We examine the challenges and developments relating to the support of ethnic minority businesses (EMBs). The challenges pertain to the distinctiveness of business support needs, the 'mainstreaming' of EMB support, and the dynamics of delivery. An 'engaged scholarship' approach is adopted, on the basis of an examination of business support providers in the West Midlands. We fi nd considerable evidence of 'policy learning' in respect of these challenges. Hence, a nuanced approach to EMB support needs is in evidence, and 'good practice' principles are adhered to in respect of mainstreaming and EMB engagement. However, the new era of austerity imperils many of these gains.
This article deals with developing relationships between local authorities and local non-elected public service agencies in England and Wales. It classifies local authority responses to the growth of the non-elected state. Account is taken of varying agency characteristics and the constraints and dilemmas they face. From the local authority vantage point what is at stake is organizational (re)positioning in a changing institutional environment. Insights derived from strategic management are therefore utilized. But resource dependencies and exchanges also manifest themselves in these emerging relationships. Moreover, account must be taken of the scope for local authorities to be 'network managers' given the structural reconfiguration of the local state. The analysis therefore takes on board organizational networking theoretical frameworks. Although central government remains best placed to manipulate the 'rules of the [new and uncertain] game', interesting possibilities present themselves if local authorities can show more strategic skill than in the recent past.
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