Voodoo Institution or Entrepreneurial University? Spin-off Companies, the Entrepreneurial System and Regional Development in the UK

University spin-off companies occupy a prominent position in both government and university policies and aspirations for the commercialization of university research for economic benefit at regional and national levels. However, most university spin-off companies start small and remain small, reflecting founder aspirations, capabilities, and resource endowments. Based on detailed analysis of university spin-offs in Northern Ireland, it is concluded that these companies are technology lifestyle businesses not dynamic high-growth potential start-ups, and it is suggested that the prominence given to spin-offs in the analysis of technology transfer and in discussions of the economic impacts of universities is misplaced.

Business representation and the UK regions: mapping institutional change

Political devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the developing regional agenda in England are prompting changes in the organization of business interest representation within the devolved and decentralized territories. In this paper we seek to describe the realignment of business interest representation at the 'regional' scale, first through a detailed review of changes underway across specific business associations and representative fora, and secondly through an initial attempt to compare and 'map' the patterns of institutional change recorded in the various territories. In broad terms the overall scale, operation and degree of formalization of the new political arrangements for business representation tend broadly to reflect the established institutional and political contexts of the respective nations and regions and the level of devolution ceded to the territories. However, there are important variations in a complex process of uneven development. In the concluding section we present some initial thoughts on the nature of the changes observed in the institutional framework for business representation. A key argument is that to date such changes suggest a reconfiguration of business political activity rather than a step-change in the institutional foundation for sub-national business interest representation in the UK. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Development of Entrepreneurial Leadership: The Role of Human, Social and Institutional Capital

This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial leadership development. Leadership studies are characterized by an increasing emphasis given to an individual leader's social and organizational domain. Within the context of human capital and social capital theory, the paper reflects on the emergence of a social capital theory of leadership development. Using a retrospective, interpretivist research method, the authors present the experience of a cohort of business leaders on an executive development programme to uncover the everydayness of leadership development in practice. Specifically, they explore how entrepreneurial leadership develops as a social process and what the role of social capital is in this. The findings suggest that the enhancement of leaders’ human capital only occurred through their development of social capital. There is not, as extant literature suggests, a clear separation between leader development and leadership development. Further, the analysis implies that the social capital theory of leadership is limited in the context of the entrepreneurial small firm, and the authors propose that it should be expanded to incorporate institutional capital, that is, the formal structures and organizations which enhance the role of social capital and go beyond enriching the human capital stock of individual leaders

The development of University Technology Transfer stakeholder relationships at a regional level: Lessons for the future

The increasing importance placed upon regional development and the knowledge-based economy as economic growth stimuli has led to a changing role for Universities and their interaction with the business community through (though not limited to) the transfer of technology from academia to industry. With the emergence of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) replacing the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), there is a need for policy and practice going forward to be clearly informed by a critique of TTO (Technology Transfer Office)–RDA stakeholder relationship in a lessons learned approach so that LEPs can benefit from a faster learning curve. Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine the stakeholder relationship between three regional universities in the context of its TTO and the RDA with a view to determining lessons learned for the emerging LEP approach. Although the issues raised are contextual, the abstracted stakeholder conceptualisation of the TTO–RDA relationship should enable wider generalisation of the issues raised beyond the UK. Stakeholder theory relationship and stage development models are used to guide a repeat interview study of the TTO and RDA stakeholder groupings. The findings, interpreted using combined category and stage based stakeholder models, show how the longitudinal development of the TTO–RDA stakeholder relationship for each case has progressed through different stakeholder pathways, and stages where specific targeting of funding was dependant on the stakeholder stage. Greater targeted policy and funding, based on the stakeholder relationship approach, led to the development of joint mechanisms and a closer alignment of performance measures between the TTO and the RDA. However, over-reliance on the unitary nature of the TTO–RDA relationship may lead to a lack of cultivation and dependency for funding from other stakeholders.

Sustainability-related media coverage and socioeconomic development: a regional and North–South perspective

Abstract. With this paper we discuss the differences between sustainability-related media agendas across different countries and regions. Utilising a sample of 115 leading national newspapers covering forty-one countries, we show that typically no homogeneous global trends exist with regard to sustainability-related media agendas. Instead, significant differences exist regarding the national-level prioritisations of sustainability-related issues in the countries under review. To some extent, these observed differences can be attributed to different levels of socioeconomic development as measured by Human Development Index scores and gross domestic product per capita. Here, generic differences can be identified between newspapers from the Global North and South, with a range of issues such as climate change emerging as typically Northern issues, whereas issues such as corruption and poverty show significantly higher levels of coverage across newspapers from the Global South. We conclude with a discussion of the results in the context of global environmental governance.