Sanford Ehrlich

• MA., MBA, PhD
• Professor Emeritus at San Diego State University

We investigate two fundamental research questions related to the funding of early-stage technology enterprises. First, does presentation design, and the presenting entrepreneur's passion and preparedness, influence experts' assessment of the merit and commercialization potential of an emerging firm's technology? Second, are the entrepreneur's passi...

This study investigates important questions for any emerging high-technology firm attempting to obtain funding: Does the design of the presentation and the perceived passion and preparedness of the presenter influence expert reviewers' assessment of the merits of the firm's proposal? The authors analyzed 22 videotaped presentations to reviewer pane...

Predicting commercialization progress (CP) for early-stage technologies is critical for funding agencies and private equity investors. This study employed an ex-ante analysis of expert assessments on the future potential of early-stage technologies by a U.S. Department of Defense funded Technology transfer agency. We examined expert assessments of...

Policy makers in transitional economies have recognized the importance of self-employment as a mechanism for economic growth. Institutional support, however, lags this recognition. Individuals, therefore, must draw on their personal characteristics to venture into self-employment. We used a variety of individual characteristics to capture an import...

We examine the ability of review panels to predict commercial success when evaluating early-stage technologies from small business. Specifically we examined whether a screening process resulted in greater consensus among grant panel members, to what extent certain panel members “stuck” to their evaluations, and whether information sharing and panel...

This paper compares experts' assessments to a set of structural variables to determine whether each effectively predicts technology success. Using 69 homeland security and defense-related technologies, expert reviewers scored each technology on various dimensions as part of a government grant funding process. These technologies were tracked over 3...

Given the importance of succession planning in family-owned businesses, our research is focused on identifying the key dimensions that could comprise a family business self-efficacy scale. We employed an explorative qualitative research methodology by querying a group of family business presidents to describe the skills critical for success. Using...

This study investigates a set of precursor factors that appear related to future technology success, and whether or not expert evaluators can a priori provide useful information during the technology review process. Sixty-nine highly advanced post 9–11 technologies are tracked over time. Based upon the results of this study, we conclude that a reas...

This study investigates the types of factors which can lead to government acquisition, or the "spin-in" of bio-defense technologies from small bio-technology firms. Empirical findings suggest that for small biotechnology R&D firms desiring to increase "spin-in" technology transfer, there appears to be two distinct and important influence groups--th...

This paper presents three dialogic concepts developed by Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin: answerability, polyphony and heteroglossia. These concepts are interpreted in relation to organizing and management and applied to data from a case study of a large American computer manufacturer. The study permits us to use Bakhtin's ideas to formul...

This paper presents three dialogic concepts developed by Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin: answerability, polyphony and heteroglossia. These concepts are interpreted in relation to organizing and management and applied to data from a case study of a large American computer manufacturer. The study permits us to use Bakhtin's ideas to formul...

Equity investments in entrepreneurial firms continue to grow in number and dollar amount from both venture capital and private investment sources. Increasingly, these two sources of capital play an important role in the development of new and existing entrepreneurial ventures. Due to the sometimes hurried attempt to turn their dream into reality, e...

This study examined relationships between job attitudes, work environment perceptions, and supervisors' ratings of job performance among health care employees occupying both medical care and administrative positions in ambulatory clinic settings. Between-group differences were noted on the perceived relationship with the supervisor, level of job/ro...

The association among transformational and transactional leadership behaviors, generalized beliefs about leadership, and self-reports of extra effort were examined in a corporation that experienced a turnaround in financial performance under a new general manager. Generalized beliefs about leadership and charisma were each significantly related to...

This research is an attempt to explore and understand the prominence of the concept of leadership in our collective consciousness. In three archival studies, we examined the attention and interest in leadership as reflected in a variety of publications, in conjunction with national, industry, and firm variations in performance. In a series of exper...

Previous research suggests that views on self-employment represent an antecedent of entrepreneurial activity. In transitional economies, where entrepreneurial start-ups are being encouraged, an important challenge for policymakers is to identify factors influencing individuals' views of self-employment. Thus, we examined the relationship between th...

Predicting the future successes of early to mid-stage technologies is one of the most fundamental of all technology management functions. Grant funding agencies, university technology transfer offices and venture capitalists all partake in this exercise. But while we know, at least in hindsight, some of the factors that appear to be related to succ...

The importance of succession planning in family-owned businesses (FOB) is well known. Despite the preponderance of research, evidence suggests that only 30% of firms survive the transition to the 2nd generation and only 10% make it further. Thus, the purpose of this project was to develop a domain-specific measure of Family Business Succession Self...