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Building a bioeconomy requires efficient technology transfer and global linkages to exploit finite intellectual property exclusivity periods. The purpose of this paper, using a resource‐based view lens, is to assess the priorities, capabilities, and competitiveness of the emerging New Zealand (NZ) bioeconomy.

A triangulated design was used that involved four focus groups, 27 interviews, five case studies, and survey of 176 NZ biotechnology industry participants from a broad range of backgrounds such as scientists, managers, and investors.

Two high‐priority capabilities were identified as being critical to fostering a competitive bioeconomy – access to talent and access to funding. Participants also identified the critical role of government in building and coordinating infrastructure, enabling critical capabilities, and accelerating bi‐directional technology and capital flows.

Most biotechnology research and data has focused on the USA and European Union. This is one of the first studies of NZ biotechnology participants, and insights gained within this context are potentially applicable for increasing our understanding of building biotechnology industries outside established clusters.

This paper aims to investigate how generational differences moderate the relationship between workplace fun and individual workplace outcomes.

The authors review and integrate the literatures on workplace fun and generational theory and empirically test the interaction effects of generation membership and workplace fun with job satisfaction, task performance, and OCB using a sample of 701 workers.

The findings suggest that not only do members of different generational cohorts respond differently to workplace fun, but cohort membership moderates the relationship between workplace fun and some individual workplace outcomes.

Snowball sampling and cross‐sectional data limit the generalisability of the study's findings.

The authors provide managerial implications for promoting workplace fun.

The paper contributes to the workplace fun conversation by addressing the overlooked question of “fun for whom?”.

Entrepreneurship has been widely recognized as having greatly influenced the United States. Its influence has especially been documented over the past 20 years. Paralleling our societal interest in entrepreneurship has been increasing interest in entrepreneurship education. While our interest in entrepreneurship education has grown considerably over the past two decades, this field of study continues to have critics both within and outside of schools and colleges of business (Kuratko 2004). In spite of these criticisms, some researchers suggest that the United States is still far ahead of other regions of the world in terms of entrepreneurial education (Solomon et al. 1998).

Using entrepreneurship education in the United States as a point of departure, this article uses a case study to analyze the efforts of a private university in Bogota, Colombia, to create a new program in entrepreneurship. The Colombian Legislature passed Law 590 in July 2000 as a means to promote and develop entrepreneurship in the nation. Shortly thereafter a private university in Bogota started a new program in entrepreneurship. At the university's invitation, a small number of faculty from U.S. universities participated in the school's “kick-off” efforts. The paper offers analysis and recommendations based on five criteria: 1) What is taught, 2) Why it is taught, 3) How it is taught, 4) How well it works, and 5) Leadership support. In addition, rather than simply adopting a U.S. or European model of entrepreneurship education, the authors propose that they should develop a center that integrates lessons from other models with elements that are relevant to the local situation.

This extended editorial to the Special Issue “Are we having fun yet? A consideration of workplace fun and engagement” aims to review the current debates on organised “fun at work” and to suggest a framework for understanding workplace fun and employee engagement. The papers included in the Special Issue are also to be introduced.

The editorial review asks for an approach that offers a critical appraisal and sets the latest move towards fun at work within the context of the material realties of work.

A review of contemporary debates on fun at work reveals a predominantly prescriptive focus on attempts to engage employees through fun activities that oversimplifies the human dynamism involved in the employment relationship. The editorial suggests that we need to consider the motivations, processes and outcomes of managed fun at work initiatives and to consider employees' reactions in terms of “shades of engagement” that detail how people variously engage, enjoy, endure, or escape managed fun.

The suggested framework for understanding workplace fun and employee engagement offers opportunities for empirical testing.

Understanding workplace fun and the work that it does, and does not do, offers opportunities to improve relationships between employees and between employees and the organisation.

The editorial and Special Issue overall offers an important contribution to the ongoing fun at work and employee engagement debate and opens up avenues for further exploration and discussion.

There is an evolving literature on comparative international accounting (see Meek and Saudagaren (1990) and Wallace and Gernon (1991) for comprehensive reviews). Many of these studies utilise corporate annual reports either directly or indirectly. Direct usage of corporate annual reports has been used to explore a variety of topics. For example, Choi and Bavishi (1982) and Cairns, Lafferty and Mantle (1984) looked at the quantity and nature of corporate financial disclosure; Gray (1978) explored segmental disclosures; and Choi (1973) examined voluntary disclosure. Indirect usage involves data synthesised from annual reports. For example, Datastream and the Financial Times 500, inter alia, provide a selection of data, such as sales and profit figures, extracted from corporate annual reports. This data is then used by a variety of users, such as industrial analysts and academics.

Using a pre‐test‐post‐test control group experimental research design, this paper seeks to examine the effects of the 20‐week structure of intellect (SOI) training programme on the critical thinking skills of a group of participants in a manufacturing facility in Ireland as measured by both Watson‐Glaser critical thinking skills assessment (CTSA) and Raven’s standard progressive matrices (SPM). The results demonstrate no statistically significant difference in the experimental group pre‐ and post‐test scores on the Watson‐Glaser CTSA, but the results derived from the administration of Raven’s SPM were significant (p = 0.003). As expected, no statistically significant difference was found between the pre‐ and post‐test performance of the control group on either test. A number of possible reasons for the results are advanced.

Economists usually try to avoid making moral judgements, at least in their professional capacity. Positive economics is seen as a way of analysing economic problems, in as scientific a manner as is possible in human sciences. Economists are often reluctant to be prescriptive, most seeing their task as presenting information on the various options, but leaving the final choice, to the political decision taker. The view of many economists is that politicians can be held responsible for the morality of their actions when making decisions on economic matters, unlike unelected economic advisors, and therefore the latter should limit their role.

The purpose of this research was to determine the extent to which American school board members faced electoral competition, as well as the factors influencing the likelihood of competition.

The authors utilized original national survey data of American school board members linked with school district demographic data obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics. Several hypotheses were tested using three state-level fixed-effects logistic regression models predicting electoral competition.

The authors found that 39.6% of American school board members reported not having an opponent in their most recent election. School board members serving larger urban school districts with higher percentages of special needs students and racial minorities were more likely to have faced electoral competition.

The authors highlighted potential flaws in the traditional model of local democratic governance and helped expand understanding of the dissatisfaction theory of American democracy and continuous participation theory. The authors concluded with several suggestions on how the results can be used to inform future local governance reforms that increase electoral competition and/or create more effective governance models.