Knowledge that Transforms

Drawing hypotheses from theories of organizational life cycles, this survey compared the management practices of 37 founding and 133 nonfounding chief executives of human service organizations. The differences observed are interpreted as suggesting that founders may be more likely than nonfounders to manage in ways that afford them greater ability to direct and oversee organizational matters.

Benchmarks for judging financial performance are often found by using financial statement ratio analysis. Ratios of the publicly listed sector are not good surrogates for those of the unlisted sector. Observations of 209 financial statements from the unlisted sector (“small”) when compared to all publicly listed companies in New Zealand for the period 1984-1987 show larger ranges and variability for the unlisted sector. Unlisted companies’ financial ratios and their correlations cannot be considered the same as those of the listed companies. Caution is required before any use is made of listed companies’ performance ratios for judgments on unlisted companies.

This paper discusses the possible payoffs from investing scholarly attention in the anthropology of entrepreneurship, and considers the central topics, themes, and methods of this research. Ways in which to invest are suggested.