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The primary purpose of this article is to propose a conceptual base from which an appropriate management and leadership development framework for supporting capability building of professionals and practitioners across the UK incubation community can be built. Furthermore, it provides insights into how such a framework could be applied through an initiative developed in the East Midlands region of the UK.

A review of the research in this field is summarised as an empirical background to proposing a conceptual framework. The author explores the evolution of incubation and identifies specific models and processes of incubation, as reported elsewhere in the specialist literature. This framework is further explored within the context of its applicability as a tool for building management and leadership development capability.

The author recognises the lack of published research in this field, despite its importance for enhancing incubation performance outcomes. Three main framework components are drawn from this comprehensive review. Four different learner types are identified, and these form the basis of outline incubation management and leadership development programme options, with differentiated indicative syllabi.

This article reinforces the need for, and has demonstrated the importance of, enhancing human capital capability within professionals and practitioners in the incubation community. The conceptual framework presented in this paper provides a foundation from which learning and development programmes can be provided.

It has been argued that a critical issue pertaining to small firm success is the ability to manage and develop a network of interdependent relationships with a wide and diverse range of stakeholders. The article explores the needs of small firms and their stakeholders in building interdependent relationships as effective learning forms for enhancing a small firm’s potential to succeed. It is suggested that small firm owners and managers need to develop specific competence frameworks when initiating and progressing such relationships. It is also suggested that those managing such dyadic relationships have been disadvantaged by the lack of appropriate guidelines to assess current levels of competence and opportunities for improvement.

Business incubation is a new and fast growing industry in the UK. The environments within which incubation can take place and their descriptors as used across the industry are many and varied. The language engaged in by policy‐makers, professionals and practitioners commonly applies metaphors to convey meaning of loosely defined terms and concepts in a diverse market seeking increased clarity. Metaphors can offer a qualitative approach to sense‐making. By articulating ideas through metaphors, individuals can often expand the concepts and expressions available through language. It is asserted that it would be valuable to incubation communities to provide shared meaning to the discourse of incubation such that further confusion is minimised. This paper aims to address this challenge by proposing a classification of incubation environment types based upon a qualitative approach to understand the incubation marketplace through its language, specifically the application of metaphor.

To generate and test a coherent framework of incubation strategies and interventions that can be deployed to encourage enterprise development through new venture creation in local economies.

Postal questionnaire to new ventures, combined with ongoing engagement of and consultation with incubation practitioners and local economic development professionals.

Seven generic incubation strategies were identified and developed. Four focus on a premises‐driven approach to incubation, and three on a more process‐based approach. All seven strategies represent opportunities for tailored and hence targeted approaches to the development of incubators and incubation services.

The study focused on one rural county in England. There is a need to test the strategies in other contexts, to determine their wider relevance.

The seven incubation strategies can be used to develop tailored approaches to incubation, within a comprehensive framework of incubation “options”. The authors suggest that a combination of approaches is developed as the basis for effective local incubation practice.

The paper provides a framework for developing incubation strategies that offers coherence and the opportunity for “bottom‐up” yet integrated approaches.

Focuses attention upon a recent phenomenon promoted by public sector policy and government funding and adopted within the private sector as a vehicle for wealth creation, where wealth can mean the development of different forms of capital such as financial, intellectual and social. Incubators and incubation programmes have established themselves across the globe as part of the enterprise landscape and are achieving substantial growth rates in numbers, with expectations for further growth in the near future. Emphasises the finding of recent studies suggesting that the nature and experience of incubator management and leadership positively affect client perceptions of the value and impact of their incubation experience. In conclusion, there is an emerging demand for greater professionalism within the sector and the role that current national incubation benchmarks may have on supporting management and leadership capability building. Suggests that focusing on management and leadership capability building across the sector is an important policy consideration for government in enhancing the overall performance and effectiveness of the industry.

The purpose of this paper is to profile the characteristics and entrepreneurial motivations of graduate entrepreneurs from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities.

To gather the data, the authors interviewed selected individuals from within the BME community (including current students and graduates from various universities, predominantly in the West Midlands, UK), analysed the transcripts and compared the findings with the review of literature.

Evidence suggests that BME graduate entrepreneurs were diverse in terms of their characteristics: size, gender, ethnicity and when they started the business. Almost all interviewees had worked for someone before they started their business. The two most compelling motivations for start up were “being your own boss”, especially for Indians and Bangladeshis; and making more money (31 per cent), in particular for African Caribbeans. Over half of interviewees started a business in a sector in which they had prior experience, knowledge or skills. Two thirds of interviewees obtained advice from family and friends, while just over a third had completed any kind of training or course.

The sample of BME graduate entrepreneurs in this study was both small and selective. It was not statistically significant, nor did it represent a random selection of the BME graduate entrepreneurs in the UK or the respective population mix. Hence, there is a need for a larger scale study and the inclusion of a white control group.

This study provides an insight into characteristics and entrepreneurial motivations of BME graduate entrepreneurs. Though the results of this study are indicative, there is a compelling case for further research into this relatively unexplored group.

This paper aims to explore the philosophical and conceptual understanding of entrepreneurship education through borrowing and applying conceptualisations of education from education theory to bring deeper meaning to approaches to entrepreneurship education in UK higher education institutions (HEIs).

This paper identifies existing theoretical and conceptual frameworks from adult education and applies these to the phenomenon of entrepreneurship education as a sense‐making tool from which deeper insights and understanding are gained.

As a conceptual paper the “findings” relate to the unearthing of the inherent drivers and values to the design and delivery of entrepreneurship education in UK HEIs. Applying education theoretical frameworks enables presentation of a purposeful and guiding framework for effective curricula design in entrepreneurship thereby enabling coherence and cohesion of approach and achievable outcomes. Furthermore, the paper maps the purpose and role of educators against a segmented framework to draw out distinctions across contexts and to present the need for a clarification of the role of the educator in the entrepreneurial learning process. This enables a discussion of the development needs of entrepreneurship educators for the UK.

Overall, the paper presents implications for HEIs in how they conceive of and introduce entrepreneurship education; educators and the role they perform in effective entrepreneurship education and curricula designers in developing meaningful “fit for purpose” offerings across the diversity of the entrepreneurial opportunity environment.

This paper further builds on a significant gap in the extant knowledge and literature for enhancing understanding in the development of the field of entrepreneurship education within higher education in the UK.

There is an ongoing debate within the academic literature about the value of the business plan in the development of the small firm. On closer inspection of the research, there appear to be clear benefits in the use of business planning as a process within the smaller business. This is in contrast to the production of a business plan as an output focused predominantly on convincing and acquiring resources from other organisations and individuals. As a process, business planning can be both formal and informal. It is also focused on understanding and responding to the context within which the business operates. Strategic awareness capability, as both a bundle of activities and a core competence, helps to make sense of this context, and serves as a means of managing interactions between the firm and its environment. It also allows for a more sensitive reading of the limitations and strengths of the planning process in markets that are, for the small business, generally unpredicatable and complex. When combined, strategic awareness capability and planning effectiveness can be used to develop a typology of business types that provides insight into the processes by which business development can be supported. In addition, strategic awareness capability can be considered a core competence of the small business and conceptualised in terms of different levels of experience, and expertise. As a result, small firms with varying levels of experience face different challenges and needs when using and developing strategic awareness capability.

To describe an exploration in the use of synergistic learning methods in the delivery of an innovative pilot programme designed to teach entrepreneurship capacities. The programme took a tripartite approach involving nascent entrepreneurs, existing entrepreneurs and facilitators using an action research and action learning approach.

Action research methodology is used to provide insights in entrepreneurship andragogy. The programme is delivered in a collaborative, peer‐learning environment using synergistic learning techniques (action learning).

There is evidence from all participants for the usefulness of the learning methods employed; however there are challenges to using these methods in organisation applications.

The implications and challenges of using synergistic learning methods in organisation applications are discussed. Directions for further research into how such a programme could be used in the workplace are also presented.

The paper describes innovative and effective methods to teach entrepreneurship capacities that mirror the “real” world experience of existing and nascent entrepreneurs.

The Holy Grail of leadership learning is to stimulate behavioural changes that continue beyond the learning environment into the workplace, ultimately leading to improved productivity and value. The purpose of this paper is to explore the interface between emotion and leadership learning and provides evidence from research undertaken in Wales (UK) to support further research on the use of emotion in this endeavour.

Unique access to a successful programme of guided leadership development for owner-managers of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Wales, UK, provided an opportunity to observe emotion being used and experienced by both learners and trainers. Literature reviews were used to inform initial inferences made during participant observations of a sample of the learners (n=91). Focus groups were undertaken with a sample (n=27) of participants in order to determine the emotional impact and perceived effectiveness of the method by the learners.

The data corroborated the authors’ observations that emotion plays a role in the leadership practice of the learners and in the learning process. No appropriate conceptual model exists that describes this learning method or its mode of impact upon learning. A gap exists in the academic understanding of this observed social reality and multi-disciplinary research is required in order to further characterise and understand it.

Improvements in leadership have been consistently linked to improvements in firm performance. Bringing new insights that lead to effective learning and constructive behaviour changes in the leaders of SMEs and their employees could have profound positive impacts on entrepreneurial economies.

This novel perspective on leadership development within the life world of the entrepreneur moves away from the established literature which has traditionally focused on cognitive or conative constructs, often focused on the corporate or large organisation leader, and calls for further research into the synthesis of leadership, entrepreneurship and emotion.