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This paper aims to provide students with a career edge, business students require more than concepts and calculations to be successful in their future career. They require professional skill sets, mentors, relationship guides and as much real industry experience as they can gather before graduation. This study sheds some light on how a small business school (SBS) in a nonprofit private academic institution (NPAI) located in an isolated rural area of the USA has been able to tap its strong alumni relationships to provide mentoring and experiential learning opportunities to students using its student-managed investment funds (SMIFs) as the vehicle. Although this study uses a small, geographically isolated institution, the authors believe that the approach taken by this particular school can be replicated by any academic institution that strives to enhance student learning experience by promoting mentorship and experiential learning.

This study starts with a brief introduction (Section 1) and a short review of literature (Section 2) to highlight the numerous benefits of alumni engagement and student mentorship. Section 2 shows institutional background on the NPAI, the SBS and the SMIF. The major part of the study starts with a discussion on the set of rules to guide in the construction of a student-alumni relationship framework that could be easily modified to the unique characteristics of the institution. Next, the role and responsibility of the investment advisory board (IAB) and its members’ engagement with students are discussed. In the last part of the study, SBS is used as a case study to show how alumni contribute to SBS and enhance students’ experiential learning by contributing as mentor, IAB member, advisors to the FMIF and career mentorship. This study concludes with a discussion on potential areas of conflict and friction for alumni involvement.

This study shows that SBS in a NPAI has been able to tap its strong alumni relationship to provide mentoring and experiential learning opportunities to students using its SMIF as the vehicle. The authors believe that the approach taken by this particular school can be replicated by any academic institution that strives to promote mentorship and experiential learning.

This case study is focused on a SBS in a NPAI that has a strong alumni relationship and enough resources to successfully tap on its alumni. It would be interesting to learn how this approach can be used in resource-limited public institutions.

As the case study shows, any business school that values experiential learning can rely on its alumni to enhance student learning experience by properly using its alumni resources.

The results of this study show that business schools’ outreach opportunities and student experiential learning experience can be enhanced and business schools’ academic qualification and ranking, which leads to improvement in student enrollment, can be improved. Overall, the major beneficiary would be the business schools’ immediate and larger community.

The authors are positive that multiple universities are properly taking advantage of using their alumni relationship.

This paper aims to present how Facebook overcame its liability of newness period, helping the interpretation of the same initial financial and organizational troubles faced by current unicorns.

In this study, the case study method has been used.

This story shows how the inclusion of active initial investors in the strategic team is pivotal for a firm’s survival. This case study depicts in depth the first years of life of the social network Facebook, focusing on the initial investors’ role for the survival of the firm.

This paper shows how an initial strategic team (especially the inexperienced) may benefit from the inclusion of active initial investors in terms of financed capital, and of further financing and refocusing of the strategic direction.

The aim of this paper is to explore the entry and success of hip‐hop entrepreneurs in the music industry and identify the competitive reactions of well‐established firms within the industry.

The paper used anecdotal data and popular press coverage to trace the evolution of the hip‐hop music industry in the USA and discuss aspects of the marketing strategies of key players in the industry. Additionally, the strategic response of dominant firms to their success within the industry is explored.

Hip‐hop music and its ensuing culture is now a well‐established industry that has enormous marketing power. Although few championed their efforts in the beginning, the contributions of Black American entrepreneurs to the music industry is becoming increasingly recognized by existing firms within the industry and beyond. The failure of major record companies to capitalize on the hip‐hop phenomenon resulted in the creation of new ventures and a new industry. While one could argue that very few key Black American entrepreneurs remain in the industry, the impact and influence of these entrepreneurs and those that have been recruited by major labels suggests that the hip‐hop entrepreneurs should not be ignored.

This paper sheds light on the development of the hip‐hop music industry, which could be of value to aspiring Black American entrepreneurs and marketing managers of companies in other industries that target young urban customers as well as companies that are interested in forming partnerships with Black American entrepreneurs.

This chapter introduces the concept of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ether, or litecoin. The chapter describes the history of cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and the quest for secure digital money, followed by a discussion of cryptocurrency as a phenomenon. Next, it discusses individual cryptocurrencies, including an overview of bitcoin and relevant subgroups, such as so-called forks or privacy coins. It also explains developments such as stablecoins or central bank digital currencies, which are potentially much more in line with bitcoin’s original idea of digital cash. Overall, the chapter provides a basic understanding of cryptocurrencies, their defining characteristics, challenges, and markets.

This paper aims to explore the gendered narratives of change management at Marks and Spencer (M&S) and uses them as a lens to consider the gendered nature of the change process itself.

Two extant stories: Sleeping Beauty and the Trojan War are taken, along with the cultural archetype of the American West gunslinger to explore the gender aspects of change. The Marks and Spencer case is analysed using the corollary patriarchal narrative of Sleeping Beauty, a story whose organising logic is revealed as one of concern for patriarchal lineage, and legitimate succession. The paper, draws on the Marks and Spencer principals' memoirs and biographies.

Sleeping Beauty is shown as a narrative saturated in misogyny, aggression and violence. This violence, which is shown to characterise the Marks and Spencer case, is amplified in the second narrative, the Trojan War, in the highly personalised battles of the über‐warriors of The Iliad. The paper concludes that violent, hyper‐masculine behaviour creates and maintains a destructive cycle of leadership lionisation and failure at the company which precludes a more feminine and possibly more effective construction of change management.

Demonstrates how M&S, gendered from its birth, its development through the golden years, the crisis, its changes in leadership and its recent change management has attempted to respond to its changing environment.

To take a more holistic and integrated view than in existing studies of export capability among small and medium‐sized enterprises, by exploring the key components of marketing management, and the blend of processes, practices and activities most closely associated with high levels of overall export performance.

The principal research instrument is the export marketing profiling system developed by the authors over a five‐year period, which provided the framework for data collection and analysis. Findings are derived from 250 semi‐structured interviews conducted in SMEs in the Yorkshire and Humber region of the UK.

The study identified 17 key practices, processes and activities that, taken together, are closely associated with export performance. They relate primarily to export marketing strategy, and suggest that a blend of capabilities in the areas of knowledge management (including market research and marketing intelligence), relationship‐building, product strategy and pricing are most closely associated with success.

The study has particular implications for business‐support providers. The findings could be used to assess and evaluate export capability in a wider sense. The conceptual framework could serve as a diagnostic tool for the identification of the areas of operation in which support, intervention and investment might have the greatest impact on overall export capability. Further research in these areas would be of particular importance in the drive to understand the relationship between export capability and performance.

This study's holistic approach to identifying the blend of capabilities most closely associated with high levels of export performance could inform national and local government policy in respect of the role of support agencies in improving the export performance of SMEs, in the UK or elsewhere. It offers a template for further research into key practices, processes and activities.

Derek Parfit’s non-identity problem calls into question the claims of both the state and individuals when they purport to act for the benefit of future children. This paper discusses how adoption of the non-identity argument as a legal argument could affect reproductive and family policy, demonstrating that it undermines the child-centric approach to assigning legal parentage. The paper concludes, however, that these non-identity problems can be solved by the expected value approach, which demonstrates that efforts to benefit future people can be logically coherent even if those efforts also affect the genetic identities of the future people.

This paper seeks to highlight hip‐hop's contribution to the entrepreneurship and place marketing literature. Hip‐hop is taken from the lens of an individual artist, Akon, whose music and lyrics – a “hybrid of silky, West African‐styled vocals mixed with North America's East Coast and Southern beats” – provides fresh insights for place marketers.

A “discourse analysis” of the lyrics from two non‐chart songs Senegal and Mama Africa provided the conceptual base for a better understanding of the fusion of music and entrepreneurship with place marketing.

Through music, Akon has bridged socio‐cultural (ethnic cuisine, immigration and social exclusion, faith or spirituality) and economic attributes (notably remittances) – with implications for entrepreneurship and place marketing.

The paper demonstrates that music and entrepreneurship can be extended to place marketing using discourse analysis. Future research may need to consider how to leverage the potential of celebrity endorsement or partnerships in place marketing strategies. It was by no accident that Akon was recruited by PepsiCo for the recently concluded 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa through a charity single – Oh Africa!

The paper is an attempt to fuse three distinct streams of literature (music, entrepreneurship and place marketing). The value lies in extrapolating a well‐known, but little discussed, subject in academia, i.e. the role of hip‐hop music in the place marketing discourse.