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Components of a best-practices model for university-industry linkages include sustained university commitment, standardized policy instruments, an entrepreneurial approach, and effective stakeholder network. Strategic issues for implementing the model are as follows: making industry aware of services, making contact, providing flexible delivery, having effective support structures, and maintaining continuity. (SK)

The role of foresighting methods in the management and expansion of small businesses in the UK are examined. Small business sustainability comprises a vital element in the overall UK economy, and foresighting methods offer a means of assessing the long range prospects of a vital economic sector.

The author examines what environmental ethics mean for small firms by looking at the conventional approach to ecological principles and a new approach based on ecological principles. Results indicate most firms follow the conventional approach.

Byline: Fiona Tilley, Bradley D. Parrish Sustainable Entrepreneurship (SE) research has emerged from the larger body of business environmental and social responsibility research. It views entrepreneurship as a potentially potent tool in shifting socio-economic institutions, both private and public, toward an orientation that contributes to sustainable development. Though fundamental to the concept of sustainable development, integration has proven challenging at both the theoretical and applied levels. This paper uses a model of SE and the pervasive 'three-pillars' model of sustainable development to frame a theoretical examination of the challenges to integration for the sustainable entrepreneur. An outcome of this discussion is a proposed research agenda to support policies that effectively facilitate integration.

P. Hawkens, A. B. Lovins and L. H. Lovins (1999), Natural Capitalism, London, Earthscan, pp396, 18.99 £, ISBN 1853834610. THIS BOOK IS A FAR-REACHING EXPOSITION, clearly utopian in its ideals, [...]

L. J. Spence (2000), Priorities Practice and Ethics in Small Firms, The Institute of Business Ethics, London, pp54, ISBN 0952402084, 20.00 £. THIS REPORT, COMMISSIONED BY THE Institute for Business [...]

Research on the relationship between higher education and business in the United Kingdom indicates that the people involved had a more personal than strategic view of the relationship. Both parties share networks, and stakeholders need to be recognized in order that their contributions be significant and directed.

The aim of this paper is to articulate to a wider practitioner and academic audience the value and importance of moving the sustainable business agenda beyond the notion of eco- and socio-efficiency. This in itself is not a new development in the sustainable business literature. What are emerging are integrated models of corporate sustainability that link together the six criteria that a sustainable business will need to satisfy, namely eco-efficiency, socio-efficiency, eco-effectiveness, socio-effectiveness, sufficiency and ecological equity. At this stage these new models of corporate sustainability need further theoretical development, taking corporate sustainability beyond the business case (eco-efficiency) towards an integrated approach that links in the social and natural cases. A new model for sustainable entrepreneurship is presented and discussed in the context of a social entrepreneur case study. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a model of sustainability entrepreneurship that suggests sustainability entrepreneurs could potentially be the true wealth generators of the future. Entrepreneurship has been linked to wealth creation and economic growth and consequently been promoted and encouraged in modern society. In more recent times, with the increased awareness of environmental and social problems the theory of ecological modernisation has been presented as an explanation for how entrepreneurship can reconcile the twin goals of sustainable development and wealth accumulation. However, the limitations of ecological modernisation theory suggest this may not be the panacea some first thought, thus opening up the debate for an alternative model of entrepreneurship based on the principles of sustainability. This in turn is linked to a broader more radical definition of wealth that goes beyond a narrow financial scope to a more integrated approach that incorporates environmental and social forms of wealth alongside the traditional economic forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the relationship between small firms and information and communication technologies (ICT). Relationship between small firms and ICT; Typology of small firms' usage of ICT; Business factors which affect small firm use of ICT.

Small firms are facing serious difficulties responding to environmental pressures. Due to their unique characteristics, small firms cannot be expected to employ scaled down solutions that have been developed by, and for, larger organizations. The indications are that the typical owner–managers of manufacturing and service small firms are struggling to bridge the gap between their environmental attitudes (aspirations) and their environmental behaviour (practices). Part of the problem would appear to be the domination of an outmoded paradigm that has created a set of values, personal and corporate, that is unable to cope with the environmental problems of today. However, the prognosis need not be pessimistic. There is evidence to suggest there are driving forces promoting change toward a more sustainable small firms sector. A number of emerging solutions offer ways to tackle the problem at the level of the firm, such as industrial ecology, and at the level of the institution, such as ecological modernization. The message remains that support for more extensive environmental education and training programmes and a much stronger regulatory framework would help to counteract the imbalance between the resistant forces and driving force that are presently widening the gap between small firm environmental attitudes and behaviour. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]