Purpose – Skills are increasingly identified by policy makers throughout the world as a central means to address social and economic challenges. The present study aims to look specifically at the Greek economy and evaluate through an extensive literature review the effectiveness of skill...

Investigates the proposition that reasoned action theory can be successfully applied in the small business (dairy farmers) domain. That proposition is supported by the outcome and, in common with many other studies, attitude was found to be the main predictor of behavioural intention. The...

Outlines the small business sector and the development of occupational standards in relation to it. Defines some of the key concepts underlying national vocational qualifications and standards. Considers the broad needs of the small business sector in relation to occupational standards as well...

Presents the findings of a study of the use of foreign languages by Irish exporting companies. Suggests that, although a substantial majority of respondents believe that foreign language skills are very important for export success, relatively very few of them actually use foreign languages to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptualisation of the components of contextual marketing (CM), in light of the outcome of the Charleston Summit, through the development of the meaning and operation of language used in context – that is: the language and the associated...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary and overview of the papers selected by the Guest Editors for this Special Issue on supporting new venture creation in the twenty‐first century. The paper seeks to identify key themes platformed in the articles, and to demonstrate...

Decision‐making institutions evident in today’s small businesses display remarkable similarities to medieval feudalism. This paper presents: (1) the institutions of feudalism as applied to small business, (2) a theoretical framework as a foundation for explaining obvious parallels, and (3)...

Suggests that, in today’s economy, competition is greater than ever. For small and medium industries (SMIs) to continue to survive and grow, the quality of their goods and services is of paramount importance. In the 1990s, two main subjects on quality capture the attention of most businesses...

Notes that although in recent years much has been written about the critical, if not overwhelming contribution of effective marketing planning to the achievement of competitive success, most of the literature deals with the application of marketing planning as it relates to big business. By...

Surveys the literature on internationalisation research and identifies a number of theoretical and practical inadequacies in terms of current theory’s ability in describing behaviour of the smaller firm. A range of internationalisation theories are discussed, from their historical provenance...