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This paper sets out to assess the market for start‐up finance in the UK for high growth potential entrepreneurial firms.

The paper uses data from the UK's Global Entrepreneurship Monitor surveys between 2001 and 2003 to assess the scale of equity finance in the UK. It further examines the strengths and weaknesses of the UK financial markets for supporting high growth potential firms on the basis of an additional survey of 60 experts conducted during September and October 2003.

The paper suggests that there are areas of the market that are strongly served by existing financial mechanisms. However, there is a perception amongst business support agencies, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs alike that the size of investments in the formal venture capital market has been increasing and that companies seeking investments above this level, up as high as £2 million, may be restricted in their access to finance. The paper tests this qualitative finding on a number of empirical data sources and finds that there is indeed an “equity gap” of between £150,000 and £1.5 million. It concludes that lack of finance in this area represents a brake on the expansion of high growth potential businesses in the UK.

The empirical data covered in this paper are from three large‐scale surveys of the adult population in the UK. While this is robust as a reflection of what is happening amongst the whole spectrum of business start‐up activity, the methodology was not originally conceptualised as a mechanism for assessing the scale of the equity gap. This evidence was gained from a qualitative survey of actors in the market. Further research should survey high growth potential firms and financiers themselves in more detail to develop the analysis on a more systematic basis.

The research will be of interest to policy makers who seek appropriate mechanism for developing a funding “ladder” to support businesses through the growth process. It identifies a clear gap in the market for growth finance that is evidence on which to base funding priorities in the future.

Academic and policy attempts to quantify the scale of the equity gap in the UK have been limited by availability of longitudinal and systematic data. As a result, they have tended to be largely qualitative in nature and prone to anecdote. Many of these studies do corroborate the findings reported here, but this does represent a first attempt to provide a quantification of the equity gap and thus should be of interest to policy makers, practitioners and academics alike.

For a company seeking to implement a continuous improvement (CI) strategy, research has pointed to two pertinent policy suggestions. First, it is possible to take the essence of a CI philosophy (i.e. one where the emphasis is on creating an improvement‐based learning culture in the company) and apply it in any environment, however underdeveloped in terms of the tools of quality management it may be. But the key to success lies in the second factor for success. It is suggested that in order for a CI programme to be sustainable it has to be viewed as long term and company wide. The tools and infrastructure of quality management have to be supported by strategy, culture and process in a way that allows the organization to learn and, hence, improve itself.

This paper aims to describe the approach taken to identify areas for development and to enhance positive practice, in line with a preventative tier 1 positive behaviour support (PBS) approach. The work was conducted within a supported living service, where 10 individuals with a learning disability reside.

The intervention was provided through a dedicated behavioural clinical specialist role over nine months. An initial assessment included measures evaluating PBS, active support and staff culture. Narrative themes were also noted from discussions with staff to deepen the understanding of informal staff culture. Together, this informed a programme of work guided by the setting of both individual and service-wide goals. Input included practice leadership, staff training, review of PBS plans and delivery of case workshops. Assessments were then repeated to evaluate the work completed.

There were indications of improvements in staff culture and practice following the intervention.

This practice example may be useful for other organisations to consider when thinking about how to use resources effectively to improve people’s quality of life and implement tier 1 of PBS provision.

This study aims to develop an empirically validated taxonomy. Typologies of social entrepreneurship are primarily based on conceptual considerations and case studies. There is a need for quantitative approaches and empirical testing of this emerging organizational form and its characteristics.

First, an item scale was developed that emerged from frequently mentioned elements in social entrepreneurship literature. Next, social entrepreneurs rated these items. Finally, the authors conducted a cluster analysis to derive a taxonomy with three distinguishable types of social enterprises.

Based on a cluster analysis (N = 70), an empirically validated taxonomy is provided with three social enterprise types: social service providers, social change makers and social philanthropists.

Although this research has an exploratory character, it makes a clear contribution by complementing existing typologies, which tend to be conceptual in nature, with a taxonomy that is empirically grounded. This study defogs the blurry understanding and limited knowledge about different social enterprise forms and provides insight into meaningfully similar groups across the sector as a whole.

This article fills a void of empirically grounded taxonomies by analyzing which definitional aspects of social entrepreneurship literature correspond to the perceptions of social entrepreneurs regarding the nature of their organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a research protocol for an initial investigation into the efficacy of an early-development gamified intervention (“Wellbeing Town”) designed with potential end-users with the aim of improving adult wellbeing. Rationale for the proposed research is discussed along with a summary of the planned methodological approach.

Preliminary evaluation of “Wellbeing Town” is proposed to begin using a quasi-experiment, pre- vs post-intervention repeated-measures design with follow-up. Evaluation of changes in self-reported wellbeing will be supplemented with an investigation into the extent of self-directed play between post-intervention and follow-up, and its implications for follow-up outcome.

As this paper represents a protocol for future evaluation, no data is reported presently. The authors present the protocol for data analysis.

Once concluded, this study represents an initial evaluation of a gamified tool for adult wellbeing designed in conjunction with potential end-users. Should the game elicit significant improvements to wellbeing when played, proposals for further evaluation and possible future scalability are presented.

In this chapter, I analyze how the intersection of geographic and social locations shapes ethnographic relationships in urban areas. While early urban ethnographers were acutely aware of the importance of geographic location, I argue that researchers’ social locations were ignored, obscuring how their bodies and social identities lead to different forms of knowledge about the metropolis. I use data from a two-year ethnographic research project conducted in Caracas, Venezuela as well as interviews conducted with women qualitative researchers to consider gendered dynamics of fieldwork experiences and data collection. Using a framework of embodied ethnography, which posits that all ethnographic knowledge is shaped by researchers’ bodies, I argue that men and women confront similar but distinct challenges while conducting fieldwork, and discuss what this means for data collection in cities. Specifically, I focus on how social control mechanisms, the gendered meanings attached to researchers’ bodies, and geographic barriers in urban areas can facilitate and restrict fieldwork. Critiquing hegemonic standards within ethnography that encourage researchers to leave their bodies out of their tales of the field, I advocate for the incorporation of gendered research experiences in our ethnographic writing with the aim of producing more complete narratives, but also to better prepare future ethnographers for fieldwork.

Weapon use is as risky in prison as it is in the community, but the type, use and meaning of weapons differ between these settings. Consequently, knowledge about community-based weapon violence may not generalise to prison contexts. The purpose of this study is to understand the meaning and use of weapons in a prison setting.

Using a framework for understanding weapon selection derived from a community setting, six prisoners in a remand setting in England who had a history of weapon possession and use in prison discussed their selection and use of weapons in prison.

Respondents described a hyperviolent milieu for some in which access to weapons was essential and wherein the official consequences of weapon carrying were outweighed by the potential costs of victimisation. Weapons served a variety of purposes for prisoners. At the individual level, they reduced the uncertainty of a hyperviolent environment, and they were used to construct and manage a violent identity as an aggressive precaution against victimisation.

This study develops the literature on weapon decision-making, extending it into a novel setting and addresses a significant gap in the prison research literature about the meaning and utility of weapons in a custodial setting. The use of a community-derived framework for understanding weapon carrying translated well into a prison environment and offers support for the synthesis of community and prison models of violence but distinctive features of the prison environment, such as how weapons are acquired, limits the fit of the model to a prison setting.