Iqbal M. Khan

The Organizing Committee for the 2^nd International Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, invited abstracts submission for the conference between 24 – 27^th February 2011 at Nicosia Cyprus. Papers were to be accepted on the basis of competitive blind review. The papers accepted for presentation (full manuscript) would be published in book of Proceeding with an ISBN number. Selected papers would be considered for publication in the “Journal for Women’s Studies” and “Review of Social, Economic and Business Studies”.

 

I submitted 4 papers to the conference and all papers were selected for presentation. Therefore I decided to lead a team of some of my Co-authors to this conference, my team members were Dr. Tehseen Mahmood Aslam, Chairperson Deptt: Technology Education, (IER) University of the Punjab and Muhammad Zaheer Asghar University of Management and Technology.

 

A word about the European Council for Small Business (ECSB): Its objective is to advance the understanding of Entrepreneurship and to improve the competitiveness of SMEs. ECSB facilitates the creation and distribution of new knowledge through research, education and the open exchange of ideas on Entrepreneurship. ECSB organizes high-quality conferences across national and cultural borders. The network of ECSB members covers nearly the whole of Europe geographically, and across thirty countries. Through its affiliation to the International Council of Small Business (ICSB), the European network is also connected to the global academic and professional small business and Entrepreneurship community.

 

The most important feature of this conference was some very prominent authorities of Entrepreneurship who had been invited as Keynote Speakers. This International Conference was held jointly by European Council of Small Business and the Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus. Hence one prominent keynote speaker was Ms. Annette St’. Onge (Canadian), who was the immediate past president of ICSB. The other keynote speaker was Prof. Emurities Dr. Dr. J. Hanns Pichler, Vienna University of Economics & Business (Austrian). He is recognized as the Schumpeterian Entrepreneurship Expert and Prof. Dr. Manuela Tvaronaviciene, Vilnius Gediminas Technology University, Lithunia.

 

Opening Session:

The Keynote Speaker for the opening session was Ms. Annette St. Onge past President of ICSB. Her message was “promote Entrepreneurship & SME around the world”. She shared with the audience Canadian Practices & examples. She said it was essential sharing global knowledge & integrated approach for the growth of Women owned firms. It was also essential to promote generic & young entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs seek independence and some need it for existence. The world was observing that women were once again coming back. They were coming back for example in areas such as Nursing & Teachering. These were home based work which suited their life pattern. This was becoming increasingly a strong force in the economy.

 

The framework of development of women entrepreneurs identified were: promotion of their ventures, training & development, including basic management skills, research and development, support centres to provide them BDS support to solve problems through consultations and access to finance. Generally the start up age was between 35-44 years. It was also observed that more women were going into high tech and manufacturing. They wanted to get away from the soft sector.

 

She wound up her speech by identifying the Lessons Learnt: Women need to setup a Policymakers forum. They need coaching how to do networking. That there was a need for core funding for professional staff to setup Ventures. Financial Hurdles have to be lowered. They are perceived to be high degree risk, this perception has to change. They must learn ways of “Dealing with the bankers”. This brings up an important requirement to Educate Politicians so that better laws would be promulgated. Finally she commented that it was important to continue more qualitative research on Women Entrepreneur as this would give in-depth knowledge into the basic requirement of Women Entrepreneurs.

 

First Session:

The first session consisted of 3 papers and the main paper selected was by Iqbal M. Khan entitled “Entrepreneurship and SME Policy: Economic and Social Development Imperatives for Punjab Pakistan”. The objective of the paper was to draw attention towards the shift in Policy paradigm. The paper cited a good list of countries that have started preparing entrepreneurship policy in place of SME policy. The world experience of utilizing entrepreneurship policy for socio-economic development has been the recent successful phenomena. Hence it emphasized the need for evaluating the results of countries that have moved from SME Policy to Entrepreneurship Policy. The paper referred to Schumpeter’s emphasis on entrepreneurship for economic development and how entrepreneurship utilizes resources for value addition. Turgot clubbed the capitalist and the business manager into one but both Schumpeter and Cantillion distinguished between capitalist who had access to capital whereas entrepreneur looks for capital also as a resource. Schumpeter also referred to entrepreneurs as a leader who was responsible for leading capital into the venture and hence is also known as “Captain of the Industry”. The paper ended by giving some good examples of entrepreneurship policy such as Thailand, Korea, Japan, China, Netherlands, UK etc. The subject evoked interesting comments, but the comments from Prof. Pichler was that the paper had covered very valuable and broad ranging references related to Policy and the most important pertains to the aspect of policy on Entrepreneurship advocated by Schumpeter. He found good reference to Schumpeter in this paper. Some members of the audience agreed that Policy was the backbone of Entrepreneurship and SMEs. The audience wanted to understand the concept of the Infrastructure of Support Services for Entrepreneurship called the Entrepreneurship and Small Entrepreneurship Hub and desired to know if it could be replicated. Finally the comments supported the aspect of Entrepreneurship Education to bring about an orientation toward entrepreneurial society.

 

Second Session:

The most important paper in the 2^nd session was “Hypothesis Non-Fingo: Schumpeter’s Entrepreneurial Theory at its Centennial” by Hanns Pichler. The highlights of this paper were:

Hanns Pichler took the opportunity to explain that the world got access to Schumpeter work at a much mature stage of his life when he settled in USA. It was in 1934 that “His Theory of Economic Development” was translated Prof. Pichler pointed out that he left out chapter 7. Not available in his translation.

 

Whereas the 2^nd chapter; it was a theory not history. There are in-fact 5 points. We think we know him so we continue to research in the conventional context. But he was unorthodox and truly developed the most valuable thought on economic development which was the most important contribution and pillar of economic development. He had visualized the role of entrepreneur in economic development like no other thinker of his time or prior to his time, or should we say to the near end of 21^st century. He developed the true concept of Entrepreneurship along with the essence of Entrepreneurship in an economic sense. He delivered the first bold theory of economic development which was not recognized then and the topicality of Schumpeter’s theory is current even in the 21^st century. He preached Capital Democracy in Creative Destruction.

 

He had 3 major ambitions which he always referred to when teaching in Harvard.

1. One to be recognized as a great lover
2. To be recognized as a great horse rider
3. And to be recognized as a truly great economist

He certainly got recognition as an economist because he got elected in 1948 as President of American Association of Economist and in 1949 President of International Economic Association. He was instrumental in establishing capitalist as the most dynamic forces. He wanted to set a counterpoint that of the capitalist dialectic and how to get even with Marx was his objective because he recognized the flaw in Marx theory. Marx states that economic is a social process not a market process. It is a contradiction. He (Marx) needs to change the system. But Schumpeter says ‘no’ empathetically to Marx. We do not need to change the system. We have the market system weather we want it or not. Entrepreneur is the one who destabilizes the market, but not at the cost, rather to the advantage of the economic environment for development. Schumpeterian entrepreneur is one who constantly tries to escape constraint of market system.

 

Which entrepreneur does not want to be monopolist and have a standalone position in the market? Therefore the question is what is ‘Creative Destruction’?

 

Creative Destruction; Is it fate of capitalism? Does it bring higher level of productivity? In-fact higher productivity is ‘Entrepreneurial created higher level’. He cannot be complacent. As brutal as it is he has to accept it. This therefore brings us to our desired, Legacy – close to our heart, rebuilding an Entrepreneurial base; a Transition State; Building a Schumpeteral Society. In simple words we are constantly trying to build our economy as an entrepreneurial economy. We seek refuge in the entrepreneurial economy for jobs creation, for higher productivity, for quality of life, for introduction of new technology, new processes and creativity at its height.

 

“Information Retrieval Model for HRM” Dr. Ganesan attracted a lot of unfavorable responses as the entrepreneurial aspect of this paper was not clearly established. Some also noted that “It does not tie up with the major pillars of the Conference”.

 

Ngozi Onyejeli presented the paper “Psychological Contract or Psychological Constraint Exploring Employment Relationship of Female Bankers in Nigeria”.

 

The salient features of this paper were reciprocal promise unwritten set of expectation operating at all times the structure is, based on Employer =>  Belief => Organization and Belief lead o Expectation and to Obligation. The conclusion: National Values, cultures have impact on psychological contract and zone of negotiability. In this case the survey was based in Nigeria. The degree to which promises are perceived as binding is an issue of belief system that operates. That the corporate environment was constantly, identifying in-group and out-groups Regional, Religious, Cultural Differences, Legal System and Ethnicity.

 

Third Session:

Mohammad Zaheer Asghar Presented the paper in 3^rd session “An Empirical study of Family back ground and Entrepreneurship as Career selection among University Students of Turkey and Pakistan” to examine levels of Entrepreneurial Intentions amongst Students through a model developed by Ajzen, in selected countries such as Pakistan, Turkey. Entrepreneurship plays a vital role for new venture creation; existing venture expansion, social, technological and economic development of the country. Encouragement of entrepreneurship has become an essential issue for modern policymakers, as an engine of socio-economic development and academician. The new development is that Entrepreneurship courses are not only offered by Business institutes but other faculties like Social Sciences, Engineering, Information Technology in there syllabus. Therefore, in developing countries there is a focus upon higher education to play an important role in developing entrepreneurial mind set of students (Din 1992). Logically there arises a concern about the capacity of universities to produce students who may select entrepreneurship as their possible future occupation.

 

Intentions are state of mind which motivate individual to attain some specific goal. The entrepreneurial mind set directs towards risk taking over the fear of loss with efficacy and therefore, entrepreneurial intentions a range of intention models have been developed.

 

Krueger (1993) proposes that learners with own business parents expand exposure to and implicit understanding of entrepreneurship from an premature age, which in response have an impact on their attitude and insight of self efficacy toward entrepreneurship. Previous experience of starting a business is significantly associated with a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship. The result on the subject of subjective norms proposes that learners who are more self-assured in their skill based on practice are less inclined by perceived social norms about entrepreneurial career. Association between entrepreneurial inclinations and its background provide further support to the application of Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior to predict and understand entrepreneurial mind set. While the findings for differences by ethnicity, the results suggest that Pakistani students have the less favorable attitude toward entrepreneurship as compared to their counterparts in Turkey.

 

Fourth Session:

Iqbal M. Khan presented his 2^nd paper “Entrepreneurship Education and Vocational Training: Evidence from Punjab Vocational Training Council (PVTC) in Pakistan”. He emphasized that “In this era of the internet generation I have learnt that the educated unemployed are more dangerous than the uneducated. Lets face it they are the strongest force on the surface of the earth. That entrepreneurs not only bring new economic development but also bring social justice (WEF). We have also come to realize that those who participated in entrepreneurship courses have a higher intentions to venture into new business. Hence we find that Policymakers, economist and academics are all focused on economic development through entrepreneurship”.

 

First it was observed that successful vocational training and entrepreneurship flourish under a public and private sector partnership for nurturing vocational training and entrepreneurship as a future strategy. Second it was important to consider how to devise the methodologies to overcome an environment which lacks funds for education, education standards and welfare programs for the youth. Third the next important thing to consider was the conceptualizing a model of utilizing the Zakaat (Islamic Welfare Fund ordained through the Quran) to fund education or vocational projects.

 

Vocational training and technical education are interlinked with entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial courses should be offered in vocational institutes in combination with vocational skills as part of curriculum. Because of a link between entrepreneurship and economic development governments have been formulating education policy encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit (Stevenson & Lundström 2002). A country would benefit if its people were more innovative and entrepreneurial and to kick start this, entrepreneurship at the vocational level has been cited as a potent development factor. “Various experiences have already provided evidence that entrepreneurial skill can be developed through practice, preparation, and education”. “The aim of entrepreneurship education is to build up innovative behavior, ability and characteristics with the improvement of learners‟.

 

Case studies from different countries were cited Creating Micro-entrepreneurs among the Vocationally Trained – The PVTC case study gave an insight to public and private sector partnership as a future successful strategy. VTIs help the deserving students to fulfill their dream by giving them the one time grant of Rs. 5,000/- at the end of program. This helped in initiating their micro-ventures where they become Micro-entrepreneurs to provide services to the people of the area in trouble shooting for electrical and home appliances, motorcycle repair, auto repair, industrial machinery support, and as machinist, tractors repair mechanics and beauticians.

 

Zakaat is ordained through the Quran that every Muslim will pay Zakaat. Zakaat has two meanings purity and growth; it means the wealth given in the way of Allah. There is no backing out of this obligation for the Sunni Muslim. Hence any misuse of the fund is condemnation by the society and damnation in the hereafter. “It has a grab –you-by-the-heart-quality”. The philosophy of Zakaat and how it is utilized in the PVTC and the process of utilization has to be in accordance to the interpretation of the transaction and is known as ‘Tamleeq’-the legitimate transfer of ownership. The Model given is based on a process developed at PVTC modified and developed as a Model by the authors for understanding how Zakaat can be utilized for education purpose.

 

PVTC presented a concept of value based organization, a learning organization, an entrepreneurial organization and a highly innovative institution.

 

“Entrepreneurship Education and Training: A Comparative Study with Examples from Universities in Turkey and some Selected Countries” was presented by Ayse Kocabacak. Entrepreneurship education seeks to provide students with the knowledge, skills and motivation to encourage entrepreneurial success in a variety of settings. Variations of Entrepreneurship Education are offered at all levels of schooling from primary or secondary schools through graduate university programs.

 

There are significant differences among Entrepreneurship Education and training programs, those who offer and participate in these programs, and the result of these education and training programs have different connotation and the paper drew attention to these differentiations.

 

“Effects of the Economic Crisis on Engineering Informatics Students’ Entrepreneurial Criteria” was presented by Walter Ruda in the 4^th Session.

 

The paper analyzes effects of the economic crisis on entrepreneurial criteria of engineering and informatics students in Germany. In order to counter high unemployment, self-employment as vocational alternative has to be highlighted more intensely and entrepreneurial basic knowledge has to be imparted more purposeful especially to students, since students and graduates – particularly of engineering and informatics – have been recognized as the most likely entrepreneurs of high potential enterprises generating enduring and high-skilled employment. In Germany, recessions stimulate more people to self-employment can be recognized as expedient chance to animate students to business creation. The results show that the economic crisis indeed has influencing effects on student entrepreneurship criteria, for instance the students surveyed during the economic crisis show lesser business creation intension and evaluate a higher lack of entrepreneurial qualifications than the student sample generated before the downturn, whereas their pre-crisis counterparts are more intensely motivated to realize their own business ideas.

 

Conclusions

The results show the economic crisis to have a restricting effect on engineering and informatics students’ intentions to create businesses. However, experiencing a better startup climate does not inevitably come along with a higher entrepreneurial intention, but seems to be based also on stronger necessity-driven entrepreneurship. The students perceive the condition of the economic framework evidently to be handicapped by reason of the economic crisis. Because the students surveyed during the crisis show a higher deficit in entrepreneurial qualifications, entrepreneurship support and education has to be strengthened at the universities, in the way of a general startup sensitization and teaching of entrepreneurial basis knowledge.

 

Fifth Session:

In the 5^th session Dr. Ghanesan presented his 2^nd paper entitled ‘A Study on Women Economics Empowerment through Causational Factors for Entrepreneurship Development’.

 

Two Women Entrepreneurs were studied for this research, which was considered as too small a sample as the paper was quantitative in its approach.

 

In India 9% of women registered as entrepreneurs. Perception based Entrepreneurship was the new phenomenon.

It was felt that this research was not conclusive as only two women entrepreneurs were observed and studied for this research.

 

“Difficulties of Women Entrepreneurs in Israel” was another paper in the 5^th session. It was presented by Sibylle Heilbrunn.

 

The salient feature of this paper was that it studied the effect on all women belonging to all section of the society in Israel. It stated some established facts such as that Entrepreneurship among immigrant and minority groups has growing significance in assessing local economic development process and social change. Their entrepreneurship adds to the economic development potential of local communities and results in sustainable economic developed.

 

The purpose of the paper was to study similarities and differences of patterns entrepreneurship among three groups of women in Israel: Immigrant from Former Soviet Union, the Arab Israel Minority and Israeli born women of Jewish origins. The conclusion drawn was that the Arab women entrepreneurs face significantly more difficulties than the other two. The Israeli society is characterized by its many cultures since it composed of several ethnic and national groups, restricting the eligibility of citizenship to the member of the Jewish ethnic group Immigrants are therefore included within to overall social welfare system. The Palestinian Arab in Israel on the other hand are distinct minority, separated from the Jewish majority by national identity, language and culture. There are 4 main aspect of marginalization of the Arab population: discriminating state policies, a class structure that differentiates among ethnic groups, cultural and social-structure gap, and socio-spatial segregation in the national periphery.

 

The conclusion of the paper was that Arab women have significantly more overall difficulties then women entrepreneurs belonging to the Jewish Majority and those who have come to Israel as immigrants from FSU.

 

The conclusion was drawn from the application of the advantaged theory. This can be explained via the institutional framework of Israel which is incorporating Jewish immigrants to the dominant mainstream of society. the socio-spatial segregation is described as an enclave model which maintains that in face of economic segregation based upon racial religious or ethnic characteristics, ethnic minorities establish an ethnic enclave economy thereby avoiding competition with majority.

 

“21^st Century Women’s Entrepreneurship in North Cyprus” was presented by Karen Howells in the 5^th Session.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, as a de-facto state, endures severe financial hardship with regards to its economy, with international embargoes continuing despite the Turkish Cypriot community’s enthusiasm to ratify a reunification plan for Cyprus in the 2004 Referendum. Inside the state, an economic paradox exists, where entrepreneurship thrives, especially women’s entrepreneurship, at higher rates than usually found in Europe. In the first survey of its kind, 30 entrepreneurs were interviewed.

 

Research findings demonstrate that female entrepreneurship not only exists within the severe economic hardship within North Cyprus, but is thriving at higher rates than of female entrepreneurship in other countries. The quantitative study shows up to one third of entrepreneurs in the region are women, in all business and industry sectors, including male dominated sectors.

 

More recent accounts put Turkish Cypriot female self-employment as 13.7% with most of these in tailoring, babysitting, cleaners, pharmacists, architects, doctors and lawyers. This put female entrepreneurship in North Cyprus at a higher rate than Turkey (12.5%).

 

Conclusion

These differences relate to the factors which lead to entrepreneurship, namely overriding push factors for the Turkish Cypriot female entrepreneur, compared to push factor for the typical Western female entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship has a positive image  in the Turkish Cypriot culture, with successful role models in all areas of the economy. This positive image should be further enhanced with entrepreneurship promotion by the government. It also emerged that a history of entrepreneurial activity in a family continues to have a strong influence on female entrepreneurs as a much their higher proportion of the female respondents cited immediate family members as being entrepreneurs, or some exposure to entrepreneurship in their past.

 

“Impact of Entrepreneurship Education on Entrepreneurial Leadership Development among Female University Students in Pakistan” was presented by Dr. Tahseen Mahmood Aslam. Women Entrepreneurial Leadership Development Theories have emerged primarily from research carried out in developed countries with specific social norms and values regarding women’s participation in economic activities. The idea of entrepreneurial leadership may be considered a new paradigm But ‘Women in Business’ are no new phenomena in the Muslim society. Despite its significance, recognized worldwide, not much work has been done to study the growth of women entrepreneurs. In Pakistan, many women are able to cross these barriers. One of the strength of Pakistan Women Entrepreneur has been their social capital. They are able to actively participate in economic activities. It has been found that women in Pakistan have received moral support from immediate family members. A correct interpretation of the perceptions of Islamic values have played a role in allowing spatial mobility, access to transport, and interaction with male members at school, college, university and office level, has helped them grow confident and to venture in business”.

 

Effective entrepreneurship education programs for female should include a pragmatic learning approach. Involvement in learning experience that build up entrepreneurship abilities will support the proficiency growth and individual development of the student. A practical approach may also consist of visitor speakers who provide as thriving role models and are accessible to address participant specific question and requirements.

 

Data analysis revealed that participation in entrepreneurship education and activities increase entrepreneurial skill and self-efficacy among students. This research has contributed to literature on women empowerment through entrepreneurial leadership development. It has also highlighted the role of academia in women entrepreneurial leadership development in Pakistan.

 

Reflective opportunity may consist of individual self-evaluation and small group distribution. The prospect to reflect can promote greater self-efficacy of intrinsic strength and weakness. These self-evaluation procedures enable students to change their own self-perceptions. For learner women entrepreneurs, the aptitude to be successful in an entrepreneurship venture lies within them; their test is to understand their own potential.

 

Sixth Session:

In the 6^th session “The Growth Myth in the Hotel Industry: The Case of North Cyprus Hotels” was presented by Dr. Senem Aga. Her fundamental concept was Entrepreneurship Education and Tourism are connected to each other in a very strong link. Entrepreneurship can be found everywhere in the tourism like restaurants, hotels, travel agencies etc. Any business in the tourism would be an entrepreneurial venture. But she went on to say however the relation of entrepreneurship and tourism within the process of growth and business success was a myth.

 

In many countries, war and conflicts have directly affected tourism and the economy over many years such as Korea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Cyprus. Cyprus is a unique example of this type of situation. South has become one of the most prosperous Mediterranean states with over 2 million tourist arrivals, while the Turkish Cypriot North is dependent on Turkey and remains internationally isolated but still has tourism activities. ‘Dark Tourism’ can only be applied to the recent war sites that are visited after the incident. As Lennon and Foley (2000) wrote, travelling to North part of Cyprus has been classified as ‘dark tourism’ but not to the south. North Cyprus has been a closed box for many years to the world. Recently, North Cyprus has gained huge attention because of the reunification and negotiation talks between the parts. Media is playing a huge role again, as well as other countries like the USA, UK, Turkey and Greece.

 

The combination of factors means that entrepreneurs use intensively all the factors for the developments and success of hotel business. There is no order for the factors combination. Entrepreneurs could use all factors together in the same period or different times. Hence, sixteen important factors lead them to successful growth of their hotels.

 

Her conclusion was tourism and hotel business carry very unique characteristics. Hotel business does not look like any other business. As a result, factors which influence hotel business growth found to be more complex and require more systematic and entrepreneurial ability to combine and turn it to the successful growth. There is clear evidence to say that North Cyprus, special circumstances make small business growth different to other places. These circumstances included the socio-economic level of the people, political uncertainly, identity and cultural differences. Any business might be affected by these situations in either a negative or positive way. However some firms turn the situation into an opportunity and used it as a new challenge for future developments. The hotel sector is just a part of the big chain with their role being one of a primary producer in the tourism industry.

 

One observation during Q&A session made by Iqbal Khan was that ‘Dark Tourism’ in Pakistan has also flourished post disasters such as the earth quake of 2005 and floods of 2010. Little hotels and guesthouses have spring up and hotel occupancy ratio has risen. The big hotels that could not attract capacity occupation are now overbooked. He commented that he found the research very compelling and eye opening.