus, the fact that faculty do not solely teach in the field is also testimony to the challenges of legitimacy faced by individuals that teach entrepreneurship. Originality/value – The authors are not aware of any studies that specifically evaluate the academic background, dissertation subject, doctoral course work, teaching assignments, and research output of individuals that teach entrepreneurship.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the types of business consulting services most needed by small business owners and entrepreneurs and to examine the role that gender and ethnicity plays in the demand for specialized assistance.Design/methodology/approachA survey was administered to small business owners and entrepreneurs to rate their interest in specialized consulting services. The consulting assistance was divided into strategic, operating and administrative categories based on the framework of Chrisman and Leslie.FindingsOverall, the type of consulting with the highest interest was in the area of operations assistance, followed by strategic assistance and administrative assistance. Although few differences were found between male and female respondents, there were significant differences in the needs of minority women.Research limitations/implicationsThis study demonstrates the need for further research on minority female small business owners and entrepreneurs. In particular, it suggests further investigation of services that could be made available to them.Social implicationsThe results indicate that programs designed to assist minority women might have the greatest potential impact. Specialized attention may be necessary to assist this demographic segment, particularly since prior research indicates that minorities often start with greater resource limitations. Public policies should continue to encourage progress by helping establish a new generation of minority entrepreneurs.Originality/valueThe findings from this study provided current evidence of the specialized needs of minority entrepreneurs. It is important to distinguish the needs of entrepreneurs in today's marketplace, in order to develop the most effective and impactful small business assistance programs.

This study examines the performance between operational variables for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) within the context of interorganizational relationships. Specifically, it investigates the role of information quality and continuous quality improvement and the varying importance that SMEs place on each of these constructs. The sample consists of 134 vendors of a large university in the southwestern region of the United States.The results indicate that there is a positive relationship between information quality and continuous quality improvement with performance in SMEs. Implications for both research and practice, as well as ideas for future research, are discussed.

The authors surveyed faculty from a college of business and a college of education regarding their attitudes toward online education. Results of the survey were examined to determine the degree to which the technology acceptance model was able to adequately explain faculty acceptance of online education. Results indicate that perceived usefulness is a strong indicator of faculty acceptance; however, perceived ease of use offers little additional predictive power beyond that contributed by perceived usefulness of online education technology.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the accuracy of the US Department of Labor's Occupational Information Network (O*NET), which, replacing theDictionary of Occupational Titles, analyzes jobs via a hierarchical taxonomy of work in which all task‐level activities are summarized into a 42‐construct taxonomy of first‐order generalized work activities (GWAs).Design/methodology/approachThis study examined the degree of convergence between ratings made using the holistic‐judgment process in the O*NET (which directly rates GWAs using single‐item scales) vs traditional decomposed‐judgment methods which statistically combine ratings of multiple activity items for each GWA.FindingsAnalysis of holistic O*NET general work activity ratings with decomposed common‐metric questionnaire (CMQ) ratings revealed poor convergence between holistic vs decomposed methods, low interrater agreement and a tendency for incumbents to rate higher than job analysts.Practical implicationsIt is believed that these results raise significant questions regarding the O*NET's plan to rely on unverified holistic ratings obtained from relatively small, volunteer samples of job incumbents to maintain its database over time. There is a clear risk of producing a database of uncertain quality and comparability with the existing analyst ratings. It is concluded that the criteria of quality, accuracy and verifiability should be paramount in efforts to develop a national database of occupational information.Originality/valueThis study is the only empirical analysis of the degree of convergence between ratings made using the holistic‐judgment O*NET and a traditional decomposed‐judgment job analysis. Because job analysis forms the foundation for many human resources functions, effectively setting the standards that drive recruiting efforts, establishing the criteria that are used in hiring, promoting, evaluating, and equitably compensating employees, and forming the basis for many employee training programs, it is absolutely essential that any data source utilized for these purposes should be both accurate and verifiable. This study not only furthers efforts to tests the validity of the O*NET, it also provides empirical evidence of its potential shortcomings.

This study investigated the critical problems encountered by African American and White-owned formation and early growth firms in rural businesses. Analyses were conducted to determine the most critical types of problems encountered by these businesses and the relationship between the types of problems reported and the owner's race and firm's developmental stage. Strategic problems were the most critical problems by business owners in the sample, regardless of race or developmental stage, followed by administrative and operations. Although no significant relationship was found between the type of problems and the owner's race, a significant relationship was found between problem type and the firm's developmental stage, such that businesses in the formation stage are more likely to encounter strategic problems and early growth firms more often experience administrative problems.

By almost every measure manufacturing quality has improved tremendously in the past decade; unfortunately, the same is not true for service. Yet, manufacturing processes represent less than 5 per cent of all business processes. Clearly, the opportunity area for the twenty‐first century is in the understanding and improvement of the service processes that drive value and customer experience. There are two major characteristics of service that distinguish it from product. The understanding of these differences and often‐painstaking attention to detail in delivery determines ultimate success and competitiveness of service. The first is that almost every service is a series of situations where every subsequent process depends on those that precede it. The second unique characteristic of service is that the customer usually plays an important role in the process and each involvement strongly influences downstream processes and requirements. The vast riches and opportunities of the future service‐oriented world belong to those who understand the customer experience from the customer’s viewpoint and can and will offer high value solutions.

The purpose of the current study was to determine whether a standardized peer entry paradigm would produce stress responses in 3- and 4-year-olds and how such stress responses would relate to temperament, observed approach to peers, and self-perceived peer competence. Physiological stress reactions were measured by activity of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) system. The 4-year-old group showed significantly less avoidance of the new peers and was rated higher on approach temperament. This older group also showed larger HPA stress responses to the new peer situation. Finally, discrepancy between self-reported peer competence and behavior in the peer entry situation was associated with larger stress responses on average. These findings support the notion that investment in a salient episode plays a role in determining the magnitude of HPA stress responses. The importance of examining discrepancies between self-perception and action in research on stress is discussed.

This manuscript reports on the results of 2 experiments dealing with behavioral and adrenocortical responses to separation among 9-month-old human infants. In both experiments the social context of separation was manipulated. The results of Experiment 1 yielded evidence of a statistically significant adrenocortical response to 30 min of separation under conditions in which the substitute caregiver responded sensitivity to infant distress, but was busy and relatively noninteractive when babies were not distressed during the separation period. Altering the behavior of the substitute caregiver such that she was warm, responsive, and interactive throughout the separation produced a significant reduction in adrenocortical activity and in negative affect. In fact, these measures were not significantly different than those obtained when the mother and infant remained together in the playroom (No Separation). In Experiment 2, the effects of group versus singleton care were examined using the less stressful mode of substitute caregiving as described above. No significant condition differences in behavioral distress or cortisol were found. Furthermore, neither condition elicited a significant increase in cortisol over basal levels. Finally, these data provide evidence that maternal reports of infant Distress to Limits temperament, using Rothbart's Infant Behavior Questionnaire, predict adrenocortical responses to separation, while reports of Fear of Novelty do not.

To understand better students' preferences for enrollment in distance education over face-to-face courses, the individual difference variables of sex, age category, class level, work status, number of distance education courses taken, frequency of computing technology usage, comfort with course management software, and comfort with computing technology were examined. Analysis indicated that older students, women, and those who work full time were more likely to enroll in distance education courses. Those who had taken the most distance education courses in the past and women were more likely to express a stated preference for distance education over face-to-face classes.

As part of an ongoing research endeavour aimed at examining the entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions of students from around the globe, the current study extends previous research by examining the degree to which nationality is associated with entrepreneurial attitudes in students from China, Brazil, Turkmenistan, and USA. Hypotheses based upon differences in national culture and entrepreneurial infrastructure were posited and examined. Findings were not as anticipated in that Turkmen students showed a very strong entrepreneurial orientation and US students’ attitudes were largely less developed than those of their peers from other nations.

This study examines the relationship between CEO incentive-based compensation and firm performance, based on the role of prospect theory in executive compensation. Our results indicate that moderate levels of performance-based CEO compensation are generally optimal. When an executive's total compensation package is based more on firm performance there is often a level of higher returns, but to a point of diminishing return. Our findings suggest that boards must clearly communicate with CEOs to determine the most appropriate levels of incentive-based compensation. Additional managerial and theoretical implications are offered, as well as avenues for future research. INTRODUCTION The proper structuring of executive compensation contracts has been the subject of much debate in the finance (Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Jensen & Murphy, 1990) and management literatures (Wright, Ferris, Sarin, & Awasthi, 1996; Sundaramurthy, Rhoades, & Rechner, 2005). This debate has largely been grounded in agency theory, which suggests that executives should be given equity stakes in their companies in order to properly align their interests with shareholders' interests. Thus, equity ownership is assumed to have a positive and direct effect on firm performance because aligning the risk preferences of executives and shareholders is the key to aligning their interests. The results, however, have been inconclusive. It is possible that the reliance on agency theory and the assumption of a positive linear relationship between ownership and performance has been the cause of confusion. Prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), however, may provide a better explanation for how individuals actually make decisions regarding a bundle of financial resources. Prospect theory is derived from offering individuals prospects (decision sets) with various payoffs and observing their decision making process and outcomes. Prospect theory is presented as an alternative to utility theory assumptions that serve as the foundation for agency theory. We believe the application of prospect theory can help explain that the ownership-performance relationship is actually nonlinear (concave). The purpose of this study is to apply prospect theory to incentive-based CEO compensation in an attempt to clarify conflicting findings in this area. Specifically, this study examines the relationship between CEO incentive-based compensation and subsequent firm performance in a sample containing 18,540 CEO observations from 1992-2004. LITERATURE REVIEW Ownership--Risk Relationship By properly structuring an incentive contract, firms can motivate corporate insiders to engage in additional corporate risk taking while developing growth opportunities (Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Jensen & Murphy, 1990). In order to more closely merge the interests of corporate insiders and shareholders, and thus reduce the potential for agency conflict, insiders have often been provided with an equity interest in firms. Typically, firms allow discounted stock purchase programs or grant stock options in an attempt to reduce agency conflict. The presumption underlying these programs has been that there is a positive relationship between insider equity ownership and corporate risk taking (Wright et ah, 1996). Eisenmann (2002) does find that CEOs given equity ownership are more risk-seeking while those with no ownership are risk-averse. However, other studies have shown that this increase in risk-taking behaviors will eventually diminish at higher levels of equity ownership. Wright et al. (2007) find that at low to moderate values of managerial stock ownership, risk-increasing decisions predominate. However, at substantial executive equity values, risk-reducing decisions are motivated. Similarly, Wright et al. (1996) find a nonlinear (concave) relationship between insider equity ownership and firm risk-taking. …