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Interest in the field of entrepreneurship has significantly increased among academics, practitioners and government officials in the past decade both in the USA and in Europe. The increased interest is reflected in the increased number of courses, majors and minors at colleges and universities throughout the world; the increased number of endowed chairs; the increased number of journals in the field; the increased coverage of the field by the media; and the increased interest in the provision of government support. In light of this significant increased interest, it is important to understand the state of research in the field in Europe in the last few years, the focus of this article.

Pressures from globalization and the knowledge‐based economy are transforming the traditional role of universities. Universities are being targeted by policy makers because they are the largest “knowledge‐based” institutions in the regions. They have concluded that universities will aid economic regeneration if they disseminate their knowledge and expertise through industry linked partnerships. The paper argues that this is a rationally driven economic strategic plan which fails to acknowledge that the alliance process is a very high risk strategy at the level of implementation, with reports of as many as two thirds failing. The direct causal link between universities and economic regeneration is contentious. The paper calls for greater understanding of the complex partnership process by drawing on the strategic alliance literature on how to minimize risk. It critically analyses the case of a long established partnership between university‐industry‐government – the teaching company scheme. Important governance issues are identified followed by an analysis of the two stages in the process of partner selection and implementation. The process is promoted as an exemplar to inform the increasing number of public/private sector partnerships.

Based on the practical experiences of the authors through their work on a LEONARDO project, this paper focuses on the internationalisation process within small and medium sized enterprises and in particular, the key role of the attitudes and behaviour of the owner‐manager. The paper argues that the owner‐manager largely determines the behavioural characteristics of SMEs, and that in turn these behavioural characteristics are determined by the cultural orientation of the owner‐manager. To illustrate the key issues involved, a conceptual model, the internationalisation web, has been developed. This conceptual model can be used to understand the policy implications that emerge from the arguments and to extrapolate relevant policy recommendations aimed at improving the efficiency of the support provided to SMEs wishing to operate in foreign markets.

The paper deals with technological and managerial innovation transfer to small and medium sized enterprises. A comprehensive framework is presented, identifying a networked architecture in which different actors (universities, other R&D centers, consulting companies, the European Union, national government, local public administration) interact. In so doing, the need of a specific promoting role is pointed out. Consequently, introduction of an innovation center (IC) responsible for the whole transfer process is proposed. Within this organizational unit, the role of innovation promoter (IP), that is the interface with the specific SME, is analyzed and discussed. Finally, a general scheme of IC and IP actions and competences is presented.

Innovation is a complex process, based on interactive network learning and processes of trial and error on the shop floor. Small companies, such as in agriculture, are depending on external knowledge infrastructures for effective innovation. Within small companies, the entrepreneur has a pivotal role in the innovative process: the entrepreneur is the professional learner. Learning and innovation as major parts of entrepreneurship are central to this contribution. How do farmers learn and innovate within a market‐led, high‐tech agricultural sector and what should governmental policy look like to support and facilitate innovation, avoiding the pitfall of protectionism? Two case studies are presented: one on linear innovation policy and one on learning processes of farmers. Innovative learning is balancing between the chaos of uncertainty and the old grooves of experience. Knowing how to escape this paradox forms the core competence of innovative entrepreneurship.

The paper uses a procedure called data envelopment analysis (DEA) to compare internal against external (outsource) efficiency in the delivery of finance function activities. The approach allows a direct comparison between the in‐house efficiency of UK small, medium and large companies in managing their accounting activities both with UK outsource contractors and also against the rather larger and more numerous contractors observed in Italy. The paper finds that, through comparative advantages, outsourcing presents a more efficient solution for the management of very small firm accounting than internal provision. Furthermore, there is evidence that substantial scale benefits continue to be available to outsource contractors, while inefficiency on internal provision is mainly technical. The paper concludes that outsourcing provision is likely to offer worthwhile savings to small firms, allowing them to shed competitive weaknesses and operate at efficient or best practice levels. At the same time, by converting an internal fixed cost, fixed capacity activity into a flexible, variable cost activity, SMEs have the potential to transform a previously unmanageable activity into an efficient or best practice activity that can grow or contract with the business.

Developing a mission statement has been considered a crucial factor in the formulation of business strategy in organisations. The mission statement promotes a sense of shared expectations in employees and, not surprisingly, it has recently been regarded as increasingly important in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the electronic industry. One major reasons for this is the growing complexity and dynamic competitive environments in which these enterprises have operated and managed to find themselves. Mission statements have become a management tool most commonly used by chief executive officers (CEOs) over the last decade. One exercise that both academics and practitioners have deemed strategically critical to the success of an enterprise is the development of a meaningful mission statement. This article explores the perceptions of CEOs of their mission statement in SMEs. It is based on the findings of recent research in 508 firms in the electrical and electronic industry in the UK. The study, amongst other things, investigated the existence and content of the mission statements and, accordingly, it determines the relationships (if any) between a SME’s development of a meaningful mission statement and selected performance outcomes of the firm.

Retail payments systems are a key element in the financial infrastructure of any capitalist economy ‐ through them governments can enact economic policy and individuals and companies can conduct their transactions. A recent development for UK retail payments systems has been the recommendations of the ‘Review of Banking Services in the UK’ (the Cruickshank Report). In this report, recommendations are made as to the operation of the primary UK retail payments system (APACS); a new regulatory framework and the removal of ‘barriers to entry’ are proposed to encourage greater competition in the industry. This paper considers these two proposals, which have both received government support for early implementation, in terms of wider policy issues surrounding payments systems, including economic efficiency and safety and security, and the economic incentives which underpin the present retail payments system in the UK. It is concluded that the proposals for regulation of business activities to promote competition may underestimate the importance of payment system safety and security regulation. Equally, the proposed removal or substantial reduction in barriers to entry to individual payments systems may have a range of unforeseen consequences.

“Virtual” is a potent buzzword, freely applied to many situations, with many meanings. In this exploratory study, we develop a more precise understanding of “virtual” to describe changing work environments. Specifically, we propose a framework to classify work environments based on the type of discontinuities involved. Discontinuities are gaps or a lack of coherence in aspects of work. The framework allows us to compare research across different topics and work settings. We use the framework to classify 75 published articles on virtual work environments or earlier, related research streams. We observed that many studies were simultaneously addressing existing or emerging continuities, factors or strategies for overcoming discontinuities. The focus of “virtual” is on changes in the work environment; however, our analysis suggests the need to be equally aware of factors that have not changed and which may become more critical with the introduction of discontinuities.

The paper surveys existing theory of e‐commerce business models and associated conceptual instruments. It employs three original case studies of SMEs using e‐commerce to demonstrate the dynamic nature of e‐commerce business models for networked SMEs. The idea of evolutionary business planning based upon Molina’s sociotechnical constituency approach and the diamond of alignment is introduced.