Future Business Opportunities Research Articles

New businesses for small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) in the Renewable Energy Sources (RES)

The development of renewable energy producers in rural areas creates new job opportunities for the countryside population. The decentralized manner of renewable energy in small cities is one of the ways how to meet the rural and small scale energy needs in a reliable, affordable and environmentally sustainable way. In 2010, the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague has finished the participation in the European IEE project RES COMPASS. In mutual cooperation, with seven partners from the Great Britain, France, Spain, Greek and Finland, the University has been involved in the extensive research concerning the impact of the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) on the future European labour market. The RES COMPASS project meets the objectives expressed by the New Skills for New Jobs Initiative of the EU and stressed also other initiatives, namely the Green Jobs Initiative, the UNEP initiative as well as the requirements of the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Organization of Employers in 2008. The RES COMPASS programme strategy was based on the implementation steps in three mutually supportive components: The first component Comparative analysis of the methods of identification of skill needs on the future labour market based on the renewable energy sources was concerned in the young generation of the today’s students. The second component Career Orientation test was developed as a tool for the potential young people thinking about a future career in the emerging area of renewable energy. The third component focused on the future business opportunities for small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) in the RES sector. The paper informs about findings of the third component New businesses for SMEs in the RES. Realistic possibilities of the development of SMEs appear to exist in the provision of more complex services reacting to (1) needs of more rapid renovation of the morally depreciated devices, (2) interest of inhabitants and producers in the installations of at least two different autonomous alternative energy sources, (3) creation of informal groups of users who will share various energy sources, (4) need to support the installation of energy devices with other measures – energy audits and projects.

Spectre of the Past, Vision of the Future – Ritual, Reflexivity and the Hope for Renewal in Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Climate Change Communication Film "Home"

Spectre of the Past, Vision of the Future – Ritual, Reflexivity and the Hope for Renewal in Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Climate Change Communication Film "Home"

What drives corporate liquidity? An international survey of cash holdings and lines of credit

We survey chief financial officers from 29 countries to examine whether and why firms use lines of credit versus non-operational (excess) cash for their corporate liquidity. We find that these two liquidity sources are employed to hedge against different risks. Non-operational cash guards against future cash flow shocks in bad times, while credit lines give firms the option to exploit future business opportunities available in good times. Lines of credit are the dominant source of liquidity for companies around the world, comprising about 15% of assets, while less than half of the cash held by companies is held for non-operational purposes, comprising about 2% of assets. Across countries, firms make greater use of lines of credit when external credit markets are poorly developed.

Passionate attention and the psychophysiology of entrepreneurial intuition: a quantum-holographic theory

Successful entrepreneurs are passionate, innovative risk assessors whose actions are informed by accurate intuitions about future business opportunities. Often this intuitive foreknowledge involves perception of implicit information about nonlocal objects and/or events by the body's psychophysiological systems. A large body of experimental evidence has documented intuitive foreknowledge as a scientific fact, and recent studies using electrophysiological measures of autonomic nervous system activity have shown that such nonlocal intuition is related to the degree of emotional significance of the future event. A recent pilot study has found compelling evidence of intuitive foreknowledge in repeat entrepreneurs. Drawing on these findings and the principles of quantum holography, I develop a theory of nonlocal intuition. The theory explains how passionate attention directed to the object of interest (such as a potential future business opportunity) attunes the body's psychophysiological systems to a domain of quantum-holographic information, which contains implicit information about the object's future. The body's perception of this information is experienced by the entrepreneur as an intuition.

Editors' opening address

Wireless Communications Systems are at the centre of a new and passionate era for telecommunications characterised, in industrial terms, by the convergence of systems and technologies, a transition towards all-IP networks, and the development of technologies with a user-centric focus. On the other hand, in terms of Research and Development, researchers are already considering other, more futuristic, aspects beyond those just mentioned, and these days hot topics include things like the Internet of the Future, and all the Post-IP perspectives that come with it. In both grounds, that is the more industrial related one and the one nearer an academic perspective, there is still a long way to go, before many of the ideas being discussed today can see the light of day as a commercial product. In this context, the International Symposium on Wireless Communication Systems (ISWCS) has positioned itself as a dynamic forum for researchers and technologists to present and discuss original ideas and contributions in all fields related to mobile and wireless communication systems. ISWSC'06, the 3rd edition, held in Valencia, Spain, on September 2006, brought together leading and enthusiastic researchers and technologists, willing to identify and discuss the future technical challenges and business opportunities arising in the path towards the realisation of ambient wireless communication networks. Besides this, it was a good forum for Ph.D. students to present their work, and exchange their ideas. The idea of setting up a special issue of a journal with the very best papers of the conference was brought up by the excellent quality of some papers presented at the conference. The objective of a special issue of this kind is always to put together, beyond the conference proceedings, the best papers in an enhanced and revised version, enabling the journal to publish good papers with timely updated information in a very short time. This special issue of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing contains the very best papers presented at ISWCS'06. An invitation was sent to a restricted number of papers, and an additional review procedure was held, beyond the conference one. At the end, this set of six papers was accepted. The papers in this issue address some of the hot topics being investigated these days, ranging from localisation and frequency sharing to multi carrier-code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) and multiple input multiple output (MIMO). This shows that the physical layer still attracts a lot of attention, and that it still has a lot of topics to be explored. The first two papers address MIMO channels, in modelling or measurement perspectives. Matthias Pätzold and Bjørn Olav Hogstad present a model for a wideband MIMO channel based on the geometric elliptical scattering one, which can be used as a starting point for the derivation of a frequency-selective space–time channel simulator, being also useful for studying MIMO channel capacity under various propagation conditions. Michail Matthaiou et al. bring a paper on dual frequency MIMO measurements around the ISM 2.4 GHz band, in indoor environments, with initial results being promising enough, as the joint spectra seem to be remarkably similar, implying that the underlying propagation mechanisms at the considered bands are also similar. Farrukh Rashid and Athanassios Manikas present one of the papers dealing with MC-CDMA, namely on arrayed reception in space-time diffused multipath vector channels; results show that the use of a diffused channel modelling in arrayed receivers yields better bit error rate (BER) and signal to noise plus interference ratio (SNIR) performance than receivers that ignore the presence of spatial and/or temporal diffusion. The other paper on MC-CDMA, from Nguyen Tran Khoa et al., addresses frequency sharing in hotspot communications for cellular networks; it proposes an overlap in the uplink of an OFDM hotspot system to an MC-CDMA cellular one, in the same frequency band, beam-forming being applied to eliminate inter-system interference. The paper for Barbara Mavì Masini et al. also deals with the coexistence of different systems, in particular on the benefits of diversity schemes for Bluetooth coverage extension in the presence of IEEE 802.11g interference, analysing packet error and coverage probabilities, among other parameters. Finally, Joseph Shmuel Picard and Anthony Joseph Weiss present a paper addressing localisation of networks using various ranging bias models, presenting a set of iterative algorithms that cope successfully with the various bias models and provide Maximum Likelihood position estimates.

Life after a dot-com bubble

As advancements in internet technology continues to revolutionise today's business practices, it is increasingly more apparent that the internet has become an integral part of the daily routine. The internet generates a high level of interest from both retailers and their customers, because of its ability to expedite the purchase ordering process, simplify purchase payment procedures, reduce paperwork, eliminate order errors, and effectively utilise working capital. Leveraging such advantages, a large number of entrepreneurs explored online sales outlets by establishing dot-com ventures. Following this trend, many established brick-and-mortar retailers also jumped onto the dot-com bandwagon. Unfortunately, many dot-com ventures did not survive. We would like to summarise what lessons we learned from dot-com failures and find a way to apply these lessons to future online retail business opportunities.

Cognition of experts and top managers about the changes in innovation space

The innovation space has become more complex and knowledge-intensive. As a result, it is increasingly important to see innovations as knowledge that is embodied in learning and technical and organisational knowledge bases. However, in processes such as innovation development, individuals make sense of it and utilise existing knowledge differently when making decisions about which design of new technology to adopt and develop. This paper highlights the importance of a certain group's cognition in the recognition of new innovations and business opportunities, and presents a method to explore the cognition of different groups. In this study based on a 2-year research project, two different working groups assessed the future innovation and business opportunities in the field of distributed energy generation. Through analysing the results and by presenting the potential method ? the heuristic scenario method ? to explore cognition in innovation processes, this paper helps to fill the lack of methodologies in cognition research.

Closing the gap? Building surveyors in Oceania

PurposeThe Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has implemented a policy to expand its influence around the world. Quantity or construction surveyors had an established presence and history of working overseas, offering their services particularly in the Middle‐ and Far‐East. Property surveyors found the transition to working in European Union (EU) countries relatively straightforward and numerous UK property consultancies have European, Asian, North American and Oceanic offices. Furthermore UK‐based firms establishing partnerships with overseas real estate firms expanded significantly over the past decade. Building surveying (BS) is a different case. Small numbers work in commonwealth countries but it is limited and in many countries professional and academic qualifications are not recognised. This paper aims to consider the extent of the barriers and opportunities facing RICS chartered building surveyors (CBS) in Oceania (taken as Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji) and whether the gap is closing.Design/methodology/approachA desktop study reviewed the political, economic and sociological issues that affect the employment opportunities and professional services CBS offer throughout the world. Six opportunities and ten barriers were put to the RICS Oceania Building Surveying Faculty to ascertain their perceptions of these barriers and opportunities. No previous study had identified barriers and opportunities in Oceania for the BS and this research adopted a census survey of RICS practitioners currently employed in the region and the results form the most comprehensive picture of the current position.FindingsMany respondents felt that stronger links and/or mergers with the different Oceania professional property and surveying bodies would open a large field of opportunities to the CBS. Some provided comments on future business opportunities, for example “leaky buildings”, “dilapidations/‘make good’ work”, and seemed to be in general agreement that, as businesses came to know the benefits of protecting themselves from rogue tenants (and landlords) by using the services of a CBS, then opportunities would continue to rise. The principal barrier is communicating those skills and the value they add.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations that affected this research were time constraints and communicating with surveyors in Oceania, to whom the authors were not permitted direct access. The research methodology methods were, with hindsight, not ideal for the type and range of data that the researchers sought.Originality/valueThe research will be of use to building surveyors and providers of building‐surveying education in Oceania.

Valuing Joint Ventures Using Real Options

As the valuation of strategic measures becomes increasingly important, relatively few articles have discussed the valuation methods pertained for joint ventures. This paper shows that real options contribute to a better valuation of joint venture projects through superior reflection of the value drivers compared to traditional valuation methodology. Particularly, the strategic value of a joint venture and the value of flexibility that stems from a less than full commitment can be determined using options valuation. Besides reviewing the basics of real options, the paper discusses the key levers of joint ventures and shows the power of real options in the valuation process. We apply four option types (option to defer, option to expand/acquisition option, option to innovate, and option to abandon) to an imaginary joint venture example and show how to use the Black/Scholes and binomial valuation techniques to value these options. Of the four option types, particularly the option to innovate is important, as it allows to reflect the strategic value of a joint venture generating future business opportunities. Despite its advantages, this valuation methodology also has some drawbacks that are discussed in the concluding section.

Data integration/exchange. Part 2: future technical and business opportunities

This paper looks at the two major concerns in today's utility industry how to establish the value of data and information and how to make the whole process of integrating the data and extracting the required information as efficient and as transparent as possible. To support the argument that the technical and business value of data and information still needs to be fully understood and appreciated, further analysis of the issue is provided using the example of the traditional versus the future view of the data integration and information exchange. The approaches of using the data and information may be revisited in the context of the goals of deregulation and more competitive, customer-focused industry. The resulting strategies may offer some new benefits and more efficient and versatile uses of data and information in the future.

Using Government Performance Management Data to Identify New Business Opportunities: Examples from Government Services Outsourcing in the United States

This article describes how the private sector can utilize government performance management data to identify business opportunities. Governments around the world today are making increased use of outsourcing, performance management and performance budgeting. Utilizing readily available data that can often be accessed via the World Wide Web, private sector businesses can identify current business opportunities in terms of what services governments are outsourcing, in what amounts and at what costs. Additionally, potential future business opportunities can be identified in terms of what services governments are currently providing in-house, at what costs and with what results. Armed with this information, private sector businesses can readily identify markets for their goods and services.

Contractual Relations between European VC–Funds and Investors: The Impact of Reputation and Bargaining Power on Contractual Design

The paper explores factors that influence the design of financing contracts between venture capital investors and European venture capital funds. 122 Private Placement Memoranda and 46 Partnership Agreements are investigated in respect to the use of covenant restrictions and compensation schemes. The analysis focuses on the impact of two key factors: the reputation of VC -funds and changes in the overall demand for venture capital services. We find that established funds are more severely restricted by contractual covenants. This contradicts the conventional wisdom which assumes that established market participants care more about their reputation, have less incentive to behave opportunistically and therefore need less covenant restrictions. We also find that managers of esta blished funds are more often obliged to invest own capital alongside with investors money. We interpret this as evidence that established funds have actually less reason to care about their reputation as compared to young funds. One reason for this surprising result could be that managers of established VC funds are older and closer to retirement and therefore put less weight on the effects of their actions on future business opportunities. We also explore the effects of venture capital supply on contract design. Gompers and Lerner (1996) show that VC-funds in the US are able to reduce the number of restrictive covenants in years with high supply of venture capital and interpret this as a result of increased bargaining power by VC -funds. We do not find similar evidence for Europe. Instead, we find that VC- funds receive less base compensation and higher performance related compensation in years with strong capital inflows into the VC industry. This may be interpreted as a signal of overconfidence: Strong investor demand seems to coincide with overoptimistic expectations by fund managers which make them willing to accept higher powered incentive schemes.

Emerging technical and society trends—opportunities for vinyl: A look at the future and how the vinyl industry can respond for growth and profit

AbstractThe vinyl industry has a rich history of providing solutions to society's needs. These include flame‐resistant wire insulation, piping systems for safe drinking water, and weatherable, flame‐resistant systems for siding, windows, auto interiors, floors, and pool liners. Also included are shatter‐resistant clear containers with handles, safe blood supplies and intravenous solutions, and flame‐resistant computer housings and electrical boxes. These are but a few of the things of which the vinyl industry can be proud.The vinyl industry is mature, and as in many other mature industries, much of the technical and business effort goes into running the day‐to‐day businesses, putting out fires, reducing costs, and driving efficiencies. If poorly managed, this will be an all‐consuming effort, leaving no thought and no effort at all on longer‐term business opportunities. The future will look much different than today. Identifying future trends will allow well‐managed companies, looking for these future business opportunities, to seek out and set aside some efforts for developing future technologies and businesses. In this paper we discuss some future trends and needs, such as inexpensive and safe drinking water, personalized public transportation, prevention of resource depletion, high‐powered energy packages, nonpolluting energy sources, human genetic engineering, e‐bombs, and computers. The opportunities for the vinyl industry to participate in these changes also are discussed.

Metabolic Syndrome

Case Presentation: E.C. is a 53-year-old postmenopausal female, referred for treatment of hypertension, with a family history of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and coronary heart disease (CHD). Until learning that her blood pressure was “too high” during a routine physical examination, she felt well, and her postmenopausal symptoms had responded to hormone replacement therapy. She was not overweight (her body mass index [BMI] was 23.7 kg/m2), and the only abnormality on physical examination was a blood pressure of 145/95 RAR. Laboratory results revealed a normal blood count and urinalysis, with the following fasting plasma concentrations of relevant metabolic variables (in mg/dL): glucose 102, triglycerides (TG) 238, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) 147, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) 52. E.C. is hypertensive and hypertriglyceridemic and at increased risk for CHD. Less obvious is that these metabolic abnormalities are highly likely to be the manifestations of a more fundamental defect—resistance to insulin-mediated glucose disposal and compensatory hyperinsulinemia, changes that greatly increase CHD risk.1,2⇓ The importance of insulin resistance as a CHD risk factor was first explicated in 1998, and the cluster of abnormalities likely to appear as manifestations of the defect in insulin action designated as syndrome X.1 Support for this notion has grown almost as fast as the names used to describe the phenomenon. The Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) has recently3 recognized the importance as CHD risk factors of a “constellation of lipid and nonlipid risk factors of metabolic origin,” designated this cluster of abnormalities as “the metabolic syndrome,” and indicated that “this syndrome is closely linked to insulin resistance.” Table 1 lists the criteria the ATP III stipulated be used to diagnose the metabolic syndrome, and a recent report4 has applied these criteria to the database of the Third National Health and Nutrition …

MEMS fabrication

Describes the key attributes of MEMS technology and existing and future business opportunities. Discusses the various stages in the fabrication of MEMS devices and offers guidance regarding the selection of processing methods for deposition, lithography and etching. Also describes the MEMS‐Exchange program and associated network of fabrication centres.

Interactive selling: a dynamic framework for services

In the 1990s and into the twenty‐first century, there has been a growing interest in understanding the development of service relationships. Trust and satisfaction have been highly recognized in the literature as effective elements for establishing successful relationships. However, little is known regarding their importance in cultivating relationships in an interactive‐selling context. The present study attempts to examine the influence of behavior and performance of salespersons on customers’ trust and satisfaction and, in turn, their anticipations of future interactions with the salesperson in the context of insurance services. A survey was conducted with customers from a large UK insurance company based in Hong Kong. The results show that satisfaction, the salesperson’s self‐disclosure and relation orientation significantly influenced future business opportunities. From the findings, a dynamic framework incorporating a set of interactive elements will be proposed. Managerial implications and directions for future research will be outlined and suggested.

Real Options Analysis in Strategic Decision Making: An applied approach in a dual options framework

There is growing interest in real options theoretical perspectives to guide both capital budgeting and strategic decisions in dynamic environments. In contrast to the conventional use of discounted cash flows in capital budgeting and competitive analysis in strategy, a strategic options perspective provides a more proactive assessment of future business opportunities under uncertainty. Real options theory has shown potential for analytical applications in strategic management, particularly to evaluate flexibility and timing issues. Yet the options approach has not been widely incorporated to analyse business opportunities and adaptability in strategic investment decisions. There is a discrepancy between the mathematical sophistication of option pricing models developed in financial economics and the theoretical applications in strategic management. The paper aims to bridge this conceptual gap and promote wider use of an options analytical approach. A basic dual options framework that distinguishes between...

Informal investors as entrepreneurs

The scarcity of risk capital for start-ups and technology-oriented small firms is an ever-recurring theme in the economic debate. In recent years interest in the informal risk capital market, i.e., private individuals who invest their own capital in small unlisted firms, has grown significantly, but our knowledge about this market is relatively limited. Against this background, the aim of this study is to describe and explain the decision-making criteria used by informal investors when assessing new investment proposals. In the study a conjoint method is used in order to measure quantitatively the relative importance of one decision-making criterion in relation to another. In total 34 general decision-making criteria and 35 leadership criteria were identified. A subjective sample of 44 informal investors in Sweden answered either a questionnaire relating to general decision-making criteria or one relating to leadership criteria. The data were coded into a conjoint model in order to process the relative ranking between the decisionmaking criteria. Earlier research has regarded informal investors as the financiers of small firms, looking at their investments as objects. In this study another interpretation is made and the informal investors are themselves regarded as entrepreneurs, that is they see their investments as subjects. This means that the relationship between the investor and the entrepreneur in the firm in which they invest can be characterised by using the concepts “business creator” and “co-creator”, i.e., informal investors look for future business opportunities, and they want to participate in the creation process. This is expressed in their assessment of new investment proposals. For example, the informal investors attach a great deal of weight to decision-making criteria related to the business potential of the investment, the relationship between the entrepreneur and investor, as well as the entrepreneur's own ability to develop his/her firm. Furthermore, informal investors do not have the opportunity to play an executive role in the portfolio firms, and they therefore regard the entrepreneur in the portfolio firm as their stand-in, i.e., co-entrepreneur. This is also expressed in the decision-making criteria used by the informal investors, in that it is entrepreneurs who can be characterised as having entrepreneurial ability, which seems to be what the investors are looking for. Looking at informal investors as entrepreneurs themselves may have several implications for policy-makers as well as for entrepreneurs seeking capital.

S4-4 Circadian rhythm generation, expression and entrainment in a molluscan model system

The longer the contract period, the higher the chance that major changes will arise. Thus a greater reliance on the established relationships is needed to maintain the contractual bond in PPP project. Relationship management (RM) can therefore be expected to be even more valuable in the PPP context. This paper aims to investigate current perceptions and experiences of RM in PPP projects and more importantly, to identify the CSFs for RM in PPP projects. By means of an empirical questionnaire survey geared towards PPP practitioners with direct hands-on experience, the opinions were solicited, analyzed and compared in relation to potential PPP RM success factors. The survey findings indicate that industry practitioners currently lack a general understanding of concepts and applications of RM, given that it is relatively new in PPP. However, they do think that RM is very important to improve the present performance of PPPs. Future PPP business opportunities can also be increased by effective RM. The top four CSFs for RM are found to be commitment of senior executives, defining the objectives, integration of the different divisions and a multidisciplinary team. However, the relative importance presently assigned for each of the above factors is insufficient, and commitment from senior management is perceived as the most difficult factor to improve.

The organization of relational contracts: The allocation of rights in franchising

Franchising contracts are designed to bring together two kinds of entrepreneurs, the franchiser and the franchisee, and to maintain their relationship in the long run. In contrast to standard exchange contracts in law, which are specifically designed to bring about the completion of an exchange efficiently, franchise contracts are designed to make it possible for the entrepreneurs to initiate, to maintain, and to eventually terminate their relationship without dispute. The research reported in this article is an attempt to see how the dual purpose of franchising contracts are achieved. The article first describes the internal organization of franchise contracts (what we called the micro-contractual aspects) and how different kinds of rights and obligations are allocated to accomplish these multiple ends. The second part of the article provides an empirical examination of 30 franchise contracts to see if the internal organization of the contracts influence both the expansion of the franchise operations through new franchises and the amount of dispute between the two sides of franchise contracts. Every franchise contract includes a set of provisions that define the commencement, termination, and ongoing operations of franchise relations. The internal organization of franchise contracts specifies what kinds of rights and obligations are distributed to the parties and the nature of this allocation within each domain of provisions. We argue that the commencement and termination aspects of franchise contracts are usually written in order to make the relationship between the parties clear, and the contingencies specific. In these provisions, the contract is written in discrete terms in which each party's rights and duties are specifically delineated. The contractual provisions dealing with the ongoing operations and the conduct of the parties, on the other hand, cannot be made specific because it is impossible to define all the future contingencies and possible business opportunities. Under these conditions, the contract is usually written in relational terms in which each party's rights and obligations are defined in terms of powers and liabilities towards each other rather than in terms of specific duties and rights. One critical consequence of writing contracts that include powers and liabilities, however, is that it may lead to disputes and undesirable conflict that are detrimental to the success of the franchise. In order to deal with these conflicts among the parties, the contract needs to specify conflict resolution mechanisms that are an integral part of franchise contracts. These general arguments are tested with the use of 30 randomly selected franchise contracts from a diverse set of businesses. Our results show that, indeed, different parts of franchise contracts allocate rights and obligations differently and the more relational a contract becomes the more likely that it would include various dispute resolution mechanisms. We also found that the success of a franchise contract, which is measured by the number of legal disputes it generates and the growth of franchised units, is influenced by the existence of relational provisions and the explicit dispute resolution mechanisms included in the contract. We recommend that franchise contracts should be written to make the commencement and termination aspect of the relationship as discrete as possible. The operations and conduct provisions of the contract, on the other hand, should be written in relational terms to give the parties the ability to respond to changes in business conditions without renegotiating the contract. It is usually the tendency on the part of franchise lawyers to write discrete contracts that attempt to specify every conceivable contingency to avoid future disputes. We argue here that a better strategy is to limit the discrete aspects of the contract to the commencement and termination clauses and to concentrate more on the dispute resolution mechanisms that can become an integral part of the contract. Thus, we also recommend that various dispute resolution mechanisms, such as franchisee associations, franchisee councils, and third party arbitration should be set up within the contract to address the possible disputes early on rather than to wait for potentially very costly court proceedings for both parties.