Claus Spreckels in the Context of Business Entrepreneurship - Case Study Example

Reflective Paper Table of Contents Claus Spreckels: A Biographical Case Study of Nineteenth-Century American Immigrant Entrepreneurship 3 2. Results of a Case Study on Information Technology at a University 4 3. Presentation of Self on the Web: an ethnographic study of teenage girls’ weblogs 5 4. Intensive Insight Meditation: A Phenomenological Study 6 5. A quantitative content analysis of the characteristics of rapid-growth firms and their founders 7 6. Business-Unit-Level Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis (Correlation Study) 8 7. Research designs for studies evaluating the effectiveness of change and improvement strategies 9 8. Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study 10 Works Cited 11 1. Claus Spreckels: A Biographical Case Study of Nineteenth-Century American Immigrant Entrepreneurship The article studies the life of Claus Spreckels in the context of business entrepreneurship analysis for immigrants into the United States during the 19th century, as the title suggests. He went into various businesses during his business life and concentrated his efforts in California, the American west, and Hawaii and met with much success. His business ventures focused on the destruction and creation of monopolistic concerns in various sectors of American business, from journalism via print papers to banking, brewery operations, power, transport, real estate and sugar, among many others (Spiekermann 1-21). The biographical study approach was leveraged in the effort to analyze the entrepreneurship process from the point of view of Spreckels’ life as an immigrant and the evolution of his business enterprises. There are three steps to the method. The first step relates to the analysis of the family and ethnicity of Spreckels. The second step relates to the evolution of his business interests. The third step relates to how his immigrant status shaped his business life (Spiekermann 1-21). The article is well-written and makes use of the biographical study in a very structured fashion. It is informative and allows the reader to glean insights into the entrepreneurship process in general and its demonstration in the life and times of Spreckels (Spiekermann 1-21). 2. Results of a Case Study on Information Technology at a University The paper details the results of a case study involving the introduction of information technology into Fairfield University, detailing those aspects of the introduction relating to impacts on management and on the economic considerations relating to the acquisition and rollout of a vital pieces of IT, including computing hardware and networking infrastructure. Those two aspects, management impacts from the perspective of faculty use and economic considerations relating to the demand for the IT resources relative to supply and adequacy of the computing investments. The findings include that such exercises require extensive planning, and can be justified from the point of view of learning and efficiency improvements that offset the costs of the investments in IT (Tellis). The researcher detailed the study methodology within the paper in straightforward fashion, and that methodology had four steps. One is the design of the case study. Two is the undertaking of the case study itself. Three is the analysis of the data. Four is the derivation of conclusions and implications, and the crafting of recommendations for next steps (Tellis). The paper relied on an extensive questionnaire to generate detailed data on the impacts of the introduction of IT into Fairfield. This then allowed the case study analysis to proceed with a wealth of data to work on, which in turn led to very detailed discussions backed up by data, which improved the credibility of the case study itself (Tellis). 3. Presentation of Self on the Web: an ethnographic study of teenage girls’ weblogs The paper details the results of an ethnographic study on the way 40 teenage girls constructed and presented their selves on the web via the use of weblogs on Blogger.com. The study had two phases, one relating to the investigation of the medium itself and how teenage girls use the medium to conduct communication among peers and friends. Two relating to the way teenagers employed various strategies in order to present themselves via the medium. The findings include that there are vital differences between blogs that are used to relate to others interpersonally, and mass communication media that are not as oriented towards relationships building (Bortree). The methodology involved browsing through weblogs on Blogger.com and stringing together the blogs of 40 teenagers that appeared to cross-reference each other through links on each others’ blogs in a method of sample selection known as nonprobability snowball sampling. From there the study analyzed the content of the blogs and derived insights into them (Bortree). The ethnographic study here was an excellent introduction into how qualitative aspects of the lives and interpersonal relationship dynamics of teenagers needed to be approached with an ethnographic study leveraging weblogs (Bortree). 4. Intensive Insight Meditation: A Phenomenological Study The paper details the results of a phenomenological study that recorded and then undertook an analysis of the experiences of students who performed insight meditation in sessions that lasted for two weeks and three month periods, the former being undertaken five times. The goal was to be able to add to the wealth of literature on the phenomenology of meditation that had at that time already existed. The proponent noted that while there was literature on meditation as it was practiced in the east, that literature focused on subjects who were in advanced stages of meditation practice. The current study focused on those in the beginning stages of meditation, and who furthermore had the potential to provide western psychology with a wealth of insights into the practice, because of the way the study itself was structured to lend itself for that purpose. The study provided a wealth of insights, including the effects on the physiology and the eating and sleeping habits of meditation students, and the psychic impacts of meditation on the students while in the process of mindfulness meditation (Kornfield). The methodology was simple, and consisted of the proponent asking questions in interviews and administering questionnaires relating to the student experiences during meditation (Kornfield). The study is fascinating both in its demonstration of the use of phenomenological research and the subject matter. The insights into the experience are also very interesting, and attest to the power of the research method for these kinds of research undertakings (Kornfield). 5. A quantitative content analysis of the characteristics of rapid-growth firms and their founders The paper focused on determining the characteristics of rapid growth firms to be able to gain an understanding into their unique dynamics, with implications for a better understanding of the phenomenon in modern contexts. The understanding is that such rapid growth firms are rare, and that the pace of their growth are both unusual and are difficult to both mimic and sustain, and that therefore it makes sense to know if many rapid growth firms share common underlying characteristics and dynamics. The results of the study are funneled and summarized into a model that tries to encapsulate rapid growth firms characteristics into four dimensions or aspects. Those four aspects are the characteristics of the founding person or persons, the personnel practices of the firms, the firms’ business practices, and the specific attributes of the firms (Barringer, Jones and Neubaum). The narratives of two sets of firms, one set consisting of 50 firms that are rapid growth firms, and 50 firms that are slow growth firms, were compared along several dimensions, to be able to surface defining characteristics and dynamics for the former high growth set of firms. The aim was to surface from the narratives those firm attributes that correlated with their being high growth inducing (Barringer, Jones and Neubaum). The paper is interesting both in the way it used the method and in its findings. The characteristics of the founder were significant and varied, and so are the ways by which high growth firms treated their employees to foster a sense of firm ownership and entrepreneurship (Barringer, Jones and Neubaum). 6. Business-Unit-Level Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis (Correlation Study) Making use of data from business units spread out across 36 companies, with a sample size of 7,939 business units, the study focused on determining whether or not correlations existed between employee happiness and satisfaction on the one hand and business unit outcomes on the other hand. The findings are that there are substantial correlations between engagement levels and satisfaction among employees on the one hand and the degree of success of the business units. The findings have implications for how business units and managers can leverage engaged and happy employees to drive business success (Harter, Schmidt and Hayes). The methodology consisted in analyzing the data from employee satisfaction metrics in the sample population of business units, and determining whether the correlations existed, and how strong. The instrument used to gather the data is called the Gallup Workplace Audit or GWA, which is an instrument geared especially towards surfacing levels of satisfaction among employees in different business units (Harter, Schmidt and Hayes). The study made use of a credible research instrument to gather data and perform the correlation analysis. This makes the findings believable, even if they are also predictable from intuition. Happier employees do translate to better outcomes for the companies and groups they belong to. It makes business sense to keep employees engaged and happy (Harter, Schmidt and Hayes). 7. Research designs for studies evaluating the effectiveness of change and improvement strategies The article details various quantitative models for evaluating how effective change management and improvement strategies are in various organizational contexts. The idea is that the measurement of the success or effectiveness of such interventions is not always clear cut, and so are the methods for doing the measurements, and therefore an evaluative study focusing on various quantitative approaches have merit in adding to the understanding of an under-studied aspect of business management. The focus is on surveying various evaluation designs, including various types of randomized designs, such as cluster randomization, and non-randomized designs. The idea is that while there are many design paradigms to choose from the evaluative design that is the best for a scenario is that which has the greatest and most robust design framework, and one that has the greatest impact in terms of reducing bias and in making the findings as generalizable as possible (Eccles et al.). The methodology is actually a survey of various quantitative evaluative study designs, detailing their strengths and weaknesses and exploring the contexts for which the different designs are most suited for use (Eccles et al.). The discussion is technical, and goes into the details of how the different randomized and non-randomized evaluative designs apply to the evaluation of change management interventions in organizations. It is very useful as a reference for future research undertakings related to this branch of management (Eccles et al.) 8. Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study The paper discusses aspects of bargaining that have been well-discussed in the literature on game theory, relating to how in a particular bargaining situation, the outcomes of the bargaining have been found to congregate around a certain observed result. This was tested via an experimental study, whose data was quantitatively analyzed. This finding was tested against scenarios involving the bargaining in various country contexts, to test whether the findings hold. The first finding is that the predicted results in game theory were validated across the different countries because the results converged to that expected result. The second finding is that for the different countries, there were differences in the actual outcomes of the bargaining even if the averages converged. The implications are that game theory predictions need to be supported by country specific conditions in order to be applicable and valid (Roth et al.) The methodology consisted of doing several iterations of the prescribed bargaining game for different countries in the study, and analyzing the results of the bargaining game quantitatively (Roth et al.). The experimental study method was used to good effect here, where the predictions of game theory were tested via several iterations of a game done in different countries. The method is very rigorous and so was the ensuing analysis and discussion of the results (Roth et al.). Works Cited Barringer, Bruce, Foard Jones and Donald Neubaum. “A quantitative analysis of the characteristics of rapid-growth firms and their founders”. Journal of Business Venturing 20. 2005. Web. 13 January 2013. Bortree, Denise Sevick. “Presentation of Self on the Web: an ethnographic study of teenage girls’ weblogs”. Education, Communication & Information 5 (1). March 2005. Web. 13 January 2013. Eccles, M. et al. “Research designs for studies evaluating the effectiveness of change and improvement strategies”. Qual Saf Health Care 12. 2003. Web. 13 January 2013. < http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1743658/pdf/v012p00047.pdf> Harter, James, Schmidt, Frank and Theodore Hayes. “Business-Unit-Level Relationship Between Employee Satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and Business Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis”. Journal of Applied Psychology 87 (2). 2002. Web. 13 January 2013. Kornfield, Jack. “Intensive Insight Meditation: A Phenomenological Study”. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 11 (1). 1979. Web. 13 January 2013. \ Roth, Alvin et al. “Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh, and Tokyo: An Experimental Study”. The American Economic Review 81 (5). December 1991. Web. 13 January 2013. Spiekermann, Uwe. ”Claus Spreckels: A Biographical Case Study of Nineteenth-Century American Immigrant Entrepreneurship”. Business and Economic History Online 8. 2010. Web. 13 January 2013. Tellis, Winston. “Results of a Case Study on Information Technology at a University”. The Qualitative Report 3 (4). December 1997. Web. 13 January 2013. Read More