Beginning Business Blog

Learn from evolution  and copy and replicate rather than create new processes . There are times when a business owner decides that their current model just isn't working as they hoped it would, particularly in the early months and years.  The question becomes, should the entrepreneur just dump what they're doing now?  Or make incremental changes with an end goal in mind? Research by a University of Hertfordshire Professor of Business Studies published in 2010 states that solutions for many of today's business challenges can be found in evolutionary processes. According to Professor Geoffrey Hodgson at the University's Business School, businesses which are considering major change at the moment should proceed with caution; they could do better to learn from evolution and copy and replicate rather than create new processes. "Change needs to be experimental and cautious," said Professor Hodgson. "We have to understand the cost of change. If we loo...

Why do you want to start a business? There is no right answer to this, but there is one motivation you might express that could be setting yourelf up for a fall if your business doesn't go as planned. For anyone starting a business because of the material wealth it might bring, you should know that being materialistic has a strong potential of making a bad event in your life even worse, according to a paper co-written by a University of Illinois expert in consumption values. Materialism: defining who you are by what you own Business professor Aric Rindfleisch says not only is materialism or defining who you are by what you own a risk your welfare, it also has the effect of making traumatic events worse.  Being materialistic can make events from terrorism to car accidents to a life-threatening illness to the failure of a business venture seem that much worse. "If you're a materialisti...

Are entrepreneurs a self-serving species with their own moral ideas and ethical principles? Media reports about alleged anti-social and delinquent behavior of entrepreneurs are no rarity. Such reports direct the attention towards possibly ’hidden’ anti-social tendencies in entrepreneurial types. Is it true then, that entrepreneurs are all interested in his own benefit and profit and so abandons ethical and social principles? And if so: what makes him so? Researchers from the University of Stockholm  and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU) tried to answer these questions, and came to some surprising conclusions. Data from 1000 Children over 40 Years The psychologists used a Swedish study, ‘Individual Development and Adaptation‘ which followed 1,000 students living in a medium sized Swedish town over a 40-year time period comparing their later entrepreneurial activity with their social behavior earlier in life. ...

You're the owner of a business, and you have the unpleasant task of firing an employee or terminating the contract of a supplier.  How do you do this? Tell them the bad news first?  Tell them the good news first?  Or do you construct what is known as a bad news sandwich by telling the recipient good news then the bad news then more good news? It's complicated According to researchers at the University of California, Riverside, it's complicated.  The process of giving or getting bad news is difficult for most people, particularly when news-givers feel unsure about how to proceed with the conversation, psychologists Angela M. Legg and Kate Sweeny write in "Do You Want the Good News or the Bad News First? The Nature and Consequences of News Order Preferences." "The difficulty of delivering bad news has inspired extensive popular media articles that prescribe 'best' practices for giving bad news, but these prescriptions remain largely anecdo...

" AN APOCRYPHAL tale is told about Henry Ford II showing Walter Reuther, the veteran leader of the United Automobile Workers, around a newly automated car plant. ' Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues,' gibed the boss of Ford Motor Company. Without skipping a beat, Reuther replied , 'Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?'" Source: Difference Engine: Luddite legacy , The Economist Newspaper Limited, Nov 4, 2011, © The Economist Newspaper Limited, London 2011 *  *  *  *  * Who really creates new jobs? This is an especially important question given the nature of the changes current in the national and world economy brought about by globalization, he replacement of workers with intelligent machines, and the job-destroying effects of the economy over the past few years.   Government? Government affects job creation by direct hiring and or layoffs.   Since 2008, government units fr...

One of the more popular posts over our first year is The Seven Characteristics of a Creative Employee  along with a post on the "Messy Desk Clean Desk" Phenomena that reveals people with messy desks tend to be more creative.  Imagine that. Now, a team of researchers led by Michigan State University neuroscientist Jeremy Gray has created a quick but reliable test that can measure a person's creativity from single spoken words. The "noun-verb" test is so simple it can be done by virtually anyone anywhere -- even in an MRI machine, setting the stage for scientists to pinpoint how the brain comes up with unusually creative ideas. *  *  *  *  * Sample Noun - Verb Responses from the study To the noun, "leaf", 43.7% of participants replied, "fall."  Other common noun-verb responses include, taxi => drive 38%; coal => burn 45% and so on.  These results should lead to the development of a s...

You're an entrepreneur in an important meeting that could mean a big contract or create a connection important to your success. And your smartphone beeps, rings, or vibrates. Do you answer it? A new study published today in the journal Business Communication Quarterly, co-authored by Peter W. Cardon of the USC Marshall School of Business and colleagues at Howard University, is the first to provide an empirical baseline for how attitudes towards mobile phone use actually break down across gender, age, and region. With a national sample of more than 550 full-time working professionals, the study reveals what business professionals perceive as acceptable, courteous or rude use of mobile phones in the workplace. Among their findings : Three out of four people -- 76 percent -- said checking texts or emails was unacceptable behavior in business meetings. 87 percent of people said answering a call was rarely or never acceptable in business meetings. Even at more infor...