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For those of us stuck working on the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend, a survey that concludes that "Summer Fridays" makes employees more productive gives us pause.

First, we're working today. Does that mean we are less productive than those lucky people who have jobs that allow them to take Fridays off, or have half-days on Fridays from Memorial Day through Labor Day? Who's to say I'm not productive?

Not Patron Spirits, sponsor of the survey, who reported that 75 percent of those surveyed said that having a Summer Friday policy would make them more productive workers.

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Small-business owners are leaning right leading up to the U.S. presidential election. Forty-nine percent of business owners plan to vote for presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, while 32 percent of respondents say they'll support President Obama, according to a report released this week by Manta.

In Manta's last poll in January, the president was the clear winner against the Republican field as a whole, but received just 34 percent of the total vote. Now, with Romney emerging as the GOP favorite, Obama appears to face a challenge among business owners — although Romney is yet to earn support from all the 61 percent of small-business owners who planned to back a Republican in January.

 » Read MoreIn the eight swing states shaping up to be the central election battleground, small businesses favor Romney even more, Manta found. Of the small-business owners surveyed in those states, 53 percent said they'll vote for Romney, while 32 percent said they will choose Obama.

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The MacLaren brothers are third-generation dairy farmers, but they will likely be the last in their family.

After working all their lives on the hillside farm in Vermont that their grandfather bought in 1939, rising to milk cows at 3 a.m., even in blizzards and sub-zero temperatures, they decided to call it quits, auctioning off their roughly 200 cows and equipment ranging from stalls and hoof trimmers to tractors and steel pails.

The sale marked the end of the last dairy farm in Plainfield — a small town that once had several dozen — and the 14th dairy farm to go out of business in Vermont this year. A few small dairies have opened, but overall, the number of farms continues to drop in a state long known for its milk and cheese. Farmers say they can't make ends meet when milk prices are low and feed and fuel costs keep going up.

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Thanks to high-profile successes like the Pebble: E-Paper Watch and Double Fine Adventure, crowdfunding has exploded in interest amongst businesses as an alternative to venture capital or angel investment.

The recent passage of the JOBS Act, which legalizes limited equity sales for publicly-backed projects, promises to further open the floodgates for enterprising startups. However, many inadvertently confuse these campaigns as fundraising efforts, because they call on the general public for support. Here are five reasons why crowdfunded endeavors are secretly more akin to consumer marketing efforts.

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Companies lose almost one-quarter of all new employees within a year, a new study shows. But they can’t place the blame on external factors such as the economy, demographics or cultural trends, human resource experts say. Companies need to look within at factors such as underfunded onboarding programs or a lack of training and mentoring to understand why they are hemorrhaging employees.

The financial toll for these shortcomings is significant, a survey of 500 HR professionals sponsored by Allied Van Lines found. To fill one position costs an average of $10,731, with an additional $21,033 per new hire for relocation.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which helped Republicans make big gains in the 2010 congressional elections, is planning its most aggressive push yet to send business-friendly lawmakers to Washington in the Nov. 6 election.

Joshua Roberts | Bloomberg | Getty Images Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Thomas Donohue, the president and CEO of the powerful business lobby, said Tuesday the Chamber planned to get involved in 11 or 12 Senate races and 35 to 37 races for the House of Representatives.

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Source: Chesapeake Bay Candle Chesapeake Bay Candle's U.S. factory in Glen Burnie, Maryland.

Chesapeake Bay Candle never thought twice about offshoring its manufacturing when the company started 17 years ago. To make the product it wanted, each candle had to be handmade, and there was no cost effective way to do that in the United States.

Four years ago, however, the company reversed that thinking, centering its operations domestically, and betting that as the global economy changes, the move will actually save it money.

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Source: Fatheadz Rico Elmore and his Fatheadz sunglasses.

It might not have been a huge problem for most people, but Rico Elmore had left his sunglasses at home. So, the 6-foot, 3-inch, 300 pound Elmore walked into a Las Vegas shop to buy a replacement pair.

After squeezing nearly 50 different pairs onto his head, he didn't walk into the desert with a new pair of sunglasses. But he did walk out with an idea for a business.

“I couldn’t be the only one in the world with a fat head,” he says.

That revelation prompted him to launch Fatheadz, an eyewear firm which caters to people with wide heads.

After 15 years in the auto sales business, Elmore turned in his car keys and tapped his savings. There were naysayers all the way, he says, but he never doubted his idea would be big.

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