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This study aims to develop an original conceptual framework to guide research into knowledge transmission between professional external knowledge providers and their business clientele. As such, the framework aims to bridge a gap between theory and practice by explicating the processes which affect knowledge transmission and the conversion of knowledge for business application (i.e. knowledge transference).

Key concepts from disciplines of knowledge management, information management, communications, services marketing and business advice are reviewed and integrated into the development of this framework. Underpinned by a critical realist philosophical lens, it provides a robust research guide for examining business advisor knowledge actions in a changing open environment.

This study identifies that the process of knowledge transmission from a source external to a business is more complex than internal knowledge sharing. It addresses this complexity through a knowledge transmission framework, in a research design that is applicable to any methodological paradigm. Real-world application is identified in its applicability for evaluating mechanisms to facilitate knowledge transmission practices of external advisors to small business in regionally isolated communities.

The critical realist research methodology allows for causality in knowledge transmission to emerge; however, no assertion is made that the conceptual framework developed needs any particular philosophical paradigm for its application. Instead, what is asserted is that the research framework developed in this paper is specifically suited to the characteristics of external knowledge providers, their tacit knowledge and the businesses they service.

This study reconceptualises various theoretical perspectives and develops a sequential process for addressing a research lacuna by specifically examining the processes (or connections) between external business advisor’s knowledge and their advisory actions. With these processes clearly established, the role of external knowledge providers, as knowledge transmitters, deepens the understanding of knowledge transference that up until now has focused typically on internal organisation aspects.

This paper aims to examine the changing attitudes to diagnostic benchmarking tools of UK business advisors over the last five years, during a period of considerable restructuring in business support, aimed at focusing support on small business and start‐ups.

The authors reviewed business support from the advisor's and client's perspective prior and during this restructuring and conducted a follow up study to that carried out in 2000, allowing direct comparisons to be made with the earlier results. Quantitative advisor demographic data was also collected for comparison.

The authors conclude that though business link has been restructured towards start‐ups and small businesses and that advisors knowledge of the benchmarking has improved, the tools available to advisors have not changed to reflect this and cannot be used by the majority of the advisors' clients. As a result the use of diagnostic benchmarking tools, as a proportion of total business support, has dropped over the previous five years.

In order to give some structured best practice support to immature businesses and pre‐start‐ups new business support tools need to be developed that recognise the change in client maturity that has taken place.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

This case study aims to describe the work of a Business Link in relation to the promotion and implementation of Investors in People (IIP) with small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Its purpose is to highlight the views of IIP advisors with regard to working with SMEs and the appropriateness of the award.

The case identifies the particular challenges that the advisors face in trying to deliver a consultancy service to SMEs which is valuable to them and which also satisfies the government's requirement for commitment to and recognition of attainment of IIP. The research involved in‐depth interviews with IIP advisors at a Business Link which sought to understand the nature of their work, the methods they use and what they saw as the issues and challenges in meeting customer needs.

The research confirms previous studies detailing the difficulties in matching IIP requirements with the individual requirements of SMEs. It also highlights the fact that Business Links need to “play the system” in order to reach the government set targets. IIP advisors are caught in the undesirable position of trying to deliver a useful consultancy service (which may not lead to IIP recognition) to the firm and the need to achieve specified commitment and recognition rates.

While it is recognised that a single case has its limitations in terms of universal applicability, this example provides an aspect of IIP which has not previously been explored.

This paper suggests that listening to and consulting with those “at the coalface” could have considerable benefits in both ensuring that assistance for SMEs is appropriate and that funding is targeted appropriately.

The views of those charged with implementing government initiatives are rarely sought, although there has been considerable research undertaken with the firms themselves.

Despite similarities, research across family business and business advising forwards contradictory conclusions when considering family business advising. The authors seek to integrate these literature and in doing so uncover both the hurdles facing family business advisors attempting to adapt tools developed in corporate advising to the family business context as well as the potential for greater integration of these streams in ways that contribute to both family business and advising research and practice.

Primary data were collected both in the form of a survey questionnaire and website marketing content. In the survey, 47 family business advisors evaluated the distinctiveness of their family business clients across structural, cognitive and relational social capital dimensions. Motivated by unexpected findings, a content analysis of advisor websites uncovered specific marketing themes that illustrate the divides between family business advising and scholarship.

Family business advisors reliably acknowledge structural and cognitive social capital as preeminently characterizing the distinctiveness of their family business clients. Expanding on this, the authors’ findings suggest that the urgency signaled in advisor marketing via their websites may inspire tactics misaligned with the long-term time horizon typically characterizing family businesses strategy.

The few family business advising studies that exist predominantly consider post-hoc evaluation of advising by family business clients. The primary data the authors collect are unique in the literature in that the data detail how family business advisors perceive and engage with potential clients.

Over the last few years, research on customer behaviour in both industrial markets and service environments has caused some academics to posit that in many situations, the application of traditional transactional marketing concepts is ineffective. Most of the research on identification of factors influencing the supplier‐customer relationship has been concerned with the commercial sector. The aims of this study, therefore, are to determine the influence of relationship factors in the not‐for‐profit sector by examining the situation of advisory assistance offered to small businesses by government‐funded support agencies. Interviews with advisors and owner/managers have been used to construct a qualitative model of factors influencing the client/advisor relationship. The implications of the study are discussed in relation to the future operation of not‐for‐profit support agencies.

The purpose of this paper is to present an example of action learning in marketing – the unique postgraduate programme in marketing called the marketing development programme (MDP). This uniqueness arises in three main ways. First, the MDP is open only to those students with no work experience. Second, it employs action learning as the central pedagogy rather than an add‐on. Finally, it is a rolling programme with overlapping intakes and as such appears to have no beginning and no end. There are two important streams of learning to be harvested from such a programme. First, the MDP has for more than 20 years educated young marketers through affording them the opportunity to learn from marketing action within a supportive learning environment. The second is that there can be no action without learning, that is, the MDP has learned from its experience and created new learning for participants as a result. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the MDP for marketing education, theory and practice.

This study explores how and when intuitive forms of planning can be used in a family firm's succession process.

The study uses an extended focus group meeting, consisting of individual, group and subgroup discussions with seven highly experienced external family business advisors in the Netherlands to gain a holistic understanding of the succession process and its underlying logic. The study also employs pre- and post-group questionnaires.

This study reveals that advisors perceive intuitive forms of planning as an integral part of the succession process, with the latter containing both intuitive and formal logic and activities. Both logics are used situationally and flexibly to deal with the uniqueness and unpredictability of the succession process and to build strong relations and manage relational dynamics in business families to address tasks, dilemmas and contingencies.

The succession process is an important part of business families' achievement of transgenerational intent. Creating commitment among potential successors begins when they are children, and understanding the role of the more intuitive forms of planning during the succession process will provide us with a more holistic perspective on its dynamics.

For the foreign investment adviser wishing to do business in the USA, the regulatory climate has never been more propitious. This paper describes the recently restructured framework of federal and state law and regulation applicable to non‐US advisers that provide investment advisory services to US clients, whether from abroad or through a US subsidiary or affiliate. For those advisers that will register either themselves or subsidiaries or affiliates as investment advisers in the US, the paper first describes the requirements of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (Advisers Act), rules thereunder and significant interpretations and discusses the SEC's recent enforcement priorities. It then discusses the scope of and limitations imposed under recent interpretations permitting non‐US advisers that register in the USA to comply with US restrictions only in connection with their US clients. Finally, the paper discusses other legal and regulatory provisions that apply if the adviser offers interests in a pooled investment vehicle (ie an investment company) in the USA.