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NLW is to be congratulated on its promptly‐secured interview with Harold Hookway in a sparkling March number which compares very favourably indeed with the January LAR that I happened to be reading at the same time. Generous though it was of NLW in an earlier issue to lament Edward Dudley's passing (temporary no doubt) from the LA Council, surely here was a massive vote of no‐confidence in an editorial job universally admitted to be badly done. How can the head of a great and successful library school find time to edit his profession's official journal? I have previously suggested that the LA should try to establish some business relationship with the only current English library publication for all staff levels in all types of library that comes close to what the membership wants. Let the LA stick to those publications that it does very well and that enhance its reputation—Library history, and the Journal of librarianship, and pass the buck for a newsy popular magazine elsewhere.

Having retired from civil service, Dr Line like Sir Robert Armstrong, can look forward to fruitful years as chairman of the board with some newly privatised monopoly utility, an Official Secret watchdog, or perhaps as a trusty in some noble Heritage institution. While tenure prevails he might even be good for another University librarianship.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate motivations and “pull” factors of academics engaging in knowledge transfer (KT).

In total, 15 in‐depth interviews were conducted with experienced, KT active (KTAs) academics to reveal their motivations and pull factors for engaging. Data were transcribed and submitted to template analysis to achieve qualitative conceptual “saturation”, from which a conjuctural analysis of conceptual relations was derived.

From the data, seven thematic areas were inducted: values‐in‐practice, motivations and “buzz moments”, purposive activities, the academic context, the journey of the KTA, pedagogy and perceptions of risk.

The interview sample (12 males, three females) of active KTAs can be seen as a representative and authentic regional sample from the Midlands – who had carried out both teaching, research and KT aspects within their academic roles. In total, 120,000 words of dialogue were candidly reported, attesting to conceptual coherence.

The results concur with some existing literature on conceptualising the KTA as an academic intrapreneur, but also highlight aspects of how this role conceptually differs from non‐KTA academics. This has implications for the recruitment, development and retention of KTAs, in addition to facilitating their roles in higher education institutions (HEIs).

This paper constitutes a unique induction of a conceptual model for a relatively new economic and operational phenomenon in HEIs: the KTA. The paper contrasts with existing literature on the barriers and challenges to KTA work by emphasis on the positive and motivational aspects of the role.

Examines the case of the consumer adoption of Internet financial services, which may be viewed as an innovation in service delivery. The qualitative study employed Rogers’ model of perceived innovation attributes is augmented by Bauer’s concept of perceived risk. The perceived innovation attributes were found to be important determinants of consumers’ adoption decisions. However, two additional dimensions were found to influence people’s adoption decisions, highlighting the complexity of the adoption decision for Internet financial services.

This study critically analyzes the micro-, meso- and macro-level factors that influence the female academics to engage in academic entrepreneurship (AE). The extant literature, which seeks to understand the female academics engagement in AE mostly revolves around a gender-comparative lens, where women entrepreneurs are understood only in comparison with men. This study examines the association between informal academic entrepreneurship (IAE) and the level of asymmetry between the micro-, meso- and macro-level factors (5M framework). In this study, the author conducted three interviews with female academics in Bangladesh.

With channels of distribution changing rapidly and multi‐channeling becoming increasingly widespread, studies of consumers will need to focus not just on understanding product choice, but also on understanding the reasons for channel choice. Although the choice of individual channels and the adoption of new channels has been researched, there is little to suggest that we have a more general understanding of why consumers, although purchasing essentially similar products, use some channels rather than others. Using the example of financial services, where multi‐channeling has been the norm for some time, this paper reports on an exploratory study to identify those factors which influence channel choice. Based on the results of focus group discussions, the paper argues that channel choice in financial service can usefully be conceptualised as being determined by consumer, product channel and organisational characteristics, with product‐channel interactions and consumer‐channel interactions being particularly important.

What does it mean to say there's an evidence base for supported employment? One approach, known as Individual placement and support or IPS for short, has been extensively evaluated and proven to help high numbers of people with severe mental health problems into work. But there is still little evidence of this approach being put into practice here in the UK. This article recalls a visit this year to the UK by Professor Bob Drake and colleagues from Dartmouth, New Hampshire, USA where the approach was developed, and explains the principles of supported employment and what it can mean for service users, staff, families and employers.

This chapter examines the processes of entrepreneurial network and capital formation at a university-based incubator. Incubators could help overcome start-up firms to gain access to entrepreneurial networks and credibility with external stakeholders, by supporting the entrepreneurial processes including the acquisition of variety of capitals and resources. However, the actual evidence on the effectiveness of incubators as a policy tool for business support has been rather contested. This chapter makes a contribution to the entrepreneurship literature by addressing the underlying processes of incubation as a key factor critical to achieve accelerated firm growth at the university-based technology incubator. Drawing on interviews and survey of start-up firms at a university-based incubator, co-evolution of business models with capital mobilisation and re-combination of resources is illustrated. The chapter concludes by arguing that more detailed processes and trajectories of ‘soft starter’ business model would contribute to the understanding and development of policy support for entrepreneurial processes.

This paper aims to stimulate debate among academic and policymaking communities as to understanding the importance of social processes and open innovation contexts within existing models of knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) between higher education institutions (HEIs) and industry.

This research was conducted through a number of case studies connected to UK HEIs and through extensive interviews with representatives of HEI, industry and policy makers over a two‐year period.

The results confirm that social processes are often under‐explored in collaborative HEI‐industry settings. The study identified seven emerging themes which are important to HEI‐industry relationships: the importance of network intermediaries; flexibility, openness and connectivity of network structures; encouraging network participation; building trust in relationships through mutual understanding; active network learning; strengthening cooperation through capacity building; and culture change.

This research raises implications for policymakers and practitioners engaged in developing KTE collaborative activities. The paper argues for greater attention to be placed upon the social processes that affect collaborative innovation and working. Policymaking in particular needs to take account of these processes as they are neither easy to establish nor sustain.

The paper contributes to the literature on HEI‐industry interactions for enhanced KTE activity and partnership working which demonstrates value to wider scholarly and practitioner readership. In the context of “open innovation”, the paper argues in favour of greater attention to be paid to the social processes involved in engaging HEI academics with industry professionals. Moreover, the paper further contributes to wider perspectives on the importance of international HEI‐industry research activities.

This article draws on the literature on valuation and evaluation and the orders of worth framework to consider the process of knowledge commercialization from academia to practice. Based on the study of two knowledge commercialization projects in a business school, the study contributes by showing how the orders of worth framework may assist in understanding the assignment of worth to knowledge-based objects in the context of multiple and potentially competing systems of valuation. The study also adds to the literature on the orders of worth framework by showing how “composite objects” or “assemblages” that achieve compromise or synergy (i.e., mutual reinforcement) between different value systems may be constructed and potentially sustained.