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The relationship between education and training and the currently popular theme of “enterprise culture” is explored. The expression “enterprise culture”, is at present ill‐defined, if defined at all. The confusions surrounding this expression relate in turn to the failure to make proper distinctions between entrepreneurship, enterprise and small business. These terms are defined in this context, as well as “intrapreneur”. Entrepreneurs are defined in terms of a set of attributes, some of which can be measured. Small business is defined in terms of ownership and task structure. Enterprise is seen to be something that means the exercise of entrepreneurial attributes in a wide range of different situations. Intrapreneurship is the exercise of entrepreneurial attributes within a large company or bureauracy. The relationship between these redefined concepts is explored and the issue of whether entrepreneurship can be socially engineered through education and training is addressed. A definition of what constitutes “enterprise culture” is then related to education and training. This link is discussed, both in general terms and particularly in respect of university and management education. It is argued that many of the values and structures pervading in university education and university business schools may be the antithesis of entrepreneurship. In this respect, the links between entrepreneurship as practised in small business and as fostered under the “intrapreneurship” banner in large companies is explored. Finally, policy objectives in fostering entrepreneurship, small business and intrapreneurship, particularly in respect of education and training, are reviewed.

Great effectiveness in support of technological product and market development of small firms may be produced by programmes which are local, easily accessed, time efficient, understandable, informal, personal, visible, credible, accepted, opportunity and problem oriented, trustworthy, cheap and integrated, in that they may combine advice, consultancy, training, financial provision and provision of premises. Current assistance fails to identify existing deficiencies of firms, fails to recognise that different types of support are needed at different stages and fails to realise that scaled down versions may not be appropriate. Better qualified personnel need to be employed and managerial development is necessary to cope with new technology. Support for marketing should be an integral part of the support.

This article is written for practitioners. It argues that training policies should clearly be related to objectives of stimulating the role of start‐ups, improving survival rates and increasing the growth potential of small firms. It argues also that the supply offer of training in Europe is somewhat below that of need. It looks at the possible reasons for this both from the demand and the supply side. It suggests that the small firm needs distinct approaches by trainers and organisers and a level of professional competence which might yet be largely missing. It identifies the necessary competences for trainer and organiser to deliver effective training. It concludes by arguing the case for the development of a professional cadre of small business trainers across Europe.

The support for local initiatives by large organisations has become substantially institutionalised in the UK through Business in the Community. How much further it will go, and how much it will be supported by government, is the subject of debate and conjecture. An overview of how large firms support small and medium enterprise development — the motivations and how they are changing — is provided. The problems in evaluation and a case study of Shell UK Ltd are provided, and future directions, possible shifts and influences are considered.

There has been a substantial growth in training programmes in the UK over the past decade and particularly in the 1980s, aimed at supporting the business start‐up process. In the 1970s, small business training, channelled mainly through the Industry Training Boards, concentrated almost exclusively on the existing small business. That there has been such substantial growth reflects the priorities and influence of the Manpower Services Commission (MSC). Its pioneering work on the New Enterprise Programmes in the late 70s led on to a hierarchy of start‐up programmes in the 80s covering a wide variety of client types. Behind this, in turn, lay the political commitment to support of self‐help progammes aimed at increasing the rate of starts of small business as a counter to unemployment, and increasing their viability, thus lowering the failure rate. Start‐up training has gone much farther in the UK than in the rest of Europe, and several European countries have followed British practice in recent years[1]. The growth in provision can partly be monitored by the Manpower Services Commission's own figures which show 64 starters being helped through training in 1978/79 and 31,000 in 1986/87. The MSC is planning to revise its programme portfolio in this area, in the light of its evaluation, and in an endeavour substantially to increase the through‐put of participants with targets of over 45,000 in 1987/88.

There has been an enormous growth in assistance to small firms over the past three or four years, albeit from a very small initial base. Much of this assistance has been geared to “software”, namely the provision of advice, counselling, consulting and training/education services. The Small Firms Information Centre Service has expanded its capability substantially as has the associated Department of Industry Counselling Service. The latter, for example, has not only increased numerically (with over 200 counsellors throughout the UK) but has begun to differentiate its service in favour of particular groups, for example, in offering a technical counselling service. In addition, as local interest in small firms has developed, a wide range of other sources of assistance have emerged including: large companies providing secondees to “counsel” small business; local authorities providing their own counselling and advice centres; semi‐autonomous “voluntary” organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureau; other representatives of local authorities, including community services organisations and industrial development officers; the banks and some accountants, and more recently the Enterprise Agencies themselves. In addition many colleges and polytechnics have established counselling/consultancy services often linked with small business training and education programmes.

One result of the recent upsurge of national, and indeed international, political interest in the small firm sector of the economy has been a focus on the role of management training and development in the small firm and on the wider, but related, issue of education and training for entrepreneurship. The basis for this renewed government attention seems to lie in recognition of the employment potential of small firms rather than in the contribution that training and education might make to productivity and efficiency. Added to the weight of official concern is pressure from individuals who, without the early possibility of becoming an employee, are being forced to look to their own resources and initiative. It is, therefore, scarcely surprising that much of the recent stimulus to small firms training has come from government training schemes and, in the UK, from local community‐based ventures aimed at improving local job prospects. The accent in the UK has been on encouraging the new small business start up.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

The aim of this paper is to respond to the acknowledged dearth of academic discourse on assessment strategies for entrepreneurship education. Using established approaches from design education as its fulcrum, it proposes a generic framework for assessment of “creativity” in an entrepreneurial context.

This primarily constructivist investigation is considered in the context of recent UK discussions, empirical evidence, literature reviews and government policies. It includes the UK's Quality Assurance Agency – Benchmark Statement for the UK's creative industries and maps the approaches onto entrepreneurship education.

As assessment of ideas generation, innovation and opportunity recognition are, “Central to developing and learning entrepreneurial behaviours”. There are clear parallels between the pedagogic approaches from “design” disciplines and the learning outcomes advocated in generic curriculum development “for” entrepreneurship.

Business school approaches and their associated challenges dominate the entrepreneurship research agenda. Interdisciplinary research, in particular collaborations between the Business and the Creative disciplines, offers opportunities for constructive alignment.

With no intention of “reinventing the wheel”, more adapting and refining it, the paper's primary intention is to offer a springboard of thought from which creative capacity in enterprise education might be enhanced and assessed.

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate surrounding issues of assessment and offers insights into established approaches that have evolved beyond the traditional enterprise education environment, one where credit‐bearing curricula have managed and assessed the creative process effectively.