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The context in which changing small business needs and the impact of government policies are making new demands on trainers are reviewed. The performance of the SME sector as a whole, and the survival and competitiveness of individual firms, are factors of critical importance in both developed and developing economies. This is recognised by the UK Government, which is adopting measures designed to stimulate the take‐up of services designed for the support of small firms. Thus, the SME sector offers a potentially large and relatively unexploited market for business trainers in which demand depends on the relevance of the supply of training as perceived by owner‐managers. The key to this market is the competence of small business trainers to design and deliver relevant products. This is an important determinant of the choice and quality of the support on offer to owner‐managers. An indicative survey of small business trainers in the UK shows that they themselves recognise a need to enhance their competence in both the design and delivery of products through continued professional development. The way forward for the professional development of trainers is discussed.

Presents a case study and a model for course design in enterprise education and training. The model features three main stages (context or environment appraisal, commitment to purpose, producing a blueprint) each of which is an umbrella for other considerations plus a fourth (programme development themes) which proved to be irresistible to the course designers. Presents the model as a rationalization of a course committee process. The outcome was a course design which is modular and flexible, designed to accommodate multiple perspectives, open to changing client needs, anticipating development themes, and which met with immediate acceptance.

Describes models for empirical enquiry. Since the publication of the CEDEFOP guides to competence in the design of enterprise training programmes the need to train a cadre of professional enterprise trainers for small business has become widely accepted throughout Europe. There is a consensus of opinion which favours a competence‐based and process‐related approach. Discusses a framework for research and describes models of the “process” of enterprise training, based on practical experience, as a basis for functional analysis to determine relevant enterprise trainer competences. Concludes that the CEDEFOP guides provide a starting point, but there is considerable scope for research into enterprise training processes, trainer competences and outcomes in different small business contexts.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

As part of the Romanian Government′s plan to create a market economy, state firms are required to restructure by disaggregating, commercializing and privatizing their operations. The Government is also encouraging the development of a small and medium‐sized enterprises (SME) sector, and one of the best prospects for the creation of SMEs is for them to be spun off from state firms as they disaggregate and downsize. Among the barriers to this are the lack of experience in creating new venture spin‐offs and the lack of entrepreneurial managers to take charge of them. Suggests conceptual mapping as a means to explore implications of restructuring and opportunities for training interventions. Describes a training and development project, the key to which is the commitment of senior management to the process of change. Describes and evaluates a process‐based training programme designed for senior managers, based on the experience of six workshops for 60 participating firms in Russia.

When, back in 1994, I spoke to the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) on the state of network development in Tennessee, I began by saying, “In Tennessee, as in many states, network development is multidimensional, multidisciplinary, multifaceted, multilateral, multidirectional—and therefore multi‐confusing.”

Despite the increase in studies focused on analyzing the potential of big data analytics capability (BDAC) as a driver of product and process innovation, it is still necessary to understand how the use of insights generated by BDAC in innovation may be maximized through articulation with individuals' intellect and other processes involving the assimilation and transformation of knowledge. This study thus aims to analyze the impact of BDAC's deployment on innovation capability (IC – process and product innovation capabilities), taking absorptive capacity (AC) as mediating variable in this relationship.

Structural equations were used to test the research model with survey data from 112 firms located in an emerging country that is one of the digital transformation leaders in the region.

The results show that 37% of process IC variance is explained by the indirect relationship via the variable mediator (AC), while in the case of product IC this percentage is 34%.

These results allow us to ascertain the extent to which individuals continue to be relevant to generating product and process innovation in the digital age at a time when the literature anticipates a total loss of prominence due to the arrival of new digital technologies. However, in the case of the relationship between BDAC and ICs, the existence of a partial mediation of AC indicates that individuals continue to play a role that, albeit not being the most prominent, remains relevant in ensuring that a company maximizes the assimilation and transformation of the insights generated by BDAC in new products and processes.

This paper aims to analyze the moderating effect of knowledge leakage on the relationship between absorptive capacity and co-innovation, which implies collaborative work and knowledge exchange with external actors on virtual innovation platforms.

The research model was tested in a sample of companies through the use of structural equations by the partial least squares method.

The results confirm that absorptive capacity is a prior condition for co-innovation. However, the most interesting and surprising result has to do with knowledge leakage, which actually has a negative moderating effect, but whose size is modest, which dismisses the great damages that such leakage could generate.

This study is pioneering in analyzing knowledge leakage in the context of virtual innovation platforms, which occurs in a different manner as compared to leakage in the context of collaborative research and development, widely analyzed in the literature. However, the main contribution of the paper lies in the fact that the results evidence the existence of an intermediate position between the traditional approach that insists on demonstrating the devastating consequences of the leakage and the emerging approach that dismisses these negative repercussions and conceives leakage as a positive organizational phenomenon, natural and inherent to the interaction of the firm with the environment. The results also contradict recent empirical evidence that completely dismisses the negative repercussions of knowledge leakage in contexts where incremental innovations prevail.

The purpose of this study is to understand the complex interplay between illicit opioids trade and consumption practices and state policies that aim to reduce their misuse.

The study adopted an exploratory design. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews with 31 commercially oriented drug dealers in Uyo, Nigeria. The framework approach was used in data analyses, while “friction” provided the interpretive lens.

Accounts revealed public concerns over the misuse of tramadol and other opioids among young people and the associated health and social harms. These concerns provided support for enforcement-based approaches to prescription opioids control, including police raids on pharmacy stores. These measures did not curtail opioids supply and consumption. Instead, they constrained access to essential medicines for pain management, encouraged illegal markets and fuelled law enforcement corruption in the form of police complicity in illegal tramadol trade.

The findings reveal the frictions of drug control in Nigeria, wherein enforcement-based approaches gained traction through public concerns about opioids misuse but also faced resistance due to the persistence of non-medical use and illegal supply channels made possible by law enforcement complicity. These indicate a need to prioritize approaches that seek to reduce illegal supply and misuse of opioids while ensuring availability of these medications for health-care needs.

The study is unique in its focus on the creative tension that exists between state control measures and local opioids supply and consumption practices.

This study aims to explore the dynamics involved in the non-medical use of tramadol among manual labourers in Nigeria.

Using the phenomenological approach, we conducted in-depth interviews with forty (40) manual labourers (age: 19–36 years). These participants were selected through purposive and snowball sampling techniques from two cities in Anambra state, Nigeria, and the data was analysed with thematic analysis.

The results revealed that most of the participants were introduced to tramadol use by their friends. They used tramadol for pain relief, euphoric feeling, energy for work and sexual performance. Unfortunately, most of them may have gradually become dependent on this drug to function well in life without knowing the possible medical and psychological implications.

The sample choice may limit the generalization of the findings; however, the study indicates a need to improve working condition, access to healthcare and awareness of the negative effects of non-medical use of tramadol.

Non-medical use of tramadol may have started as an attempt to help self in performing the daily routine. This action can jeopardize an individual’s mental health and, at the extreme state, hinder performance of daily routine. Friends and the quality of information they provide play a significant role in the onset of this action. The strong point is that many people who are involved in the non-medical use of tramadol are unaware of the possible risks. Improving working conditions and access to healthcare for chronic pain could help reduce these risks.