Business Finance Homework Help

Topic for part 1 is Discuss the role of the entrepreneur in the U.S. economy and describe the entrepreneurial profile.

Part 1(a)

Entrepreneurs play a vital role in economies across the world including the U.S. New business are bound to generate maximum jobs i.e., way more than large established businesses. They also bring efficiency to the system, as new businesses are nimbler in operations. Since entrepreneurs usually disrupt the market with new technology, they also end up bringing new job opportunities.

Entrepreneurs are of various shapes and sizes, anyone with a vision to create an impact in the world and run a business is an entrepreneur. It can be of any background and any industry. An entrepreneur tries to solve difficult problems and solve issues most easily and efficiently. They challenge the status quo and change the world with their ideas. Entrepreneurs are risk-takers and work passionately to ensure the success of their companies.

References

Gartner, W. B. (1988). “Who is an entrepreneur?” is the wrong question. American journal of small business, 12(4), 11-32.

Giacomin, O., Janssen, F., Guyot, J. L., & Lohest, O. (2011). Opportunity and/or necessity entrepreneurship? The impact of the socio-economic characteristics of entrepreneurs.

Hamilton, R. T., & Harper, D. A. (1994). The entrepreneur in theory and practice. Journal of Economic Studies.

Part 1(b)

The innovativeness of the entrepreneurs are what makes them crucial to the economy. First off, they create jobs for themselves and others. They affect the economy by creating new products, new ways to produce other products, and creating competition within their area of involvement (Kritikos, 2014). Another way they affect the economy is by being forward-thinking and creating new technologies.

An entrepreneur’s profile is that they create new businesses knowing the risks and uncertainty involved (Scarborough & Cornwall, 2019). An entrepreneur sees an opportunity and or a better way of doing something and are not afraid to pursue the opportunity. They also tend to do well with limited resources. Some of the characteristics of an entrepreneur are as follows but are not limited to self-confidence, comprehensive awareness, and a sense of urgency, to list a few (Staff, 2021).

References

Kritikos, A. S. (2014). Entrepreneurs and their impact on jobs and economic growth. Retrieved from IZA World of Labor: https://wol.iza.org/articles/entrepreneurs-and-the…

Scarborough, N. M., & Cornwall, J. R. (2019). Essentials of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management. New York: Pearson.

Staff. (2021, June 30). Small Business Q&A – Start-Up. Retrieved from Making it: http://www.makingittv.com/What-is-the-profile-of-an-entrepreneur.htm

Topic for part 2 is: Explain why a business should seek to balance its economic, legal and social obligations.

Part 2(a)

 A business should seek to balance its economic, legal, and social obligations because this will lead to a more productive workforce and profitable business. The book sites the example of the Starbucks Coffee Company on page 45 which invested “$70 million…to help coffee farming communities around the world mitigate their climate change impacts…” (Lawrence 45). This was socially responsible, and no doubt led to an uptick in profits as those environmentally minded individuals chose Starbucks over other brands.  So, this shows a balance between the economic and social obligations. As for the legal obligations, Starbucks has a team dedicated to ensuring this is done within the confines of the law.

           Despite this good will of Starbucks, the real question is—should social responsibility be mandatory? An article in the Harvard Business Review states that the “main goal [is] to align a company’s social and environmental activities with its business purpose and values” (Harvard Business Review). So maybe Starbucks changed is purpose or values and saw the opportunity to make a global impact on the environment and their coffee supply chain, while evolving into a more socially responsible company. Bravo! I am more environmentally savvy after just completing the Environmental Science course here at Saint Leo and will now be patronizing Starbuck’s even more after learning of their global environmental efforts.

References

Rangan, V. Kasturi, Lisa Chase, Sohel Karim. (2015). The Truth About CSR. The Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-truth-about-csr. Accessed 1 July 2021.

Lawrence, Anne T., James Weber. (2017). Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy. (15th ed.).                 New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Part 2(b)

Often times businesses loose sight of the fact that business isn’t just business as the old adage says.  Business is in the business of making money and being profitable.  It wasn’t too long ago that we can recall the events that occurred around the company Enron.  I did an entire paper on the fall of this company and you might say it was the lack of balance with regard to the economy, legally and socially that caused them to meet their demise.  Their corporate officers lost all morality when they clearly had no regard for their shareholders and employees.  I mean stealing over a billion dollars without feeling any remorse is deplorable.  I am sure that in the early days of this company they never gave this a thought, but as things progress overtime, I suppose the these humans lost sight of the importance of the three issues that we speak of above.  Greed is a horrible evil that causes people to do evil things.  Their acts of greed forced innocent people who trusted their business to loose their life savings. Our core value of Integrity is so important in business, and no matter how successful a business may appear, it can quite possibly mislead and destroy many stockholders, employees, government, customers, suppliers, the community/public without always keeping in focus this core value of integrity.(Lawrence/Weber)

Works Cited:

Lawrence, A. T., & Weber, J. (2017). Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy (15th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill

Part 3

“At around 8 p.m. on the evening on December 31, 2013, a mother and her two young children were walking home in San Francisco.  At a busy intersection, the family waited for the “walk” signal and then started across the street. Just then, an SUV made a right turn, striking all three members of the family in the crosswalk. The mother and her 5-year-old son were seriously injured. Her 6-year-old daughter was killed. The man behind the wheel of the SUV identified himself as a driver for the ride-hailing service Uber. Uber immediately distanced itself from the tragedy, saying that the driver was “not providing services on the Uber system at the time of the accident.” The family’s attorney contested this, saying that the driver was logged onto the Uber application, appeared on the system as available to accept a rider, and was interacting with his device when he struck the mother and children. In other words, the tragic incident had apparently occurred during the app-on gap—the driver was on the road with his Uber application activated but had not yet connected with or picked up a rider. So, who was responsible, the driver or the ride-hailing service? Uber was, in the words of a New York Times columnist, “the hottest, most valuable technology startup on the planet.”  The company was founded in 2009 as “everyone’s private driver,” providing a premium town car service that could be summoned online. In 2012, it rolled out UberX, a service that enabled nonprofessional drivers to use their own vehicles to transport riders. Customers could use the Uber app to hail a car, connect with a willing driver, watch the vehicle approach on a map, pay their fare, and receive a receipt, all on their smartphone. Uber provided the technology and took a commission on each transaction. Uber’s disruptive business model caught on rapidly. By mid-2014, Uber’s ride-sharing service had spread to more than 120 cities in 36 countries. In the United States, the ser-vice could reach 137 million people with an average pickup time of less than 10 minutes. Demand was growing so fast that Uber was scrambling to recruit 20,000  new  drivers, “”whom  Uber  called  “transportation  entrepreneurs,”  every  month.  Private investors were enthusiastic about the company’s prospects: Uber had attracted $1.2 billion in funding and was valued at $18.2 billion. Drivers who partnered with Uber had the flexibility to drive when and as much as they wished. They could also make a decent living; the median annual income for its full-time drivers in San Francisco, for example, was about $74,000. But they also assumed risk. In the event of an accident, Uber instructed its drivers to submit a claim to their personal insurance carrier first. If it were denied, Uber’s backup commercial liability insurance would go into effect, but only after the driver had been summoned by a customer or had one in the vehicle. Traditional taxicab companies did not welcome competition from Uber. Cabdrivers in many cities across the world protested the entry of Uber into their markets,  conducting  strikes and “rolling rallies” charging Uber with unfair practices. Uber drivers did not have to comply with many of the rules that applied to taxicabs, such as those requiring commercial driver’s licenses, regular mechanical inspections, and commercial liability insurance. Governments at city, state, and national levels had become involved, with some imposing restrictions and others even banning Uber outright. In the wake of the 6-year-old’s death in San Francisco, California, legislator  Susan  Bonilla introduced a bill that would require Uber and other ride-hailing companies to provide commercial liability insurance from when the driver turned on the app to when the customer got out of the car, thus filling the app-on gap. The American Insurance Association, representing insurance companies, supported the legislation, saying that personal auto policies should not be expected to cover ride-hailing drivers once they signaled availability. “This is not someone commuting to work or going to the grocery store or stopping to pick their children up  from  school,”  a  spokesperson  said. The family of the girl killed on New Year’s Eve also supported Bonilla’s bill, as did consumer attorneys and the California App-Based Drivers Association. But  others  lined  up  in  opposition.  Uber and other ride-hailing companies strenuously objected to the bill, as  did  trade  associations  representing  high-technology  and  Inter-net-based firms, apparently concerned about increases in their costs of doing business. The bill, said an Uber spokesperson, was “an example of what happens when special interest groups distract lawmakers from the best interests of consumers and small businesses.”

1. Who is Uber’s relevant market and nonmarket stakeholders in this situation?

2.What are the various stakeholders’ interests? Please indicate if each stakeholder would likely support, or oppose, a requirement that Uber extend its insurance  to  cover  the  app-on gap.

3.What sources of power do the relevant stakeholders have?

4.Based on the information you have, draft a stakeholder map of this case showing each stakeholder’s position on the issue and degree of salience.  What conclusions can you draw from the stakeholder map?

5.What do you think Uber should do in response to the bill introduced by Susan Bonilla, and why.”

Only use websites as references. And also websites that are based in the United States. 

Also for part 3 Keep in mind to integrate the Saint Leo core values of Community and Respect that apply to this issue. Responses for each case discussion question should be in paragraph form and be approximately 250-300 words in length.

https://www.saintleo.edu/mission-values-identity