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The question of whether a business should pursue a marketing strategy that is standardised across national markets or adapted to individual markets has long troubled practicing managers and academics. The purpose of this study is to examine such marketing mix standardisation in the Baltic states.

This cross‐sectional study employs a survey of management responses from multinational companies active in the Baltic states to capture their marketing strategies. Another survey is used to capture customer perceptions of the degree of marketing mix standardisation.

This research supports the idea of marketing standardisation across the Baltic countries, but it also points at particular areas for adaptation.

The three Baltic countries present an interesting case due to close geographical location, shared history and economic development, alongside differences in consumer behaviour caused by independent national development. This makes for unique market conditions when it comes to marketing standardization in the region.

The research results support multinational firms in their pursuit of the right balance between adaptation and standardisation in their marketing mix.

This study contributes to research in the areas of international marketing strategy and marketing standardisation.

In 2003, there was a concern among policymakers that spin-outs were being given undue prominence in consideration of the research commercialisation performance of UK Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) (Lambert, 2003). The aim of this research was to investigate what issues lay behind the data reported on spin-out activity by UK HEIs in the period 1998–2002.

A broad range of policy evaluations below is begun in Chapter 2 by Kate Johnston, Colette Henry and Simon Gillespie in their evaluation entitled ‘Encouraging Research and Development in Ireland's Biotechnology Enterprises’. This investigation critically evaluates Irish government policy towards biotechnology development over a preceding 10-year period. In Chapter 3, Anthony Ward, Sarah Cooper, Frank Cave and William Lucas examine ‘The Effect of Industrial Experience on Entrepreneurial Intent and Self-Efficacy in UK Engineering Undergraduates’ in a large-scale study that generally produces satisfactory results in terms of raising the profile of entrepreneurship among undergraduates. Deirdre Hunt, in Chapter 4, again focuses on the evolution of strategy in Ireland, this time towards the more general topic of new firm formation with a personal contribution entitled ‘Now You See Them — Now You Don’t: Paradoxes in Enterprise Development Strategy: The Case of the Disappearing Academic Start-Ups’.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the culture dimensions of young Latvians and Lithuanians in accordance with Geert Hofstede's indices. These culture characteristics are discussed from the perspective of their similarity with Estonia and the Scandinavian countries.

The research is part of the Hofstede national culture studies. The survey is based on more than 800 questionnaires, which were handed out to students in Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden. The Swedish scores were used to calibrate the Lithuanian and Latvian values to the existing Hofstede database.

The study shows that respondents of both countries score very similar for all five dimensions of the Hofstede model: power distance moderate low, moderate for uncertainty avoidance, very low for masculinity, individualism moderate‐high, and very low in long‐term orientation.

The empirical research was limited to participants who classified themselves as belonging to the dominating ethnic class. Ethnical minorities were excluded – however they might have a considerable influence in daily business life. A second weakness might be that the students sample represents the values of young Lithuanians and Latvians – the future society of the countries. An examination of the majority of population who grew up with communist ideology might have shown different results.

The results of the study have shown that the three Baltic countries score pretty uniformly and much more similar to Scandinavia than Russia and/or Poland. International business actors should therefore include the Baltics in their Nordic strategy – rather than adding them to central and eastern Europe.

The main value of this study is that the Hofstede methodology was for the first time applied for Latvia. The results for Latvia and Lithuania were meanwhile reviewed by Prof. Hofstede and included into his database.