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Motivation can serve as the engine that turns intention into action, and, as such, is indispensable in the early phase of the entrepreneurial process, where opportunity recognition and exploitation are key. However, research in this area has so far shed a selective spotlight on specific facets of entrepreneurial motivation, whereas the consideration of basic motives has been widely neglected. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to illuminate the basic motivational foundations of one core aspect of entrepreneurial behavior, namely opportunity recognition.

The study examined how motivation influences the process of recognizing and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities in a sample of 312 managing directors and managing partners of small and medium-sized enterprises. Opportunity recognition and exploitation were assessed by two different measures: one evaluating the objective number of recognized and realized business opportunities, the other assessing the perceived proficiency in identifying and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. Implicit and explicit facets of basic motivation were measured using a comprehensive assessment of human needs.

Findings show that entrepreneurs' achievement motive is an important driver in both the identification and exploitation of opportunity. The power motive affects the perceived ability to exploit business opportunities. Interestingly, the explicit affiliation motive showed an inhibitory effect on the perceived ability of opportunity identification, whereas implicit affiliation motive is affecting the number of recognized and realized business opportunities positively.

This research clearly highlights the preeminence of basic motivational factors in explaining individual early-stage entrepreneurial behavior, making them a prime target for training interventions.

The systematic study of management has seen rapid development in this century since the early years when F. W. Taylor was studying the design of work and Henri Fayol the design of organizations. The inter‐war period for example saw the Hawthorne experiments and the growth of the so‐called human relations school and the second world war the initiation of Operational Research. In the last twenty or thirty years all the social sciences have been developing rapidly and so has their application to the problems of management.

This paper investigates how individuals determine their tax morale levels and tax compliance decisions. Using a questionnaire survey and a multivariate tests procedure, the paper revealed that tax evasion is morally acceptable in Jordan under some circumstances, indeed there could be an affirmative duty to evade taxes since the government is perceived to be highly corrupted. The findings also show that while the extent of the governmental corruption has a positive (negative) effect on tax non-compliance (tax morale), the efficient expenditure of governmental tax revenues has a negative (positive) impact on tax non-compliance (tax morale). The individuals’ tax non-compliance decisions are likewise positively affected by the tax rates and by the taxation system’s being perceived as unjust, but decline with the increase of audit rates and the subsequent penalty rates. The degree and effectiveness of these determinants are dependent on the individual’s level of risk aversion, financial constraints and the surrounding referent groups. The results also confirm that individual factors play a significant role in determining the level of tax morale. Overall, the tax morale level and the compliance decision of an individual are greatly influenced by gender, age, educational level, occupational status and religious background.

Online retailers often lack nexus within a purchaser’s home state and do not collect sales tax at the point of sale. Consumers exacerbate the loss of tax revenue by typically not remitting the use tax on these purchases. To date, very little research addresses the effectiveness of methods to increase use tax compliance, and the need for more work is well documented in the literature.

This study examines, in a controlled economics-based experiment, the effectiveness of current approaches to close the use tax gap. Participants are randomly assigned to one of three treatments to determine the extent to which they would voluntarily pay use tax on a purchase transaction. The experiment mimics the natural environment and measures the participants’ actual compliance with cash payouts.

We find individuals are significantly more likely to pay the use tax when given detailed information about their online purchases and the use tax obligation compared to only receiving a description of the use tax. We also find compliance is significantly higher when individuals have a separate state income tax line on which to report use tax liability.

Unlike personal income tax compliance, consumers are more likely to evade use tax payments because taxing authorities are usually unable or unwilling to audit consumer purchases. This makes an examination of the effectiveness of reporting and collection methods worthwhile. This study measures use tax compliance based on actual consumer behavior with real economic consequences rather than taxpayer intentions, as reported in prior work. This is important because intentions and behavior are often different, especially in an economic setting. Finally, policymakers will benefit from an effectiveness-assessment of actual methods, rather than hypothetical and potentially unfeasible approaches, to try and increase use tax compliance.

The objective of managment education for the potential or practising manager can be regarded as the development of skills of diagnosis and application in situations that are unique and highly complex. Therefore management research is the handmaiden of management and managers who are interested in what action to take in a specific situation. It follows that the task of management research in many cases must be regarded as incomplete until the process of development, out of positive theory, of its normative implications and the testing of these in action, has been accomplished.

Since the early 1970s considerable interest has been focussed, by a variety of bodies in many countries, on the problems faced by small shop operators. The result has been an increased awareness of these problems by policy makers and planners at both the national and local level but there have been few attempts to solve the problems. The problems are neither new nor unique to Britain. In America, for instance, research in the 1930s defined particular problems and subsequent studies attempted to determine the future of the small shop in the American retail system. In contrast, the early British workers were concerned to describe the trading characteristics of small unit retailing and it was not until the publication of the Bolton Committee findings in 1971 that attention was focussed specifically on the operational problems of the small retail unit. As a consequence, British retail planning, in contrast to many other European countries, possesses few formal policies of direct relevance to the small shop.

Argues that hypermarkets in the UK may not yield net benefits, as the price savings claimed are unlikely, and the impact of hypermarkets on other parts of the retail system is also considered in the light of continental experience. Discusses the economic justification for hypermarkets, as well as broader questions of the effects of hypermarkets generally on the retail system. Summarises that the development of hypermarkets, in economic terms, may well prove not to be the next wheel of retailing, but simply a form of the self‐service revolution which Britain experienced some 15 years ago, but which France largely missed out on at the time.

Retail trade, an essential component in any industrialised marketing system, has received relatively little attention on a macro level. Rather, the formal study of retail trade has been directed at helping retail managers improve the effectiveness of their decisions. Although such analysis is helpful to retail managers, it is of less use to government policy makers in formulating policy and to marketing academicians in their attempts to understand retailing on a broader level. If the retailing sector of the economy is to be better understood some major analytical questions which revolve around the productivity of retail trade must be answered. Importantly, the productivity of retail trade is not only of interest to government policy makers but also should be of interest to marketers because (1) the productivity of retailing is a significant component in influencing the cost of marketing goods, (2) as marketers we know almost nothing about the economic efficiency of retailing, and (3) it will give marketers the tools to help compare productivity in the retailing/marketing sectors of the economy to productivity in other sectors of the economy. The purpose of this paper is the estimation of a production function for department stores in the United States for the year 1972. During 1972, department store sales totalled $51·08 billion[l], comprising 11·1% of all retail sales. Only automobile dealerships, eating and drinking places, and food stores were a greater component of retail sales and only the latter employed more people. An understanding of one of the more important components of the US economy, retail trade, cannot occur in the absence of a thorough comprehension of its department store component (SIC 531).

Presents an argument for the use of group decision support systems (GDSS) in the promotion of organizational learning. The combination of reflection, analysis, and openness that such systems encourage is postulated to encourage the learning process. Discusses problems associated with power, information loss, and cultural knowledge. Sets out a view of organizational learning which emphasizes that learning can occur at the organizational level through processes.