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Management training is constantly seen as an effective way of providing small‐medium size enterprises with the management expertise they require in order to develop and grow. The SME sector in Canada plays a prominent and essential role in the growth and expansion of the domestic economy through its contribution to the domestic output and job creation. However, this sector suffers from a considerably high failure rate that is largely attributed to the lack of management skills and planning, which can potentially be improved by providing training and education in different business areas. This paper assesses the entrepreneurship education and training efforts in Canada and identifies the common challenges that face this process.

Small family firms represent the predominant organizational form in Canada. They are perceived to be crucial to the development and growth of the Canadian economy. Despite this, scant attention is given to the study of human resource management practices in the specialist family business literature. A key human resource issue in family firms, which has been documented as a potential source of problems, is succession, selection and training. The objective of this research is to explore the qualities that are considered critical to an effective family business successor and discuss the crucial role that education and training could have in enhancing the qualities and skills of a successor. Results suggest that three factors are critical to an effective human resource strategy concerning the selection process of a successor. These include the successor's capacity to lead, his/her managerial skills and competencies, and the willingness and commitment of the successor to take over the family business and to assume a leadership role.

Family firms play an important role in the working of the Canadian economy; despite their importance to the economic activities and job creation it is observed that family businesses have lower survival rates than non‐family firms, some argue that this can possibly be attributed (amongst other factors) to the lack of training. Most of the training activities in Canadian family businesses tend to be limited, and it is argued that family firms tend to perceive training more as an expense than an asset that enhances future growth and development of the business. This paper introduces a training framework and a coherent strategy that provides key elements of a national training agenda for Canadian small family firms, including the role of various relevant organizations.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Small family firms are the bedrock of the Canadian economy, yet only a small proportion last into the second generation. When family businesses fail, the impact on the family is usually severe. However, with around 94 percent of Canadian businesses being categorized as family firms, there is much more than personal financial grief at stake – for the sake of national competitiveness, politicians really need to focus on the family.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

This paper focuses upon the role of factoring in small business finance and the profile of firms using it. The analysis refers to a comprehensive survey of UK providers of factoring services. This identifies the relatively focused provision of factoring in terms of size, age, sector and stage of growth of the client base (ie businesses) using this financial service. For those using factoring, the service may provide a valuable improvement to cash flow and working capital position and can possibly contribute to small business growth and development. In its present format, however, factoring is not the potential financial solution for all firms across all industries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence Malaysian manufacturing sector investment in accounts receivable (AR), an asset seen by many as one of the riskiest in any company’s balance sheet.

The authors test several theories, related to AR, using a cross-section of 262 listed manufacturing firms over a period of five years (2007-2011). Both fixed and random effect approaches are adopted to deal with potential heterogeneity across firms.

The results show that investment in AR in Malaysia are influenced by firm size, short-term finance, sales growth and collateral. Profit, liquidity and gross margins have no role in affecting the decision of trade credit granting to customers. The results are inconsistent with previous studies. Size and short-term finance have a negative, rather than positive, impact. Liquidity and gross margins have no, rather than positive, effect. While profit and sales growth are predicted to feature a U-shaped relationship with investment in AR, the former is insignificant while the latter is strictly increasing. The only factor found to be consistent with prior studies is collateral.

The results have two principal implications. First, policy makers should not take a holistic view of the trade credit market. Given that policy makers aim to improve liquidity and trade, they should design policies that are not only country specific but also sector specific. As is clear from our results, what holds for other countries or sectors may not necessarily be true for the Malaysian manufacturing sector. This has important implications for policy makers in emerging economies.

Investment in AR, in the Malaysian manufacturing sector, is impacted by many of the factors implied by either theory or empirical evidence. However, the main finding in this paper is that the Malaysian manufacturing sector is rather different. First, while liquidity and gross margin have been found to have a positive and significant effect on AR helping hand theory in prior studies, the results show that these two factors play no role in influencing the level of AR in the Malaysian manufacturing sector.

Unlike the experience in developed economies, firms in our sample that have access to short-term finance are less likely to grant trade credit. This suggests that the helping hand theory does not hold as far as the Malaysian manufacturing firms are concerned: firm that have better access to short-term finance in Malaysia do not use trade credit to pass on the benefit to their customers by granting them trade credit.

It is unclear why firms invest in AR given the high risks of uncollectability as well as tedious, time-consuming and costly legal process for debt recovery compared to firms from more developed economies. This paper examines the reasons business-to-business lending, through AR, is widespread in Malaysia and investigates the factors that affect this decision despite the risk involved. To our knowledge, this is the first study to date that looks at the factors that influence AR level in the Malaysian manufacturing sector.

To investigate possible connections between the ways in which university lecturers define the term “entrepreneurship” and the pedagogical methods they apply when teaching the subject.

In total, 141 lecturers on entrepreneurship courses completed a questionnaire concerning meaning of the term “entrepreneurship”; the pedagogical techniques they employed when delivering entrepreneurship units; and their commitment to entrepreneurship as an academic discipline. The sample was analysed with respect to the respondents' subject areas (marketing, organisational behaviour, economics, etc.), amounts of business experience, types of employing institution, and socio‐demographic characteristics. An emerging model was tested using the technique of partial least squares.

Lecturers' definitions of entrepreneurship were indeed influenced by their backgrounds and by the number of years they had worked in businesses. Few of the sample had ever owned an enterprise and, in general, respondents' operational management experience was limited. There was no consensus as to how the word entrepreneurship should be interpreted or how the subject should be taught.

Only a minority of the sampling frame (29 per cent) returned the questionnaire. The model that was tested had to be constructed ab initio due to the paucity of prior research in the field. Hence the study was wholly exploratory and could not test hypotheses explicitly derived from pre‐existing literature.

A consistent theory of entrepreneurship needs to be developed, to be disseminated among and accepted by lecturers who actually teach the subject, and then be incorporated into the curricula and syllabuses of entrepreneurship courses.

This research is the first to examine the perceptions of the nature of entrepreneurship held by lecturers on entrepreneurship programmes and to relate these perceptions to their antecedents and pedagogical consequences.

Despite the fact that about 90 percent of all the businesses in the US and Canada are family‐owned and operated, very little research has been undertaken on how strategy is shaped in family businesses. This paper tracks strategy in two family firms since their inception to their present third generation management, to investigate the unique factors influencing strategy in family businesses. The paper accentuates issues relating to the intensive grooming process and the involvement of the different family and non‐family members in the strategic decision making processes of the family business.

A previous paper by the authors drew on existing research on e‐business and the smaller firm, developed a conceptual model and a set of research propositions. This paper analyses a series of qualitative, in‐depth interviews of owner/managers of smaller firms in central Scotland in order to test the research propositions. Results indicate that industry and sectoral factors play an important role in the level of e‐business development achieved. In many cases the customer determines the need for e‐business adoption, rather than any internally planned programme of adoption. Other important factors include the degree of entrepreneurial orientation of the key decision maker and the ability to exploit appropriate competencies. Recommendations for encouragement of e‐business development are made and suggestions for future research are included.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the benefits of enriching higher education of entrepreneurship through mentoring potential entrepreneurs.

Students in entrepreneurship classes were offered being mentors along with being mentored by professional senior staff in either one of two programmes designed to defined age groups: first, adolescent entrepreneurs in a high school and second, retired nascent entrepreneurs. This exploratory study was undertaken in the mode of action research.

Most students who participated in either one of these programmes for at least one semester reported “substantial” improvement in their personal entrepreneurial abilities and higher self-efficacy. The rate of students who reported this reflection is more than double higher in relative to their classmates who did not elect to undertake mentoring in these programmes.

Due to the limitation of a case study, further research with additional data is needed to validate the benefits to students being mentors in entrepreneurship programmes.

Additional tools for active learning are needed since previous research indicates it may not be sufficient to teach entrepreneurial talent in the classroom setting. Providers of higher education in entrepreneurship could consider incorporating students as mentors in different practical programmes in order to enhance their capabilities and self-efficacy.

Practical training and active learning have long been exercised in many fields, including engineering and business studies. This reflective study brings together pedagogy and theories of high education in entrepreneurship. A novel approach is suggested in which students are mentors rather than mentees in practicing entrepreneurship.