Corporate Citizenship Report

The Hitachi Foundation and the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship recently released a report titled “Weathering the Storm: The State of Corporate Citizenship in 2009.” The survey results show that due to the recession businesses have had to rethink – both good and bad – their approach to corporate citizenship.

The survey sample included 756 executives, 36% of whom were at small businesses
(1-99 employees), 24% at medium (100-999), and 40% at large companies
(1000 + employees).  The survey found that large companies are responding to the recession much differently than small companies. For example, large companies significantly increased their investments and involvement in citizenship activities – but they were also more likely to lay people off. Small firms kept true to their emphasis on treating employees well by minimizing layoffs. But they significantly decreased attention to other aspects of citizenship, such as volunteering or philanthropy.

Some additional highlights of the survey:

  • Despite upheaval in the economy, a majority of U.S. companies are not making major changes in their corporate citizenship practices. Of those who made changes 38% reduced philanthropy/giving, 27% increased layoffs, and 19% reduced R&D for sustainable products.
  • Most U.S. senior executives believe business should be more involved than it is today in addressing major public issues including health care, product safety, education, and climate change. Surveyed in June, just as the national debate on health care began to intensify, some 65 percent said business should increase its involvement in this issue.
  • Based on current economic conditions, 15% of companies are increasing R&D for new sustainable products; 11% are increasing corporate citizenship marketing and communications; and 10% are increasing local and/or domestic sourcing or manufacturing.
  • Only 34 percent of executives who responded to the survey say greater regulatory oversight by the federal government is an important part of solving the current economic crisis and creating a more stable economy.

WSJ Names Top Small Business Workplaces

The Wall Street Journal recognized the Top Small Workplaces in its third annual report featuring some of the best small employers  in the U.S.  The Journal Report on Small Business features the 15 winners in yesterday’s print and online editions.

Part of this feature was a column by Laura Lorber on web resources for small business owners, which included some recommended websites on organizing and funding your small business (all are great sites).  She also recommended two sites that offer insights on entrepreneurship.  Thanks for including The Entrepreneurial Mind as one of those two resources!

New Study Released on Impact of Entrepreneurship Courses

In a newly released study supported by the Office of Advocacy and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies of New York University examined the impact of entrepreneurship education in higher education.

The study found that students who took an entrepreneurship class were more likely to have engaged in three types of “innovation”:

  1. offering new products or services
  2. obtaining patents or copyrights
  3. using production techniques that differ from those of the industry’s main competitor.

Not surprisingly, graduates who have taken entrepreneurship courses are significantly more likely to select careers in entrepreneurship.

The results suggest that there is a strong correlation between respondents having taken an entrepreneurial course and their self-reported skill in identifying new business-related opportunities.

To me opportunity identification is the single most important skill we can teach.  It helps prevent businesses from being launched that are doomed to fail from the very start.  It is a skill that also ensures proper positioning of viable opportunities.

When Government Gets Involved

Think you know what a small business is?

Thanks to years of rent seeking by advocates and lobbyists for various industries and trade organizations, the SBA needs a table that runs 37 pages plus footnotes just to define small business.

Take a look.

This is just one small example why we don’t need government steering our economy and making decisions about economic winners and losers.

The Entrepreneurial Pipeline

I share a lot of information about today’s entrepreneurs and those who are just beginning their entrepreneurial journey.  But what about those in the entrepreneurial pipeline? 

Junior Achievement just released a survey of teenagers about their hopes and dreams for their future careers.  What do they see in their future?  Entrepreneurship.

They want their schools to help them learn how to become entrepreneurs.  An amazing 92 percent believe that entrepreneurial skills should be taught in school – and 46 percent believe that during grades K-12 is the best time to learn entrepreneurial skills.

The survey also found that even in the face of uncertainty in the U.S. job market, more than half of teens – 51 percent — are interested in starting their own companies.

Here are more highlights from this survey:

  • 23 percent of teens who want to start a business said they were interested in starting a business that “helps the environment” or that “deals with the problems or challenges of our society.” The growing demand for our new Social Entrepreneurship major here at Belmont is evidence of this trend.
  • The top reason cited by teens (26 percent) for wanting to start a business was wanting “to take control of your destiny and set your own career path.”
  • Respondents were almost evenly split between feeling there was more job security in owning their own business (47 percent) versus working for a company (49 percent). 

The times they are a changin’….

More is Less

I wrote a couple of posts yesterday on the resiliency of entrepreneurs and their ability to start new ventures even if venture capital is not flowing freely.  In a post by Jonathan Ortmans at Policy Forum on Entrepreneurship Blog based on what he heard during a recent discussion among investors, he offers the following observation:

There was a universal agreement, bar one person, that now is an excellent time
for investors in new start-ups and that entrepreneurs should be cautious about
accepting too much outside capital.  In fact, ironically, all three serious
start-ups I met last week had not accepted any outside funding at
all.
 
Let’s hope that scarce capital means more smarts and better success
rates for the entrepreneurs.

Venture Capital’s True Impact

In a guest post at TechCrunch, Vivek Wadhwa adds his voice to those questioning the VC industry’s play for bailout money:

What we need to do is to apply the same rules to VC’s which they impose on
their companies – force them to make tough choices and get their business models
in order. And instead of giving the tax-breaks to the middlemen, let’s give
these directly to the entrepreneurs who take the risks and create the
innovation. It is the entrepreneurs who fuel the economy, not the venture
capitalists or investment bankers.

This post is cites reputable studies that show the real impact of VC money, including Paul Kedrosky’s discussed earlier at this blog. 

I have said this before, but it bears repeating — venture capital funds a very small part of the entrepreneurial sector.  One study suggests that 99.962% of all entrepreneurial ventures in the US had NO venture capital investment.

Venture capital does have some impact on our economy, but much less that the lobbyists for VCs would like us to believe.

(Thanks to Andy Tabar for passing the TechCrunch post along).