No abstract

Entrepreneurial turns, serendipitous events, entrepreneurial skills and values are critical to the success of rural SMEs. Likewise, 'Resource Orchestration' is an important element of strategic, entrepreneurial activities. An analysis of a case study of a rural family farm business in Italy is provided demonstrating an innovative model of 'rural entrepreneurship' focused on farm diversification to valorise full employment of family members and increased productivity as a direct response to rural policy. The analysis shows how collective family entrepreneurship can exploit 'clusters of opportunities' through updating entrepreneurial skills. 'Serendipitous acts' are integrated into localised diversification strategies.

No abstract

This article presents the findings of questionnaire surveys of departmental heads in one chartered and one statutory university. Comparisons are made between the role in the two types of university and with the findings of a study that was carried out by the author in 1995–6. The main findings of the present study were that, although the role has become more similar in the two types of university, there remain significant differences, most notably relating to the perceived importance of personal research. The most difficult issue identified by heads in both universities was dealing with under-performing staff.

No abstract

This paper introduces and discusses the concept of animatorship in relation to rural enterprise and development. At its simplest level, animatorship is the art of animating others to achieve their objectives. We develop and apply this concept to understanding community development and community enterprise, with a specific emphasis on rural communities. We present a descriptive, conceptual study of a new concept i.e. animation in the context of entrepreneurship. The fieldwork for this paper took the form of structured face-to-face interviews with community development workers in November-January 2015/2016. These workers actively stimulate, motivate and inspire others and orchestrate situations and people to bring about change through others, not merely doing things for them. They build environments and relationships in which people grow, directing and focusing energies to develop and empower people's emotional and social lives and relationships through patient, open listening and group conversation.

This article presents the findings of two case studies of leadership and management in engineering departments in two British universities, one a chartered university and one a statutory university. The studies are the first in a series of ‘pairs’ of such studies in departments of various academic discipline and size, in the two types of university. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews with the heads of the two departments and members of their staff who have leadership and/or management roles. The most striking feature of the study is the very different cultures and organizational structures of the two departments and their very different approaches to leadership and management. The studies also raises questions regarding the findings of other researches and writings, namely that heads of department have unreasonably high workloads, that large university departments are difficult to manage and that collegiality is the preferred model of decision-making

This version may not include final proof corrections and does not include published layout or pagination.