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The Moore and Wright Multi‐Mike is an adjustable micrometer with a capacity of 0 to 0·5 in. equipped with a set of 13 anvils which allow measurements to be made in many types of slot and cavity normally inaccessible to the micrometer. It can also be used to measure the wall thickness of tubing, eccentricity of bushes and for the location of flats and radii when profiling. The price of the instrument, complete, as shown in FIG. 1, is £7 5s. from the marketers, E. H. Jones (Machine Tools) Ltd., The Hyde, London, N.W.9.

This paper provides an exploratory examination of the growing phenomenon of secondary management buy‐outs and buy‐ins, where an enterprise having initially been bought out by management is later the subject of a second buy‐out or buy‐in. Such transactions provide a further dimension to the exit opportunities available to venture capital investors and also to the maintenance of independent entrepreneurial businesses. The paper uses large scale data to test propositions relating to the expected differences between secondary buy‐outs and buy‐ins and buy‐outs and buy‐ins in general as well as detailed case study evidence from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to examine the rationale for such transactions. The quantitative data suggest that secondary buy‐outs and buy‐ins are more likely to involve enterprises in traditional industrial sectors and are significantly more likely to occur a longer time after the initial buy‐out than are trade sales or flotations. The case study evidence reveals that secondary buy‐outs and buy‐ins can arise for various reasons but are rarely the first choice exit route for venture capitalists, though they provide a means by which entrepreneurs can maintain the enterprise’s independent private existence.

The role of product development within personal financial service organisations is focused on, with particular emphasis on the part played by market research within the process. A major aim is to identify the importance of marketing and market research within respondents′ companies, in terms of the organisation of these functions. The results of a questionnaire sent to organisations providing personal financial services to the consumer are drawn on – new product development within individual companies is investigated, the progression of new products from conception to launch traced, the role of market research within the process identified and the organisation of the marketing function examined.

ntroducing computerised working scheduling systems into a “not‐for‐ation, addressed by means of a case study based in a high security mental rise to four recommendations: that line authority is required; an “agent needed to push through the momentum of change; collaboration has ed; and because of inertia within the system, change is best implemented ground of crisis or turbulent conditions.

There has been considerable debate concerning the contribution of venture capitalists (VCs) to their investee companies (Sapienza, Manigart, & Vermeir, 1996). This research has shown that VCs can add value and impact the strategic direction of their investee firms through their skills and knowledge. These skills lie in two distinct areas: financial (monitoring) and non-financial (strategic and operational involvement) skills (Pruthi, Wright, & Lockett, 2003). The monitoring and involvement of VC firms in their investees have been shown to vary according to their needs (Lerner, 1995). On balance, the evidence suggests greater involvement during the more uncertain earlier stages than during the later stages when the firm is more established (Sapienza, Amason, & Manigart, 1994; Elango, Fried, Hisrich, & Polonchek, 1995). This suggests that the VC's ability to bring about change will be mediated by the impact of the history of the firm via path dependency (Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997).

Evidence suggests habitual entrepreneurs (i.e. those with prior business ownership experience) are a widespread phenomenon. Appreciation of the existence of multiple entrepreneurial acts gives rise to the need to examine differences between habitual and novice entrepreneurs (i.e. those with no prior business experience as a founder, inheritor or purchaser of a business). This paper synthesizes human capital and cognitive perspectives to highlight behavioral differences between habitual and novice entrepreneurs. Issues relating to opportunity identification and information search, opportunity exploitation and learning are discussed. Avenues for future research are highlighted.

Ex Libris, the report of the Adam Smith Institute advocating membership fees and borrowing charges in public libraries, attracted no great attention apart from a few knockabout setpieces in the press and on the radio. NLW's prize for headline of the month goes to the Daily Telegraph of 23 June: two half columns on the report were headed by Fees Demanded to Deter Library Louts. Worth reporting here if only to express editorial belief that there can't be more than two people who read both NLW and the Daily Telegraph. There was also a little to‐do on Radio 4's ‘Stop the Week’ on 28 June with Robert Robinson almost alone defending public libraries, provoking a reference from one of the chatting coterie that something was alright for the ‘Raynes Park literati’. Robinson went to Raynes Park Country Grammar School which in its day was quite a school with W H Auden writing the words of the school song. (Readers in Uttoxeter and Gosport may like to know that the school is hard by the London and South Western Railway and is probably in the new‐fangled London Borough of Merton.) The Times on the same day had a respectable second leader which concluded that the report “should make us think more about how libraries should be managed, what they should stock and who should manage them”.

The marketing strategy of banks requires much thought and careful planning so as to address the constituent segments of the market. In particular, the issue of increasing customer sophistication versus demands for convenience needs to be approached, and this does not appear to be a clear‐cut issue; highly sophisticated customers may also demand convenience, while others do not fit into this category, and customers across age, sex and social class groups have different needs in these respects.

Suggests that the process of transition and the hardening of the budget constraint in the former centrally‐planned economies of Eastern Europe recreates the link between an effective exchange process and business performance. Points out that this in itself creates the potential for marketing to play a significant role in business activity. Reports on a case study of the Russian experience which shows that there are still considerable barriers to the development of a marketing‐oriented approach to business. In addition to the obvious institution and infrastructure problems, there is still considerable progress to be made in relation to managerial attitudes and experience.

The signing of the Single European Market Act in 1987 committed EC member states to the principles of establishing a single internal market within which all barriers to trade in services and manufacturing and obstacles to the movement of factors of production will be removed. In this context, the liberalisation of financial markets is assessed. Aspects of the present regulatory frameworking affecting suppliers of financial services are examined and the Commission′s proposals for the removal of technical barriers discussed. Some of the positive implications of these proposals for marketing strategies in the banking sector are considered.