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The purpose of this paper is to add a South African perspective to deliberations on educational approaches in order to promote real responsibility in business.

This is achieved by drawing on broad concepts of African philosophy as well as research and experience around a management studies curriculum developed in response to the local and global context of a newly liberated, developing country in a global economy. Realities involve the need to empower learners, including disadvantaged black Africans, as effective students. This raises questions about inequities between developed and developing nations; the power of dominant business approaches to undermine traditional value systems; and the apparent unsustainability of the global status quo.

The curriculum has promoted free thought and academic/business literacy in students from diverse backgrounds and cultures, inducing criticality; making explicit the links between prior/practical and new/theoretical knowledge; giving access into business discourses and requiring students to argue about businesses' responsibilities to incorporate social and environmental with financial accountability. Similarities and differences between African and western values emerge, indicating lessons that might be learned from Africa, particularly South Africa.

Some lessons from African philosophy and from this responsive curriculum might feasibly be relevant to educators for management elsewhere, based on the assumption that the approach would promote more responsible management and that this aim has global significance.

THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham Conference, there is every reason to believe that the attendance at Leeds will be very large. The year is one of importance in the history of the city, for it has marked the 300th anniversary of its charter. We hope that some of the festival spirit will survive into the week of the Conference. As a contributor has suggested on another page, we hope that all librarians who attend will do so with the determination to make the Conference one of the friendliest possible character. It has occasionally been pointed out that as the Association grows older it is liable to become more stilted and formal; that institutions and people become standardized and less dynamic. This, if it were true, would be a great pity.

This paper aims to explore graduate training through SME‐based project work. The views and behaviours of graduates are examined along with the perceptions of the SMEs and academic partner institutions charged with training graduates.

The data are largely qualitative and derived from the experiences of graduates, company supervisors and University of Ulster staff involved in projects during 2001‐2007 when 140 FUSION projects were undertaken across the island of Ireland.

More job opportunities, changing job values and work ethic impact upon the uptake and success of FUSION projects. Employers, especially within growing SMEs, have adopted a learner‐centred approach in order to maximise the benefits of the project for both the graduate and the company. Graduate development programmes continue to strengthen university‐to‐business links, which in turn ensures graduate output meets the needs of industry.

Data collected throughout the term of FUSION projects are reported; further analyses of stakeholder views post‐project completion would provide further insight into the longer‐term effects of graduate training upon career progression.

This analysis proffers graduate reflections on “work‐based learning”. It serves key reminders for evaluating satisfaction with graduate development programmes presenting two key implications, pathways for better preparing graduates/SMEs and routes for enhancing the benefits of such projects.

The paper focuses on research that seeks to enhance graduate training and placement experiences within SMEs.

I SUPPOSE that anyone writing anything on Gilbert and Sullivan ought to begin by stating where he stands in regard to the works of this extraordinary pair. For ‘G. & S.’ is curious. It can perhaps be likened to cricket in that people tend either passionately to love it or as passionately to loathe it; neutrality is encountered relatively seldom. So let me say straight away that I come into the former category. H.M.S. Pinafore and all the other operas in the series have given me enormous pleasure for as long as I can remember, and I hope and believe they will continue to do so in the future.