Rowswell

Taylor Rowswell

ENC 1102

Ms. Marteniz

November 1, 2012

Small Business Owner: Annotated Bibliography

I have always been intrigued by the successful. They seem to behave differently than

others, and it is obvious that their happiness comes from more than just monetary success. The

American Dream, as is it so famously known, is what allows for so many people to realize this

great feeling where they couldn't before. Through my articles I hope to discover many things

about the success of a small business owner, such as what steps and tools are necessary for one

to

become successful. I also want to learn factors in small business such as: risks; the relationship

with customers; what rules and regulations I must abide by; as well as

how to handle ethical situations not so clearly regulated. Some researchers make very compelling

arguments on he factors of success. Researchers who note the significance of knowing

how to successed in stress full situations (Allard, Battisti, Martina, O'Donnell), see that

one can more reasonably handle situations when not panicking or worrying about the

doom of their company. A good outlook on life allows one to view troubling times as

obstacles rather than impossibilities, allowing for the advancement of the business. If

one can have positivity as well as productivity, profit is inevitable. Other researchers

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assert the importance of productivity and education: (Atamian, Rubik, and Neal R.

VanZante), believe with great reason that knowledge is as necessary for a successful

business as experience. They posit that it is important to consider the aspects of

business which do not rest simply in the delivery of a great product (Berman). These

researchers believe that there is a need not only for talent, or marketable ability, but

also a person capable of marketing, and who has the knowledge to correctly maneuver

the busy streets of business.

Allard, Tammy. "So You Want to be a Small Business Owner ... are You Sure?" Journal Record:

1. Jun 28 2002. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Tammy Allard, small business owner, claims in her 2002 article, “So you Want to

Be a Small Business Owner... Are You Sure?” that a business owner must have certain

characteristics: motivation; initiative; high energy; the ability to multi-task;

determination; responsibility; self-confidence; and most importantly, courage. She wrote

this to inform readers that they can start their own business if they possess these

qualities, as well as little bit of imagination or optimism. Her audience encompasses

anyone looking to start a small business, which she attracts with her meticulous

breakdown of success tips.

This article relates to my topic because it helps me understand more some of the

characteristics needed in order to be a good business owner. She says,“ The first and

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perhaps the most important characteristic of successful small business owners is that

they have the courage to take the plunge. Whether a person's business succeeds or

fails will never diminish the fact that he or she has the confidence in themselves to take

the chance.” In this manner she acknowledges the uncertainty of starting a small

business, but also the merit in taking a chance, and the possibility of success.

Atamian, Rubik, and Neal R. VanZante. "Continuing Education: A Vital Ingredient of the 'Suc-

cess Plan' for Small Business." Journal of Business & Economics Research 8.3 (2010): 37-

42. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 30 Sep. 2012.

Rubik Atamian, and Neal R. VanZante, in their 2010 article, “ Continuing

Education: A Vital Ingredient of the ‘Sucess Plan’ For Small Business” claim that many

failing small business owners lack the common business knowledge and etiquette. They

assert the benefits of going to school and gaining the formal education on how to run a

business. The purpose of this is to inform those who are in the small business discourse. They

attract their audience by providing an article that alerts possible entrepreneurs on more

efficient or successful ways of beginning their careers.

This article relates to my topic because it reveals more beneficial tools for

understanding what goes behind running a business. Atamian, Rubik, and Neal R.

VanZante, claim that many small business owners do no know how to do the

fundamentals. Similar to Martina Battisti, they believe that connections help businesses

thrive. Their statement ”the emphasis of this article is on the importance of usable and

up-to-date knowledge about support activities of the business that an entrepreneur must

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continually acquire to remain a viable going concern,“ asserting that common

knowledge is also up-to-date knowledge, and the manner of acquiring and recognizing

that information is gained through experience, but also in part through education.

Battisti, Martina, et al. "Small Business Owner's Capability to Manage Regulation and its Rela-

tionship with Compliancec".ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Martina Battisti, Senior Lecturer School of Management, Senior Researcher &

Deputy Director NZSMERC School of Management, in her 2011 essay, “Small business

owner's capability to manage regulation and its relationship with compliance,” examines

regulation in business, a natural and necessary part of the capitalist process, and its

responsibility for the damage to profitability or functionality. She suggests that

businesses are tested by these regulations, and management's ability to cope with

these is what allows businesses to surpass the competition. Battisti supports this

through her case studies, describing the effect of differences in a business owner's

awareness of regulation (Yapp and Fairman 2005), different attitudes towards

regulation (Vickers et al 2005) or a business owner's capacity to discover, interpret and

adapt to regulation (Small Business Research Centre 2008)” (Battisti). Her intended

audience includes small business owners, researchers, and policy makers. She targets

her audience by showing through her case studies the differences between businesses

which aid in their survival or result in their downfall as a result of regulation. Battisti’s

article is relevant to my topic because she explores the mentality of business owners,

stating "much of the empirical evidence on the impact of regulation is based on

business owners' perception of regulation as a burden or on compliance..." Her

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interviews with 111 small business owners determined that a major factor in individual

success is values, beliefs, and personal life. This exemplifies one of the many roles of a

business owner as one with the ability to adapt. She states “The smaller the firm, the

more likely it is that the owner/manager is responsible to deal with all aspects of the

business which was described as "debilitating" and "tiring" by a respondent that

operates a small manufacturing firm that makes products for the leisure industry,”

illustrating how flexibility and adaptability improve performance, especially amongst

small business owners who do all of the work alone unlike large corporations able to

divvy up the work. This article alerts me to the importance of positivity as well as

adaptability, and continues with the idea of perception of obstacles as opportunities.

C Mirjam, van Praag. "Business Survival and Success of Young Small Business Owners." Small

Business Economics 21.1 (2003): 1-17. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 4 Oct. 2012.

C Mirjam and Van Praag, in their 2003 article, “ Business Survival and Success of

Young Small Business owners,” claim that the best way to be successful is through what

they call "person specific determinants." They reach this conclusion by responding to

relevant recent experience, the more capital you have the more successful you will be,

staying motivated and having a higher education are all the things that will get you to a

successful business. Their purpose for this article is help younger business men how to

understand how to start a business. Their audience is a younger businessmen. They

target them by providing them with the ways to run a business. This article relates to my

topic because it has to do with the starting up of a business. Although this articles main

audience is for a younger businessman it still provided me with information on how to

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run a business starting form the bottom.

Eileen, L. Berman. "Managing a Small Business." Industrial Management 50.1 (2008): 6-. ABI/

INFORM Complete. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

Eileen L Berman, in her 2008 article, “Managing a Small Business” argues that

there are many business owners who are good at providing the product but do not know

how to run a business. She gives the example that many great chefs try to open

restaurants but they only know how to cook and thus their restaurant fails. Stressing the

need to have some support working for you who can aid in running the business,

Berman moves that it is necessary to employ allies as businesses are almost

impossible to run alone. Her purpose for writing this is to inform those who are looking

to open their own business, warning that just because they are good at something and

their talents are marketable, some things should be left to experts or otherwise learned

beforehand, similar to Atamian and VanZante's belief in higher education. She

targets this audience by relating and revealing difficulties which entrepreneurs may

encounter early that might discourage them.

This article relates to my topic because it reveals the need for education or

assistance, and also highlights the benefit of having the former (which would result in

fewer employees and more money for the owner). Berman asserts this by saying, “If he

doesn't have the requisite management skills, he must seek out an advisor such as a

consultant who can help organize the business so that productivity can be enhanced.

This consultant must understand the business without necessarily being an expert in it,”

showing how much more valuable a talent is when combined with another person's

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expertise.

Frese, Michael, van Gelderen Marco, and Michael Ombach. "How to Plan as a Small Scale Busi-

ness Owner: Psychological Process Characteristics of Action Strategies and Success."

Journal of Small Business Management 38.2 (2000): 1-18. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web.

20 Sep. 2012.

Michael Frese, van Gelderen Marco, and Michael Ombach, President of the

International Association of Applied Psychology, in their 2000 essay, “How to plan as a

small scale business owner: Psychological process characteristics of action strategies

and success,” claim that there are four strategies used by small business owner, the

best of which is what they refer to as the Critical Point. The Critical Point is a decision

making process that entails goal-oriented decision making, planning, and

proactivity. The audience of this article is small business owners and researchers.

This article targets its audience through studies based on small business owners'

actions for success and reflects on the right and best ways to be successful.

This article relates to my topic because it gives insight into the strategies some

people use to organize their business, revealing similarities amongst them and allowing

me to apply those to my own strategies. They state “If only one strategy is used, it is

hypothesized that the Critical Point Strategy is probably the best one for start-up firms.

This strategy requires the business owner to do some amount of planning in order to

decide which issues are most important and need to be tackled first.” The authors stress

the importance of this method, but do concede that it is much more beneficial to use

multiple strategies and apply them situationally.

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Gilmore, Audrey, David Carson, and Aodheen O'Donnell. "Small Business Owner-Managers

and their Attitude to Risk." Marketing Intelligence & Planning 22.2 (2004): 349-60. ABI/

INFORM Complete. Web. 29 Sep. 2012.

Audrey Gilmore, David Carson, and Aodheen O’Donnell, all of whom are business

professors at The University of Ulster, explain in their essay “Small Business Owner-

Managers and Their Attitude To Risk,” claims that small business owners and

entrepreneurs will always come across risk. The goal is not to avoid it entirely, but to

minimize it as much as possible. Through the case studies done of 57 small business

owners, they observed how individuals would react to risk situations. The study

determined that small businesses with better finical firm connections were better at

getting necessary information and resources more quickly than small businesses with

poor finical firms. Their intended audience is small business owners and entrepreneurs.

They target their audience by specifically analyzing other small business owners and

entrepreneurs in their field and elaborating on how risk is being handled and how it

should improve in handling certain situations.

This article relates to my topic in its exploration of the way small business owners

react and respond to risk. They study states that “small business owners and

entrepreneurs recognize that they must encounter certain risky situations, they

endeavor to manage these situations so that the risk is minimized.” This acknowledges

that the business will be faced with many risks but suggests that there are many ways

of dealing with things, and it is important to searrch for the best method.

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Humphreys, Neil, et al. "The Ethical Decision Making Process of Small Business owner/man-

agers and their Customers." Journal of Small Business Management 31.3 (1993): 9-. ABI/

INFORM Complete. Web. 29 Sep. 2012.

Neil Humphreys, author of three best selling books, in his 1993 article “The Ethical

Decision Making process of Small Business owner/mangers and their Customers,”

asserts that the relationship between the small business and the consumer must be a

relationship built on trust. Humphreys illustrates this idea by breaking down the

relationship between the small business and the costumer. He takes on this endeavor

due to the lack of research on small businesses and their relationship with customers.

The study shows small business differ from large business in the way that small

business seem to be more in touch with customer needs, having different pressures

from the community and peers. His experiment examines the effect of lying, deception,

fraud, and general malevolence on the businesses relationship with customers, and

shows how it is necessary for small businesses to be particularly adherent to social

pressures since they are so closely entwined. His audience is the small business men

and researchers. Humphreys appeals to his audience by providing a study on small

businesses and their ethics, which helps to explain how they think and why they make

certain choices.

This article relates to my topic because it discusses what goes on inside the mind

of small business owners when it comes to making certain decisions for their company.

Humphreys states, “the concept of fairness and justice dominated the behavioral

intention of both small business managers and their customers. Concepts of relativism

and contractualism were more or less important depending on the nature of the

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situation,” claiming that consumers and managers are concerned mostly with fairness

and justice, but also regarded certain other situations with importance.

James, D. Brodzinski, F. Scherer Robert, and A. Wiebe Frank. "Boundary Spanning Activity as a

Function of the Small Business Owner's Decision Style." Journal of Business and En-

trepreneurship 2.2 (1990): 1-0_6. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 1 Oct. 2012.

James, D. Brodzinski, F. Scherer Robert, and A. Wiebe Frank, , in their 1990

article, “Boundary Spanning Activity as a function of the Small Business Owner’s

Decision style” that explores the idea of decision styles and how they search for outside

information, community information, and competitor information. They do this by their

break down of the tendency of owners of a small business to take on more roles than

the owners of a large business might - such as the financial role, the human resources

role, and the schedule planning role. They break down how the business owner makes

their choices and how it is important for them to make the right connections to get good

help and the right information faster. The target audience is business owners.

They target their audience by appealing to that busy group of people who takes on the

burden of all of their business's dealings, also relating to the small business discourse.

The article written by James, D. Brodzinski, F. Scherer Robert, and A. Wiebe Frank,

informs my topic in that it reinforces the need for outside aid, but also for an addition of

one's own personal style. This is evidenced in the statement: “this means that the small

business owner will expend time gathering, processing, and acting on information which

is the most compatible with his/her style,” this shows that the business owner will spend

time getting the information they need and how it appeals to their decision making style.

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This concept is similar to what Martina Battisti was stating that the small business owner

will make decisions based on what is happening right now, and that small

business owners take over more roles than those of larger businesses.

Quinn, John J. "Personal Ethics and Business Ethics: The Ethical Attitudes of owner/managers of

Small Business." Journal of Business Ethics 16.2 (1997): 119-27. ABI/INFORM Com-

plete. Web. 30 Sep. 2012.

John Quinn, professor, in his 1997 article, “Personal Ethics and Business Ethics:

The Ethical Attitudes of owners/mangers of Small Business” asserts that “The study of

the ethical attitudes and behavior of owner/managers of small businesses is also of

particular interest for methodological reasons as such owner/managers should be in a

stronger position to bring their own ethical attitudes to bear on business decisions than

managers in larger organizations whose actions are mediated and constrained by

imposed systems and established norms." Quinn explains that use of one's ethical

rules is vital in small business since it directly affects the business as actions are not

mediated between various employees but rather directly connected to a few important

ones. His audience is business men and researchers. Quinn targets his audience by

discussing the ethics of small business owner and how it differs from that of the far-

removed ethics of large corporations.

This article relates to my topic because Quinn shows what the ideal thing to do

when dealing with ethical decisions for a small business is. This provides me with an

idea of how to handle decisions for my small business, and what valuable

considerations to take.