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Previous studies have shown that small- and medium-sized manufacturing firms make a substantial contribution to national economies in terms of job and wealth creation (Daly & McCann, 1992; Schreyer, 1996). However, many smaller firms face unprecedented change arising from the increasingly competitive and changing environment in which they operate (Coopers and Lybrand, 1997; D’Aveni, 1994). Much of this competition often emanates from larger firms with greater resource capabilities. Firms of all sizes are increasingly turning to strategy as a means of achieving competitive advantage. Strategy research is mainly directed towards examining why firms differ in performance (Barnett & Burgelman, 1996; Schendel, 1996). Strategy has ‘undergone, in the 1990s, a major shift in focus regarding the sources of sustainable competitive advantage: from industry to firm specific effects’ (Spanos & Lioukas, 2001). This involves more than strategy formulation — it is about making choices based on competing alternatives and implementing the chosen direction using the organisational processes and systems (Shaw, Gupta, & Delery, 2002; Stopford, 2001). Other writers, such as Pettigrew and Fenton (2000), acknowledge that ‘soft’ aspects are an integral part of the evolutionary nature of strategy, and include cultural influences (Chakravarthy & Doz, 1992) and leadership (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999).

Technology is defined by Krajewski and Ritzman (2000, p. 17) as ‘the know-how, physical things, and procedures used to produce products and services’. Over the past two decades, the development of high-technology-based firms has been actively encouraged by governments and development agencies (Westhead & Storey, 1994) as a source of competitive advantage. In many cases, small high-technology-based firms have effectively exploited market opportunities. This has been helped by the emergence of generic technologies, most notably information technology that is knowledge intensive rather than capital and labour intensive (Rothwell, 1994, p. 12). Such technologies have been effectively used to open up new market niches for small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs). Accordingly, high-technology firms have become well established as sources of both competitiveness and employment creation (Oakey, 1991).

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’.

Drawing from two years of multi-sited fieldwork about international backpacking in Central America, I make important connections between the backpacking escape motive, the backpacker hostel, and tourism. I explain how backpackers experience the hostel as their “home base” and “home away from home” to escape into local cultures and natural environments that exist outside of it and an international community of travelers that convenes inside of it. I refer to theories on modern tourism, the backpacking escape motive, and the concept of community. I also theorize how the global spread of modern amenities and tourism shapes backpackers' escape experiences.

Social enterprises (SEs), part of the third sector, are hybrid organizations combining the pursuit of social scopes with commercial business solutions. In seeking for social value, they pair for-profit and non-profit features, thereby compensating for shortcomings of both the public sector and the commercial market. Therefore, the performance management of such organizations assumes a crucial relevance. Among the available tools, the balanced scorecard (BSC) aims to capture performance multidimensionality, at the same time fostering legitimacy towards stakeholders.

In general terms, the BSC has the limit to follow a linear and static logic of construction and functioning. For this reason, scholars combine it with system dynamics (SD) to create dynamic balanced scorecards (DBSCs). However, literature seems to devote scarce attention to the adoption of such analytic tools in the third sector, particularly in SEs. This chapter wants to contribute to bridging this gap by proposing a tailored application in the context of a social cooperative, active in the clothing recycle and in the re-integration of disadvantaged social categories. By referring to previous literature about DBSC, two modelling strategies are identified: the BSC-driven and the SD-driven. The latter, based on inductive reasoning, is the one privileged for the study because of its wider flexibility. The modelling outputs consider different perspectives than the ones within traditional BSCs, contain elements of circular causality and show how financial and non-financial performances interplay and co-determine each other. Insights from the proposed model can be useful to support both decision-making and stakeholder engagement.