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Entrepreneurship and small business development has been subject to a considerable amount of academic speculation. Previous studies contend that small fast growth firms are more likely to have developed or acquired managerial practices in areas such as human resource management, finance and marketing. Despite this evidence there is little known as to why growing construction firms adopt key management practices. This paper examines how small growth oriented construction firms have adopted management practices to sustain growth. A group interview technique was utilized to examine the management development process within small construction firms in the South Wales area. The research revealed that while management practices such as marketing, financial management and planning had been implemented to facilitate growth, the importance of these practices often varied across firms. Nevertheless, firms that continued to be growth oriented were more inclined to consider the strategic benefits that certain practices provide. Based on these findings the paper concludes that management training initiatives aimed at improving firm development in the construction industry must be tailored to fit the strategic goals of the firm if they are to engender sustainable growth.

The purpose of this paper is to review recent published research on entrepreneurship education (EE) specifically within the special issue collections of the journal Education +Training, and to assess the overall contribution to the field. The research questions focus on: What topics are explored by these SI papers? What trends can be observed in relation to country context and methodological approach? How is EE defined in these papers, and how do the papers contribute to the wider entrepreneurship research agenda?

The paper uses an adapted version of the systematic literature review approach, focusing on the discrete special issues on entrepreneurship/enterprise education published in the journal Education + Training since 2010. A comprehensive reading guide was used to review the papers, with completed data compiled into a single excel spreadsheet to facilitate analysis. A total of 66 papers were reviewed.

A considerable range of themes, geographical contexts and methodological approaches were used in the papers reviewed. A mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches were also found. The papers were characterised by a strong international and applied dimension, with the core collective contribution of the SI papers laying in their direct relevance to practice.

The paper is limited by its deliberate focus on a discrete set of special issue papers; however, the total of 66 papers included in the review is noteworthy.

The paper demonstrates the considerable learning that can be garnered from the Education + Training special issue collection for EE practitioners.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time this discrete collection of special issue papers has been reviewed.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the development of a blended e‐learning pedagogical model for an undergraduate enterprise programme. The proliferation of e‐learning programmes offers new opportunities and challenges for universities to meet the learning needs of new student markets. However, the use of e‐learning as an enabling mechanism for enterprise education remains largely unexplored within academic literature.

The case study methodology comprises a series of focus groups with key stakeholders in the project, namely online tutors, students and scheme leaders from a number of partner colleges involved in the delivery of the course.

The study charts the evolution of the blended learning pedagogy which was found to best meet the learning requirements of non‐traditional learners on an undergraduate programme. The blended learning pedagogy strategy which was developed replicated the best informal practice that had emerged through each of the partner institutions and the learning needs of the students. Constituent elements of the pedagogy included the provision of structured face‐to‐face events, a range of student supports systems and the creation of a code of practice for online tutors. As a result, a model of best practice for blended learning is proposed.

This study contributes to the literature in terms of proposing a working framework for online undergraduate enterprise education with identification of critical success factors including supportive induction, viable pedagogy and effective support systems. The framework can be utilised by practitioners and theoreticians as a guide to the effective management of pedagogical issues associated with blended online education.

This chapter evaluates the motivations that inform engagement in enterprise creation and operation by individuals experiencing poverty. An in-depth, empirical qualitative exploration of motives for enterprise amongst a sample of 42 people in the UK who are experiencing poverty conditions is presented. The results demonstrate that traditional push–pull thinking about enterprise motivation lacks nuance, specifically that the financial motive previously assumed to be prioritised in a context of resource deficit, in this research it was not. Second, push–pull motivations and intersections with intrinsic–extrinsic motivations are mapped, creating and developing a more refined understanding of enterprise motivations. Third, contexts and circumstances are recurrent factors reflexively informing motivations of those experiencing poverty and engaging in enterprise creation and operation.

The role of macrolevel factors in entrepreneurial intention remains as an underexplored issue in the literature. The purpose of this study is to reduce this gap by testing the effect of economic development on entrepreneurial intention.

This study adopts a quantitative approach that formally tests for a quadratic relationship between economic development measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) and the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI)) and entrepreneurial intention based on longitudinal data covering 72 countries over the 2010–2016 period. Data are gathered from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The results reveal the existence of a U-shaped relationship between the country's GDP per capita and individuals' entrepreneurial intention. The results also support a similar relationship between GCI and entrepreneurial intention. These findings suggest that individuals' entrepreneurial intentions differ between countries depending on the level of economic development.

To the authors' knowledge, this article presents the first attempt to investigate the role of economic development on entrepreneurial intention based on longitudinal data covering a large sample of countries. Moreover, by providing evidence of a U-shaped relationship between economic progress and individuals' propensity to attempt an entrepreneurial career, this study enhances the understanding of the macrolevel determinants of entrepreneurial intention.

This study evaluates current and future roles of UK entrepreneurship centres (ECs) within Higher Education institutions. Literature suggests current activity in entrepreneurship education is strongly associated with the contribution of ECs. However, ECs experience resource limitations and high stakeholder's expectations, leading to a proliferation of aims, roles and identity issues.

The study evaluates five UK EC using evidence from a range of stakeholders within each centre. The study considers the strategic direction of ECs, their aim and roles, resourcing and the leadership role they adopt.

The study assesses the role ECs are fulfilling in the promotion of entrepreneurship and the resource constraints limiting future development. The need for EC identity and community contribution are identified as a determinant of success.

This study offers novel insight into factors influencing EC behaviour and future strategy, which will be of value for UK HEI and Entrepreneurship educators.

It is unclear as to what extent sustainable procurement is being practised in Ireland and what barriers there are to implementing it in organisations. This study provides the first complete insight into the use of sustainable procurement in Irish commercial semi-state bodies. It explores the extent and type of use of sustainable procurement plus identifies and examines the challenges to its use. A deductive approach is utilised to determine the barriers. Eleven participants, nine from the commercial semistate bodies and two experts with knowledge of this subject, are interviewed using semi-structured questions. The research findings show that sustainable procurement is being practised in the majority of the commercial semi-state bodies. Definition of sustainable procurement, the absence of mandatory guidelines, cost, time and a dearth of sustainable procurement knowledge by suppliers are some of the main barriers put forward by participants.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of an experiential learning approach, available to students in all disciplines that combined a hands-on entrepreneurial and enterprise experience with professional consultant mentoring by using a competition to win business start-up funding.

Students at a UK University had the chance to enter a competition in which they developed an entrepreneurial idea and then designed and presented a business plan to win business start-up capital. Students who were entrepreneurially motivated, but who lacked capital to start-up their business, were targeted, as these students have been argued to benefit the most from a combination of business plan training and entrepreneurial development. Feedback and data were obtained from the students at each stage of the process and was thematically analysed to assess the development of students’ entrepreneurial skills and knowledge through the experience.

The research found that the benefits gained from this approach included both enterprising and entrepreneurial skills, with the greatest impact being on student confidence and belief in their ability to start a business. The practical skills had a “demystifying” effect on students that made them feel like entrepreneurship and enterprise start-up were attainable.

The research focused on students at one UK University and centred on entrepreneurship in a retail business. The competition thus appealed mainly to students who were interested in retail start-up, thus leaving out some enterprising students whose feedback may have been different. In addition, while entrepreneurial skills are assessed in the data, the students who would be interested in the competition would be assumed to be proactive, and this skill was not able to be analysed. This research is a single case, and thus could be enhanced by more cases and looking at other enterprise start-up means beyond retail.

This research makes a case that, in light of literature critical of the use of business plan training in entrepreneurship education, certain students are appropriate candidates for this approach. Specific skills and knowledge can be developed in university students using a live enterprise experience, supported by entrepreneurial mentoring. By making the event extracurricular, the study sought to capture the feedback of students who self-selected into the programme, who can benefit most from combined entrepreneurial and business plan development experience.

This chapter provides a rationale for this book and highlights the key literature in the entrepreneurship education discipline as a background context for the study. The organisation and structure of the book is identified and justified. Thereafter, each chapter included within the text is introduced and profiled. The chapter ends by drawing the overall conclusions of the studies included with suggestions for further research. Implications for the discipline in terms of policy and practice arising from the book are thereafter considered.