Small Business Trends

Women have been a hot topic in the 2012 presidential campaign. UNC Kenan-Flagler’s MBA@UNC recently put together a cool infographic that pulls together a lot of data about women in corporations, small businesses and different industries. Some of the information might be familiar to you; some might be new, but overall, it paints an encouraging picture of how Read More

May is full of important health and wellness awareness dates, including Employee Health & Fitness Month, Disability Awareness Month and Women’s Health Week (May 13-19).

However, whether or not small businesses recognize these and other official declarations, there are two critical observations decision-makers need to make about their employees today, and consider year-round, because of their potential Read More

On any given day, what’s the biggest challenge you face? If you’re like most entrepreneurs, the answer is simple: getting it all done. No wonder, then, that 38 percent of small business owners in the eVoice Technology and Your Business Survey say their time was the most valuable asset their businesses had. (“Time” narrowly edges out “computer,” cited Read More

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) the Great Recession (as it was styled in the media) lasted 18 months, from December 2007 until June 2009. Of course, it still doesn’t feel like the recession is over, mostly because we haven’t recovered enough to get back to the point from which we fell off the cliff.

Read More

With large companies not stepping up to the plate as “job creators,” small business owners have been under a microscope, with polls and surveys monitoring our hiring actions and intentions as closely as Punxsutawney Phil gets watched on Groundhog Day.

For what seems like eons, there’s been little change in small businesses’ intent to hire. But now, Read More

Micro enterprises are a more important source of jobs in some countries than in others. Data from Entrepreneurship at a Glance, a publication of the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD), shows wide variation across nations in the share of employment in micro-businesses. While nearly 60 percent of Greeks work in businesses with one-to-nine employees, only 4.6 percent of Read More

January is always pretty slow in business research land and this month has been no exception. So, I’m a few days late getting this report to you but that’s a good thing because I managed to wait long enough for the release of the 2011 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). This is their 13th annual survey and the news Read More

Several commentators have recently highlighted the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s finding that the share of U.S adults starting or running a new business increased by 60 percent from 2010 to 2011. While I understand the desire to focus on the positive after so many years of declining entrepreneurial activity in the United States, I’m not sure the GEM results really signal Read More

Ernest Hemingway apparently got the answer wrong when F. Scott Fitzgerald told him “the rich are different from you and me” and Hemingway responded “Yes, they’ve got more money.”

His answer should have been: “They own businesses.”

The chart at the bottom of the page shows the probability that a taxpayer includes a partnership or S-Corp on his or her Read More

How do you define success? A new study from The Hartford set out to discover what constitutes success in the eyes of small business owners. Here’s what the Small Business Success Study of 2,000 small business owners found:

Overall, business owners are feeling good. One in five (22.9 percent) say their businesses are very or Read More