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This paper investigates options market reaction to changes in the instantaneous variance of the underlying asset. There are three main findings. First, options market investors underreact to individual daily changes in instantaneous variance. Second, these same investors overreact to periods of mostly increasing or mostly decreasing daily changes in instantaneous variance. Third, they tend to underreact (overreact) to current daily changes in instantaneous variance that are preceded mostly by daily changes of the opposite (same) sign. The third finding can reconcile the first two and is also consistent with well-established cognitive biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the article "Post-Earnings Announcement Drift and the Dissemination of Predictable Information," by Leonard C. Soffer and Thomas Lys and the model they developed to infer the extent to which the information in quarterly earnings announcements is incorporated into investors' expectations for the subsequent quarterly earnings. The author offers validity tests to determine if Soffer and Lys's model is capable of producing the statistical results that they do. The findings of the paper encourage the author to continue research into earnings surprise research for firms reporting profits.

Copyright of Investigaciones Historicas is the property of Universidad de Valladolid, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the 1990s, many nations pursued immigration policies aimed at attracting entrepreneurs who could invigorate their domestic economy. This paper examines New Zealand’s business immigration policy and contrasts it to that of Canada. Immigrant entrepreneurs explored business ventures that either did not materialise or ended in failure. Many resorted to passive investments. They had to learn to do business in the new environment. This paper suggests the policies were based on an outdated model of entrepreneurship that emphasises the attributes of the individual. The experience of business immigrants highlights the dynamics of fit in the nexus between individual and environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of LogForum is the property of LogForum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper introduces a new dataset from 50 private investment funds from 17 countries around the world. We analyse the frequency of use of investment covenants imposed by institutional investors governing the activities of private investment fund managers in areas pertaining to investment decisions, investment powers, types of investments, fund operations and limitations on liability. While the data indicate a role for country legality in affecting the frequency of use of fund covenants, the data further indicate that the presence of legally trained managers has a more pronounced role in affecting the use of covenants. As private equity and venture capital investment increases across Europe and elsewhere, our results indicate that legal practice factors will matter more than the legal setting for the establishment of covenants governing new funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper solves numerically the intertemporal consumption and portfolio choice problem of an infinitely-lived investor who faces a time-varying equity premium. The solutions we obtain are very similar to the approximate analytical solutions of Campbell and Viceira (1999), except at the upper extreme of the state space where both the numerical consumption and portfolio rules flatten out. We also consider a constrained version of the problem in which the investor faces borrowing and short-sales restrictions. These constraints bind when the equity premium moves away from its mean in either direction, and are particularly severe for risk-tolerant investors. The constraints have substantial effects on optimal consumption, but much more modest effects on optimal portfolio choice in the region of the state space where they are not binding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes an artificial economy in which firms in different sectors make inventions at different times but innovate simultaneously to take advantage of high aggregate demand. In turn, high demand results from simultaneous innovation in many sectors. The economy exhibits multiple cyclical equilibria, with entrepreneurs' expectations determining which equilibrium obtains. These equilibria are Pareto ranked, and the most profitable equilibrium need not be the most efficient. While an informed stabilization policy can sometimes raise welfare, if large booms are necessary to cover fixed costs of innovation, stabilization policy can stop all technological progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the difficult economic conditions in Romania, the paper identifies the qualities of an intelligent investor on the background of the economic and financial crisis by presenting Warren Buffet's strategy and action in the recent times. The conclusion is that Warren Buffet remains in the economic history as the most atypical capitalist that Americans have ever had and his behaviour could be successfully followed by the Romanian business men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs are known for their active business networking practices, particularly in Southeast Asia. This paper empirically investigates the role of ethnic Chinese networks in promoting foreign direct investment (FDI). We further evaluate whether the effectiveness of networking activities are affected by the level of economic and institutional development of the source and the host countries. Using a standard gravity model, we find that ethnic Chinese networks are significant in facilitating cross-border investment between countries. The strength of ethnic Chinese networks between country pairs, approximated by the product of the numbers of ethnic Chinese in both countries, is positively correlated with the cumulative amount of their reciprocal FDI. More importantly, this significant relationship is not limited to countries in Southeast Asia, but is applicable to other country pairs included in the study as well, regardless of whether the investment is originated from industrial countries or developing economies. Finally, the analysis finds no evidence that ethnic networks are only effective in countries where economic and legal institutions are under-developed. Ethnic Chinese networks have played a significant role in promoting FDI to countries with a relatively higher bureaucratic quality, much more so than to countries with a lower bureaucratic quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the government intervention into the market 'gap' for start-up and early-stage equity finance in the UK is based on the belief that the problem is on the supply side. Based on an analysis of the informal venture capital market this paper argues that there is no shortage of finance available. A survey of business angels reveals that many are willing to allocate a higher proportion of their investment portfolio to investments in unquoted companies, with recent tax incentives having a positive effect on their willingness to invest. Over 90% are currently looking to make more investments. However, there are constraints on their ability to invest: they do not see enough deals that meet their investment criteria, the majority of the investment proposals that they receive are of poor quality, and they are often unable to negotiate acceptable investment terms and conditions with entrepreneurs. The implication is that there is a need for further interventions by policy-makers to remove these barriers so that more small firms can take advantage of the substantial pool of angel finance that is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Business Finance & Accounting is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Male entrepreneurs are known to raise higher levels of funding than their female counterparts, but the underlying mechanism for this funding disparity remains contested. Drawing upon regulatory focus theory, we propose that the gap originates with a gender bias in the questions that investors pose to entrepreneurs. A field study conducted on question-and-answer interactions at TechCrunch Disrupt New York City during 2010 through 2016 reveals that investors tend to ask male entrepreneurs promotion-focused questions and female entrepreneurs prevention-focused questions, and that entrepreneurs tend to respond with matching regulatory focus. This distinction in the regulatory focus of investor questions and entrepreneur responses results in divergent funding outcomes for entrepreneurs whereby those asked promotion-focused questions raise significantly higher amounts of funding than those asked prevention-focused questions. We demonstrate that every additional prevention-focused question significantly hinders the entrepreneur’s ability to raise capital, fully mediating gender’s effect on funding. By experimentally testing an intervention, we find that entrepreneurs can significantly increase funding for their startups when responding to prevention-focused questions with promotion-focused answers. As we offer evidence regarding tactics that can be employed to diminish the gender disadvantage in funding outcomes, this study has practical as well as theoretical implications for entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we compare the two hi-tech districts of Catania and Genoa, which are within the same national context and economic sector, with the aim of explaining their different choices (the promotion of external investments, in the first case, and fostering of the development of small businesses, in the second case) in the light of the local economic structure and the role played by political, economic, and educational institutions. Local actors have differently influenced the development of a professional community through the interpersonal networks of entrepreneurs and the performance obtained by local small businesses. While Catania has experienced a higher and more rapid growth, development in Genoa seems to be better established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The S-shaped innovation adoption curve described by the Bass (1969) model is applied to earnings of firms which introduce new innovative products. These earnings streams often grow slowly, then accelerate rapidly, and finally, plateau at a constant rate so that the Bass model is useful in describing them. Examples of firms whose earnings can be fitted to this Sshaped pattern during new product introductions are identified. Estimating future earnings using the Bass model may assist founding entrepreneurs and other early stage investors in estimating the future value of their investments and in timing their exit strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study financial matching in credit markets when entrepreneurs have private information about their success potential. Entrepreneurs can search for financing for either a “risky” or a “safe” investment and only the risky project is sensitive to entrepreneurs' intrinsic “types”. There is excess risk taking in the sense that entrepreneurs with inefficiently low success probabilities choose the risky investment. However, steady states featuring greater market liquidity are associated with higher efficiency. As market liquidity also reflects the intensity of competition among financiers, earlier results which indicate a negative relationship between competition and allocative efficiency do not hold in our setup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Merton (1969) established the conditions under which a constant mix portfolio strategy is optimal across a multi-period investment horizon. A central tenant of Merton's paper is that the investor's portfolio must be rebalanced continuously. In practice, portfolios are not rebalanced continuously, especially by individual investors. As portfolios are rebalanced less frequently the asset mix will drift from the target weights of the constant mix strategy and lower investor utility. We measure this 'drift' indirectly by measuring the difference between the investor's level of risk aversion and the risk aversion that would make the non-rebalanced portfolio an optimal choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Venture capitalists realize returns on their investments when their portfolio companies either go public (IPO) or are acquired by a publicly traded company. Finance theory implies that the sooner a particular return can be realized the higher the "real" return to the Investor. We use an ecosystem perspective to investigate speed to Initial Public Offering. Findings indicate that geography of the portfolio company matters, that non high-tech portfolio companies go public faster than do those in the computer-related sector, and that speed Is Increased with the recent favorable IPO market but not at the same rate for all regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have identified four different roles played by entrepreneurs in the discovery of new venture opportunities. What each of these roles has in common is that the discovery process consists of the acquisition of specific, risk-reducing information. Uncertain returns from such investments deter some would-be entrepreneurs from making discoveries. This approach suggests that the vision to make entrepreneurial discoveries depends on making cost-effective informational investments, not on special talents possessed by only a few aspirants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios Gerenciales is the property of Universidad ICESI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This case study portrays Gordon Lankton, a highly successful U.S. executive who, drawing upon the relationships he had built during two decades of doing business in Russia, succeeded in having Moscow's renowned State Tretyakov Gallery lend priceless icons to his new museum in a small Massachusetts town. We demonstrate how a charismatic and gently determined executive-turned-museum founder exhibited transformational leadership while bridging business and the arts across cultures. The case study includes an interview with Gordon Lankton and is followed by a commentary that features an interview with Kent dur Russell (the Museum of Russian Icons curator) and a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of Lankton's leadership style. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research evaluates three reasons against the use of interest. One reason is that interest is a tool of exploitation. It contradicts facts because nowadays ultimate borrowers are businessmen and ultimate lenders are salaried individuals, the former being financially better off than the latter. The second reason is that interest-based external financing leads to unfair distribution of profits. Although this reasoning is not wrong, it is not very appealing in positive economics. Having noted that risk aversion is applauded in both conventional and Islamic economics, this author has propounded a third reason which states that the risk of an investment is least when financed exclusively by equity. This reasoning is easily understandable to conventional economists and is proved mathematically in this article. Therefore it provides a sound economic footing for prohibition of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many possible explanations for the financial behavior of investors. One of the explanations is financial knowledge. Using a survey data, this study demonstrates that, at least for investors, their objective knowledge, subjective knowledge, and risk taking are highly correlated. More importantly, gender emerges as an important factor that differentiates investors' levels of objective knowledge, subjective knowledge, and risk taking, whereas investors' subjective knowledge mediates investors' objective knowledge on risk taking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study undertakes firm-level analysis of investment opportunities and free cash flow in an attempt to explain the source of the wealth effect of financial liberalization for 14 emerging countries. We find that the market's responses to stock market liberalization announcements are more favorable for high-growth firms than for low-growth firms, a result that is consistent with the investment opportunities hypothesis. We also demonstrate that firms with high cash flow experience lower announcement-period returns associated with stock market liberalization than do firms with low cash flow. Our findings suggest that the free cash flow hypothesis dominates the corporate governance hypothesis in terms of the net effect of stock market liberalization on a firm's stock returns. We further document similar evidence with regard to banking liberalization. Finally, we demonstrate that stock market liberalization leads to the more efficient allocation of capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We develop a model of “intrinsic” cycles, driven by the decentralized behavior of entrepreneurs and firms making continuous, divisible improvements in their productivity. We show that when the introduction of productivity improvements is endogenous, implementation cycles arise even in the presence of reversible investment and consumption smoothing. The implied cyclical equilibrium is unique within its class and shares several features in common with actual business cycles. In particular, its predictions are qualitatively consistent with the joint behavior of the investment rate and Tobin's Q during U.S. recessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the purpose of advancing our understanding of portfolio entrepreneurship, we separate the act of entrepreneurship (new entry) from its mode or organizing (internal vs. independent organization). Analyzing a cohort of 2,253 novice and habitual business founders, we find that portfolio entrepreneurship is a common phenomenon and that the majority of portfolio entrepreneurs use the internal mode of organizing. Whether or not business founders subsequently pursue portfolio entrepreneurship is explained by their human capital (education and start-up experience) and social capital (business networks and links with government support agencies). Further, novice entrepreneurs are more likely to organize portfolio entrepreneurship within their existing firms while habitual entrepreneurs more often organize subsequent acts of portfolio entrepreneurship by creating another new independent organization. Implications for entrepreneurship research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adds new insights to the growing body of research showing that entrepreneurs' communication skills and personal attributes influence investor decision making. Twenty-four business angels attending a UK investor forum completed questionnaires evaluating 32 'presentational' and 'non-presentational' aspects of three entrepreneurs' oral pitch presentations. The business angels' level of investor interest was significantly related to their evaluations of the quality and content of the entrepreneurs' presentations: the higher an entrepreneur's overall presentation score, the greater the likelihood that the business angels would be interested in pursuing that investment opportunity. Presentational factors (relating to the entrepreneurs' style of delivery, etc.) tended to have the highest influence on the overall score an entrepreneur received as well as on business angels' level of investment interest. However, the business angels appeared to be unaware of (or were reluctant to acknowledge) the influence presentational factors had on their investment-related decisions: the stated reasons for their post-presentation intentions were focused firmly on substance-oriented non-presentational criteria (company, market, product, funding/finance issues, etc.). More generally, comments about the entrepreneurs' presentations centred on presentational issues relating to clarity/understandability and structure, the level of information provided, the entrepreneurs' personal characteristics, and their ability to sell themselves and their investment opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research uses a randomized, two-sample, post-test experiment to pit the alertness perspective against a new approach for searching systematically for venture ideas to create new wealth. The new approach uses self-selected consideration sets to constrain an entrepreneur’s search domain, which makes it possible to maximize the search results. The constrained domain conforms to the behavior of repeat entrepreneurs who do not search the whole world for venture ideas. Subjects in the treatment group were successful 60% of the time compared with 6.25% success rate for the control group. Fourteen percent of control group emulated the treatment group without receiving instructions to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Known as "Mr. Money" and "Superman" in Hong Kong and Asia, Li Ka-shing epitomizes China's spectacular rise from a moribund communist state to a free market colossus. One year after Deng Xiaoping launched his modernization process in 1978, Li purchased a British firm in Hong Kong called Hutchison Whampoa. From then on, his ability to create wealth globally exploded exponentially. Using a case study approach, the author analyzes Li's systematic rise from poverty and life as a plastic flower salesman to one of the world's richest individuals with investments in banks, container ports, digital and traditional media, energy, property, and retail. What emerges from this article is an entrepreneur so skilled in reading the market, so astute in hiring talent, so bold in creating and divesting investments, so Chinese in his business values, and so loyal in bringing friends into his financial arena that creating wealth seemed almost like an after-thought. Yet for his sons, Victor and Richard, the challenge is to equal or surpass their father. To know why and how Li Ka-shing became wealthy is to know why China is such a commercial success today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Funds of hedge funds (FOF) are the preferred channel to access hedge funds by investors. FOF add value through selecting the best managers from a large universe, performing due diligence, and monitoring investments and risk. Initial funding of an FOF is a difficult task. Despite holding positions in well-established funds, new FOF are not able to use this fact to gain investments because the composition of the portfolio should not be disclosed. We analyse some of the difficulties of funding start-up FOF, the rating used by rating agencies, and the possible negative effects of regulation by the G8.Journal of Derivatives & Hedge Funds (2007) 13, 247–262. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jdhf.1850076 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western investors and managers are all too often unaware that they exacerbate their distinctive investment risks in post-communist countries by failing to interact effectively with local counterparts. These risks are compounded by deeply rooted misconceptions about how to interact with locals in a manner that will both motivate and enable them to offer their deep know how on grasping opportunities and minimizing risks. Drawing on our long experiene in conducting business and research in these countreis, we demonstrate that effective interaction constitutes a major value-adding resource as well as a potent risk-mitigator. Furthermore, we articulate a distinctive mindset and a comprehensive management model for establishing and sustaining this interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant empirical evidence has documented both a temporal variation in the number of initial public offerings (IPOs) and an industry clustering effect in these offerings. This article attempts to provide insights into this phenomenon by: (i) identifying industry conditions that influence IPO clustering, (ii) analyzing differences in characteristics of clustered versus non-clustered IPOs, and (iii) studying the impact of IPO clustering on long-run operating performance. We find that IPO clustering is more likely to occur in high-growth fragmented industries that are characterized by strong investment opportunities, favorable investor sentiment, and which require high levels of investments in R&D. Further, we document a negative relation between post-IPO operating performance and whether the IPO firm goes public in its industry cluster period. We conclude that the relatively poor post-IPO operating performance of firms that go public in industry cluster periods likely reflects industry overinvestment arising from too many firms within that industry chasing the same investment opportunities. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schumpeter maintained that oscillations of macroeconomic variables are only the “secondary wave” of business cycles, a reflex of more fundamental “primary waves” at the microeconomic level caused by the innovative activity of entrepreneurs. Uniting Schumpeter’s concern for innovation with Keynes’ concern for uncertainty and expectations formation, this article focuses on the behaviour of entrepreneurs confronting uncertainty caused by innovation. Entrepreneurs’ behaviour is reconstructed by modelling the functioning of their cognitive processes when innovations appear. Recognition of the possibilities opened up by a successful innovation generates a state of optimism in the minds of single entrepreneurs, which eventually propagates to the whole economy triggering an investments upswing. Likewise, unsuccessful innovations can trigger a downswing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effect of entrepreneurs' social capital on investment decisions of venture capitalists. The empirical data is composed of 158 venture capital decisions in the People's Republic of China. We found that entrepreneurs' social capital has significant effects on investment selection decisions of venture capitalists in interaction with growth potential and technology/products of the venture. We also found that strong ties between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have significant direct effects on investment process decisions such as contractual covenants, investment delivery, and venture valuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare the characteristics of real-world financial contracts to their counterparts in financial contracting theory. We do so by studying the actual contracts between venture capitalists (VCs) and entrepreneurs. The distinguishing characteristic of VC financings is that they allow VCs to separately allocate cash flow rights, board rights, voting rights, liquidation rights, and other control rights. We describe and measure these rights. We then interpret our results in relation to existing financial contracting theories. We also describe the interrelation and the evolution across financing rounds of the different rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment of intangibles in business plans by investors is an important factor of recent interest, particularly in the evaluation of early-stage technology-based ventures. On one hand, investors are challenged to properly assess new opportunities. At the same time, entrepreneurs or innovators face the formidable task of communicating what is, sometimes, nothing more than just an 'extraordinary' idea. In such situations, the decision to continue with the due diligence process, and finally to invest, is based frequently on those aspects that are intangible. In an attempt to reveal some of the intangibles assessed by investors and communicated by entrepreneurs, an investigation was conducted using repertory grid, a technique based on personal construct psychology. Five venture capitalists and five entrepreneurs were interviewed. Evidence was found for the importance of intangibles during the investment-decision process of early stage technology-based ventures. For these ventures, the consideration of only tangible criteria is not a guaranteed predictor of success. The repertory grid technique makes a significant contribution to the identification of intangibles assessed by investors and communicated by entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the literature of cooperative (co-op) advertising, the focus of the research is on a relationship in which a manufacturer is the leader and retailers are followers. This relationship implies the dominance of the manufacturer over retailers. Recent market trends have shown a shift in power from manufacturers to retailers. Retailers, as a result, may possess equal or even greater power than a manufacturer in some instances when it comes to retailing. Based on this new market phenomenon, we intend to explore the role of co-op advertising in a manufacturer-retailer supply chain through brand name investments, local advertising expenditures, and sharing rules of advertising expenses. Two co-op advertising models are developed and compared. The first co-op advertising model is based on the traditional leader-follower relationship of a manufacturer and a retailer. The second model incorporates partnership into co-op advertising coordination. Business examples and managerial implications of the models have been discussed. A cooperative bargaining technique is utilized to implement the partnership co-op advertising model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to recent studies applying Resource-Based Theory [RBT] to entrepreneurial firms (e.g. Chandler & Hanks, 1994; Brush & Greene, 1996), In the early stages of new venture development It is the identification and acquisition of resources-rather than deployment or allocation activities-that Is crucial for the firm's long-term success (Stevenson & Gumpert, 1985). This study explores that relationship longitudinally, tracking salient resources in three rapidly growing new ventures, and analyzing how these resources change over time. Our findings Identify the most common types of salient resources, the primary types of changes In resource and resource bundles, and a pattern linking the type of change with short-term performance results In each firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the proposition that competitive firms must behave as if they were maximizing profits; otherwise they would go bankrupt, or even fail to be financed in a competitive capital market. We investigate a model in which an entrepreneur raises funds for a risky enterprise on a competitive capital market, by offering a ‘dividend policy’ based on the realized (stochastic) flow of earnings. We show that an entrepreneur who maximizes the expected sum of discounted dividends is sure to fail in finite time. On the other hand, many other behaviours yield positive expected profits and are able to attract investment funds, and yet result in a positive probability of surviving forever. As a consequence, if new firms have sufficiently diverse behaviours, then even if there is a constant stream of new entrants, after a long time practically all of the surviving firms will not have been maximizing profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the findings of a cross-sectional study that seeks to identify psychological characteristics of informal investors (angels) and to compare these characteristics to those of a control group of non-investors. Angels are found to have an internal locus of control, very high needs for achievement and dominance, and moderately high needs for affiliation and autonomy. They are intrinsically motivated, highly involved with their work and their investments, very satisfied with their jobs, and moderately satisfied with their investments' performance. Angels report relatively high levels of perceived stress (a significant proportion of which may be attributed to the performance of their investments) and cope with this stress by working harder. This profile suggests several strategies that could be used by entrepreneurs to maximize their chances of securing informal risk capital: entrepreneurs should present the investment as a challenge; offer investors some formal type of leadership position in the organization; and offer nonmonetary incentives as well. Personal involvement encourages investors to work harder on behalf of the firm and to bring additional financial and non-financial resources to bear on making the investment a success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the impact of business and investment climates in Hong Kong and Canada to entrepreneurs. Hong Kong offers no special incentives. Instead, a laissez-faire policy of free trade and low taxation, coupled with minimal regulation and an excellent infrastructure has made Hong Kong an attractive manufacturing and financial center, the eleventh largest trading entity in the world. It is relatively easy to create a new venture in Hongkong. According to the Joint-Declaration of the 1984 Sino-British Agreement, Hongkong will revert to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997, at which time the People's Republic of China plans to march 15,000 troops into the former colony.

The article focuses on the nature of business relationships among Chinese in Singapore. One of the crucial aspects of the business insightfulness is the ability to manage and interpret the meanings central to the notion of relationships. The mediation of prestation and the conditions of the changing market contribute to the risks in the transactional relationship. Moreover, dinners and self-promotions are important in the way Chinese transact business. The strategy of dealing business explains the practical attitudes towards business relationships.

The article focuses on marketing. It states that for every investor, the most important thing to consider is the value of the invested money in contemporary market. This is known as return on investment (ROI). Businessmen need to enhance their marketing techniques to achieve optimum profits. The techniques must be effective enough to deal with current market dynamism. The author states that marketers must take dynamism as an opportunity rather than threat. They can succeed only with this attitude.

The article reports that according to the CBI quarterly trends survey orders and output growth in manufacturing were sluggish over the past three months. High costs and a difficulty raising prices are increasing pressure on margins. With expectations for weak growth in demand, manufacturers plan to scale back investment and reduce headcount. Thirty-one per cent of manufacturers reported higher orders in the last quarter and 27% reported a fall. The figures for output increased for the fourth successive quarter, but at the slowest rate this year.