Ian's Thesis Blog » Uncategorized

Small Businesses in Kent Ohio

admin — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 22:40:20 +0000

Number of Employees	Number of Businesses
1-4	2261
5-9	406
10-19	238
20-49	166
50-99	52
Total	3123

Download this excel file for a full breakdown of business types.

What is a small business

admin — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 13:12:28 +0000

II.i
The first task of this research is to define what a small business is, which can be difficult. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what a small business is, there are many definitions (2). The first thing to note is the fact that the definition of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) varies across countries, industries, organizations, agencies and the academic community (1). A relatively standard definition is a company with a workforce of 1 to 100 employees. Some change the upper limit to 250 employees—which can then be broken down into small scale with 5-100 and medium-sized enterprises from 100-250. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA) in 2004, small businesses employ half of all private-sector workers and 39% of workers in high-tech jobs. Small businesses provide 60% to 80% of the net new jobs annually, pay 44.3% of total U.S. private payroll, and represent 99.7% of all employers (4). The International Data Corporation (IDC) breaks down the percentage of small businesses down by size as following in 2005: small businesses with less than 5 employees make up 69%; 5-9 employees, 14.3%; 10-19 employees, 8.6%, 20-49 employees, 5.5%; 50-99 employees, 2.0% (3). From March 2008 to March 2009, there were 680,716 small business deaths and 518,500 small business births, and in 2010 there were 27.9 small businesses with fewer than 500 employees (6).

II.ii.1

II.ii.2
This study will be looking at businesses in the Kent, Ohio area—which has seen an increase of development in the past few years.

II.ii.3
For the sake of this study, the definition of small businesses will be any firm with under 100 employees.

Thoughts

admin — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 23:07:55 +0000

As I continue to dive into and flush out my secondary research, thoughts keep popping up of things I need to consider. Typically, I would find this irritating. But I find it quite fortunate in this regard—it gives me more to research and write about. This has been a concern since I started this project; Will I have enough to write about? Here are a few things I need to ensure I include in my thesis (which may require more research):

What is the definition of a small business?
Develop a definition of design. As I read through the various studies, certain cases define design differently. It would be helpful to flush out this definition and clarify it before I move through my primary research.
What is my anthesis? What am I arguing against?

That’s all for now. Just throwing a few thoughts out there.

Further Defining My Thesis

admin — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 14:09:40 +0000

Recently I sat down with Evan Bailey to discuss my thesis and ask him if he would be interested in the opportunity to join my thesis committee—which he accepted.

Evan provided me with a lot of great suggestions for making the research more graspable. Here’s what my research looks like, as it continues to travel down a funnel:

Focus on local businesses in Kent, Ohio
Focus on one, narrow aspect of their company as it pertains to design—like branding, for example
Ask them questions about their branding, like:
- How much do you spend on your branding?
- Why do you spend this amount?
- What value do you see in it?

The more I define my research, the more excited I get to actually perform it.