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Marketing strategies can be used to leverage business in the service sector, specifically in veterinary medicine; among other benefits, it can make a difference in satisfaction and consequent customer loyalty. Marketing should be used with ethics and professionalism due is one administration area that contributes to effective management in the continuous pursuit of quality in the provision of services and demonstrate that veterinary clinics have much to gain if managed with support of marketing strategies. This paper aims to analyze the applicability of marketing strategies in the management of small animal clinics, such as guidelines to the entrepreneurs of this services sector.

Marketing literature is plentiful in proposing alternative strategies, whether focused on the achievement and loyalty of customers, whether to raise the competitiveness of an organization or simply to its survival in the market. In this study, some marketing strategies were selected, on secondary data research, in theoretical framework, to investigate their application in the practice of veterinary medicine. This study emphasizes promotional strategy toward communication with the market and construction of organizational image, using public relations as marketing strategy.

The use of marketing strategies is recommended in the management of small animal clinical practice, especially with respect to the high customer satisfaction by streamlining the procedures and optimizing veterinary services provision.

This study is different because it proposes an integrated system of management techniques in veterinary organizations, which will lead to better efficiency of attendance, adding value to the service provided and generating greater profitability for the organization, which positively reflects on the economic point of view and for the image of the company and its professionals, providing a better quality of life for both clients and their pets.

The establishment and growth of an early Australian entrepreneurial firm supplying veterinary services and products is examined. John Pottie established a veterinary practice in Sydney in the 1860’s and then proceeded to develop a large and successful family business that is still trading. By exploring the ingredients for its successful entry and growth, this study seeks to show through one longitudinal case, how entrepreneurship, innovation and marketing were inseparable in contributing to the competitive advantage developed by this business. Two inter‐related and timeless features stand out in Pottie’s success. First, is the manner in which he acted as an entrepreneur, responding to the circumstances of the time and seizing the opportunities presented by changes on both the supply and demand sides in the market for veterinary services and products. Second, is the stress he placed on his own name as a brand, guaranteeing the quality of the integrated package of veterinary products.

This paper has the purpose of exploring the potential for entrepreneurship education within veterinary medicine. It aims to examine some of the key themes in the entrepreneurship education literature, discuss the make‐up of the UK veterinary sector, consider veterinary curricula requirements and illustrate how entrepreneurship education can benefit veterinary students.

The approach adopted by the authors includes a literature review, in‐depth discussion and the development of hypotheses for further study.

Entrepreneurship education has the potential to make a valuable contribution to veterinary medicine curricula. This is due to the fact that the majority of veterinary graduates will work in or even own/co‐own a veterinary business (i.e. a small veterinary practice) at some point in their career. In this context, the authors illustrate how entrepreneurship education can enhance both employable and day one/year one skills. The high entry requirements for veterinary programmes and the gender shift towards a predominantly female under‐ and postgraduate population add further interesting dimensions to the paper and present possible avenues for further research.

This is a conceptual paper and it is fully recognised that the concepts and hypotheses proposed need to be further developed and tested at the empirical level. Some interesting avenues for future research that could contribute significantly to this field are also identified.

The paper highlights the potential value of incorporating entrepreneurship education within veterinary curricula. It also identifies how such incorporation can enhance students' employable skills and deliver many of the skills included in veterinary medicine's day one/year one competences' agenda.

Purpose – The chapter aims to explore women's entrepreneurship in the sciences, specifically, veterinary medicine, and to highlight future potential.

Methodology/approach – Following a review of the extant literature, the chapter employs a single case approach to explore the experiences of a woman academic entrepreneur in the field of veterinary medicine.

Findings – The findings support the view that women are significantly under-represented in the sciences (SET/STEM) both as professionals and as entrepreneurs. The chapter also finds that, due to a relatively low number of veterinary professionals currently working in industry and/or commercialisable research areas, the sector offers significant potential for entrepreneurship, particularly among women veterinarians.

Research limitations/implications – Despite providing rich and meaningful insights that enhance understanding, the single case approach limits the potential for generalising the findings.

Practical implications – Given the significant increase in the number of women entering veterinary education in recent years, the chapter has important implications for how gender is considered in the promotion of entrepreneurship within veterinary medicine curricula.

Social implications – In view of the imminent gender shift within the profession, the case discussed in this chapter serves as an important role model to encourage more women to engage in entrepreneurship.

Originality/value of chapter – As one of the few studies offering insights on women's entrepreneurship in veterinary medicine, this chapter helps enhance our understanding of the field.

Agriculture and associated services are central to the rural economy of the United Kingdom. Rural veterinary enterprises are important providers of services to livestock producers, but are now facing concerns over their future economic viability. The objectives of this chapter are to outline the changes occurring in the veterinary and agricultural sectors, and to explore the main issues affecting veterinary enterprises in a changing business environment.

This is a conceptual chapter contextualised mainly within the United Kingdom. As such, the methodological approach comprises a critical review of current academic literatures, as well as government reports and relevant media articles.

The findings demonstrate that the commercial success of rural veterinary enterprises is critical to ensuring the future provision of high-quality animal health services to both farmers and government. The current issues facing farmers are likely to affect their willingness and resources to invest in veterinary services. Furthermore, farmers may have doubts as to vets’ ability to provide business-focussed services that add value. In addition, many public services are outsourced to private veterinary enterprises, and forthcoming policy changes are expected to lead to reduced income from public sources for both vets and their livestock farming clients. While wider issues affecting agriculture are beyond the control of private veterinary practitioners, veterinary enterprises will need to ensure that they can deal with such challenges and, where required, adapt their services accordingly.

The chapter is based on a review of extant literatures, and the scope of the research is therefore limited to existing knowledge about the farm animal veterinary business landscape.

The chapter summarises current knowledge of the challenges facing rural veterinary enterprises. While some of the issues described are specific to the veterinary sector, many are also relevant to other rural SMEs providing knowledge-intensive services to farmers. The chapter also describes areas requiring further empirical research.

This paper aims to explore business and, more specifically, entrepreneurship education within veterinary medicine and discuss the perceptions of veterinary students and veterinary employers in relation to its teaching within veterinary medicine. Some challenges for veterinary business and entrepreneurship educators are highlighted.

Drawing on a small exploratory pilot study, which included student focus groups and an employer survey, the paper highlights the differences between employers' and students' perceptions of the value of business‐related education. Students' preferred programme content and expected pedagogical approaches are also discussed.

The paper finds that veterinary students do not place the same value on entrepreneurship and business‐related education as employers, not perceiving it as a “priority” within their veterinary studies. This poses a number of challenges for educators in terms of: seeking to integrate entrepreneurship and business‐related topics within an already crowded programme of study, determining relevant content and delivery methods, and designing appropriate assessment methods.

The paper explores a relatively new concept (i.e. business and entrepreneurship) within veterinary education and, as such, the authors fully recognise that further empirical research – beyond this exploratory study – is needed.

The paper highlights the discrepancy between veterinary employers' and veterinary students' perception of the overall value of business and entrepreneurship education. Findings relating to students' expectations of programme content and their preferred pedagogical approaches should be of value to educators in helping them to reshape their current offerings or, at the very least, manage students' expectations.

This paper describes the importance of strategic community creation as a new management style. It verifies that video‐based information networks utilizing information and multimedia technologies enhance the quality of competencies and knowledge possessed by strategic communities, and it also verifies, through case studies, these networks are valid as organizational learning support systems within the strategic communities. Innovations in the area of veterinary medicine utilizing video‐based information networks over the past four years in Japan are taken as examples. This paper describes how knowledge and competencies within strategic communities comprising “industry, government, and academia” are enhanced, how the new virtual methods of telemedicine and distance learning are incorporated into the business process, and how “concepts of regionally linked cooperative bodies” are realized.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sustainability of small rural veterinary enterprise in light of recent changes in both the farming and veterinary sectors. The overarching research question relates to how small rural veterinary enterprises, especially those at the start-up stage, can meet the needs of their farming clients while ensuring their service offering is both viable and sustainable.

The paper draws on relevant rural enterprise and veterinary literatures as well as case data, and applies selected elements of Scott’s (2008) 7-P sustainability framework.

The authors find that the future sustainability of rural veterinary SMEs is dependent on the veterinary business owners being prepared to change with their clients, develop supportive partnerships and create effective marketing strategies. The authors use the findings to construct an innovative business model to help improve future sustainability of farm animal veterinary business.

The paper adopts a single case approach.

Some policy implications are discussed alongside avenues for future research. The paper contributes to the rural enterprise, agriculture and veterinary business literatures.

This is one of the few rural enterprise studies contextualized in the veterinary sector. The findings should be of value to both practitioners and policy makers concerned with ensuring future sustainability in this important sector.

This study aims to identify how the personal social capital of opinion leaders contributes to the market adoption of start-up innovations.

A design-oriented case study is undertaken with a start-up company focusing on the development and commercialization of innovations in the veterinary market. Based on a literature review, the authors examine the social capital in value creation and the role of opinion leaders and use qualitative methodology and semi-structured in-depth interviews to collect data.

The adoption of innovations could start with opinion leaders that will later share their experience with other members of the professional community. In turn, social capital allows for creating a collaboration between start-ups and leaders based on a number of specific parameters.

This paper contributes to marketing literature by providing new insights regarding collaboration between start-ups and opinion leaders. The collaboration between opinion leaders and start-ups could be implemented not only in the veterinary industry but also in other industries with minor adaptations. Authors demonstrate how the social capital of external stakeholders may be used as a resource of the company for business development. The main contribution of this study is to demonstrate that social capital could be used as a parameter for the adoption of innovations. The key parameters that allow creating cooperation between start-up and opinion leader have been identified.

This paper aims to understand the perception of smallholder farmers on climate change, identify major livestock related climate change adaptation (CCA) strategies and their determinants in selected neighboring districts of Tigray and Amhara regions of Ethiopia.

A total of 416 household heads were involved in a questionnaire survey using a multistage sampling approach. To understand the socio-economic factors that influence farmers’ perception on climate change (CC) and/or variability, a binary logit model was used. Multinomial logit model was used to identify the determinants of smallholder farmers’ choices of adaptation strategies.

Milk reduction, weight loss, feed shortage and frequent animal disease outbreak were indicated as major impacts of CC on livestock production. About 86.2% of the farmers’ exercise CCA measures where livestock health care and management (25%), followed by livelihood diversification (21.5%) and shifting and diversification of livestock species (20.9%) were the top three adaptation measures implemented. Education, knowledge on CCA strategies, access to veterinary service and extension, market access, annual income, non-farm income, total livestock unit, sex of household head and household size were the major determinant factors to farmers’ choice of CCA.

Concerned authorities working in CC related sectors should give due attention to improve smallholder farmers’ access to extension and veterinary services, market access and climate information to enhance their adaptive capacity to CC impacts. In addition, incorporating climate change awareness trainings into the existing extension packages is crucial to enhance the awareness of farmers on climate change and implement appropriate adaptation strategies. Moreover, it is very essential to provide appropriate herd management and marketing strategy based on the production system to avoid the significant price reduction during drought periods.

Concerned authorities working in CC related sectors should give due attention to improve smallholder farmers’ access to extension and veterinary services, market access and climate information to enhance their adaptive capacity to CC impacts. In addition, incorporating climate change awareness trainings into the existing extension packages is crucial to implement appropriate adaptation strategies. Moreover, it is very essential to provide appropriate herd management and marketing strategy based on the production system to avoid the significant price reduction during drought periods.

This research is focused on smallholder crop-livestock farmers, livestock-based CCASs and presents the determinant factors to their choice of adaptation.