'Enhancing Entrepreneurial Excellence is a fascinating and valuable treatise on how entrepreneurs achieve the transformation of an idea into a product that is successful in the marketplace. It is practical but well-grounded in the academic research. The book explains the tools that entrepreneurs need to be successful and displays the passion of the author, Robert Baron, to help more entrepreneurs become "engines of change" in order to improve human life. The book is a must read for all scholars of entrepreneurship and aspiring entrepreneurs.' – Michael A. Hitt, Texas A&M University, US The field of entrepreneurship has long pondered the following question: Why, despite their high levels of motivation, effort and commitment, do so many entrepreneurs fail? This innovative volume tackles the complex question of entrepreneurial success, identifying the essential tools necessary for converting ideas into reality and offering concrete means for acquiring and strengthening those tools. Though entrepreneurial success or failure can be partly attributed to external considerations such as market fluctuations and competitor activity, Robert A. Baron argues that the individual entrepreneur is often crucial in determining whether an idea succeeds or fails. Using current, concrete data, the author demonstrates the critical importance of the entrepreneur's skills, knowledge and other personal resources to the outcome of his or her entrepreneurial undertakings. Written in a clear and vibrant style, this groundbreaking book offers both a detailed breakdown of the personal attributes that foster entrepreneurial success as well as helpful suggestions for achieving and enhancing those same attributes in one's own search for entrepreneurial excellence. Professors and students of entrepreneurship, as well as their peers in other innovation-based fields such as engineering and the sciences, will find this book an invaluable resource for both the study and practice of successful entrepreneurship.

This book is perfect for anyone who's ever dreamed of starting their own business, or for small-business owners who want to grow the business they already have. Inside, entrepreneurial wiz Marty Grunder offers readers a step-by-step approach to formulating good business ideas, then executing them successfully. Grunder derived these nine simple strategies from the traits shared by all successful business people. He devotes one lengthy chapter to each step, along with illustrative anecdotes and Reality Check sidebars, which offer warnings and issues for further thought. To ensure readers clearly understand what steps to take and why, Grunder also provides examples from both his own business and those of other management experts. Marty Grunder is the founder and president of Grunder Landscaping Co., which generates $3 million a year in sales and continues to grow. He started the business as a 15-year-old with a $25 used lawnmower. Marty is a two-time Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the state of Ohio and in 2001 won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Dayton/Miami Valley. He also holds seminars on entrepreneurship and business management through the Winner's Circle, a small-business consulting firm he founded in 1995 (at age 27). He publishes Winning Strategies for Business and Life, a motivational newsletter on marketing and management. He lives in Dayton, Ohio.

Entrepreneurship has attracted global interest for its potential to catalyze economic and social development. Research suggesting that certain entrepreneurial mindsets and skills can be learned has given rise to the field of entrepreneurship education and training (EET). Despite the growth of EET, global knowledge about these programs and their impact remains thin. In response, this study surveys the available literature and program evaluations to propose a Conceptual Framework for understanding the EET program landscape. The study finds that EET today consists of a heterogeneous mix of programs that can be broken into two groups: entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship training. These programs target a range of participants: secondary and post-secondary education students, as well as potential and practicing entrepreneurs. The outcomes measured by program evaluations are equally diverse but generally fall under the domains of entrepreneurial mindsets and capabilities, entrepreneurial status, and entrepreneurial performance. The dimensions of EET programs vary according the particular target group. Programs targeting secondary education students focus on the development of foundational skills linked to entrepreneurship, while post-secondary education programs emphasize skills related to strategic business planning. Programs targeting potential entrepreneurs generally are embedded within broader support programs and tend to target vulnerable populations for whom employment alternatives may be limited. While programs serving practicing entrepreneurs focus on strengthening entrepreneurs knowledge, skills and business practices, which while unlikely to transform an enterprise in the near term, may accrue benefits to entrepreneurs over time. The study also offers implications for policy and program implementation, emphasizing the importance of clarity about target groups and desired outcomes when making program choices, and sound understanding of extent to which publicly-supported programs offer a broader public good, and compare favorably to policy alternatives for supporting the targeted individuals as well as the overall economic and social objectives.

The best-performing companies have leaders who actively apply moral values to achieve enduring personal and organizational success. Lennick and Kiel extensively identify the moral components at the heart of the recent financial crisis, and illuminate the monetary and human costs of failed moral leadership in global finance, business and government. The authors begin by systematically defining the principles of moral intelligence and the behavioral competencies associated with them. Next, they demonstrate why sustainable optimal performance–on both an individual and organizational level–requires the development and application of superior moral and emotional competencies. Using many new examples and real case studies and new interviews with key business leaders, they identify connections between moral intelligence and higher levels of trust, engagement, retention, and innovation. Readers will find specific guidance on moral leadership in both large organizations and entrepreneurial ventures, as well as a new, practical, step-by-step plan for measuring and strengthening every component of moral intelligence–from integrity and responsibility to compassion and forgiveness. The authors also provide practical ways for readers to develop their own moral and emotional competencies.

In Entrepreneurial Excellence, some of the top entrepreneurial strategists from around the world representing more than 100 books and more than 300 companies answer these questions, and share their advice and wisdom on building and maintaining thriving businesses.

"A vivid, compelling and highly readable insight into building world-leading teams and organizations." - Dr Catherine Raines, Chief Executive, UK Trade & Investment The Business of Excellence offers a unique and compelling perspective on the drivers of excellence in teams and organizations. The author, Justin Hughes, brings an unusual mix of experience and insight, having worked as a management consultant to some of the world's most successful organizations, in addition to having served for 12 years as a military fighter pilot, where he became Executive Officer on the RAF Red Arrows. The challenges of high performance and leadership are explored in depth, and are illustrated with insights, interviews and case studies from the military, sporting and corporate worlds. The material includes a proprietary performance model that can be applied to a wide spectrum of organizations, focusing on: · People: the primacy of attitude over skills · Capability: building alignment before setting people free · Delivery: a process to close the gap between desired and actual outcomes · Learning: how to accelerate performance in real time · Leadership: exhibiting a set of behaviours such that others choose to follow · Risk: avoiding the victory of compliance over outcomes. In The Business of Excellence, Justin deconstructs the drivers of high performance with a rare clarity, insight and accessibility, to illustrate and explain tangible tools and methods, all of which can be applied by readers in their own teams and organizations.

This textbook helps readers increase their entrepreneurial knowledge, improve their competences, and expand their entrepreneurial thinking. The book consists of nine chapters: Expand Entrepreneurial Vision, Improve Entrepreneurial Quality, Prepare for Entrepreneurship Education, Identify Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Build An Entrepreneurship Team, Compose the Business Plan, Planing Entrepreneurial Strategy, Avoid Entrepreneurial Risks, and Optimize Entrepreneurial resources. It allows readers new to the area to gain an understanding of entrepreneurship and provides a solid basis for starting a business in the future. Each chapter includes learning objectives and “leads” at the beginning and ends with review and “think and discuss” sections.

Only if they do the right thing at the right time will owners of small businesses succeed. Simple enough, but what are the factors in their psychological makeup that enable them to do it? Frese and his contributors have studied small businesses in four African countries from a psychological perspective—the first time this has been done—and report that it's the psychological aspects of their strategies, not just the strategies themselves, that contribute significantly to their success. They also prove that many of the stereotypes that seem to characterize the owners of microbusinesses are clearly incorrect. Executives, analysts, bankers, international entrepreneurs, and their academic colleagues will discover that many of the conclusions they have drawn from previous studies can not be generalized. Only by separating those that can be generalized from those that can not, can we get a true understanding of the small business entrepreneurial dynamic. Frese and his colleagues focus on South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Zambia to produce a clear overview of the research on microbusiness and entrepreneurship in developing countries. They find that psychological strategies are closely related to entrepreneurial success, but because conditions in these countries differ widely, the particulars of certain strategies and their effectiveness may also differ. They show that a number of ideas prevalent among professionals and entrepreneurship researchers in developing countries need to be challenged. Among them, that microenterprise owners who started their companies because they were unemployed do worse than those who started for other, more positive reasons. Also, that human capital (education) represents the most important set of variables to be considered for success (it isn't), or that employing family members decreases success (it doesn't). Well written and impeccably researched, the book is an essential contribution to corporate and academic libraries, as well as to the knowledge of individuals in business, psychology, entrepreneurial and regional studies, and related fields.