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This paper asks whether enterprise programmes are overcoming the finance gap faced by their disadvantaged participants. Specifically, the paper seeks to assessthe level of finance invested by participants on a leading UK enterprise programme, the New Entrepreneur Scholarships (NES).

The paper draws on a postal and e‐survey of participants on a leading UK enterprise programme, reporting on 472 respondents. Three capital structure variables (personal investment, external private investment and grants) are employed to analyse the importance of various types of funding in NES businesses. These figures are compared with published data about use of different types of finance, including principal sources of funding, in UK start‐ups. Descriptive statistics of perceptions of under‐capitalisation, and needs for additional funding, are also reported.

NES Scholars make significantly lower start‐up investment than is typical in UK small businesses, particularly in terms of personal finance. Finance provided by the programme is important but does not compensate for poor access to personal and loan investment. Perhaps as a consequence, almost half of the Scholars were under‐capitalised.

Implications for policy are discussed at length. In particular, practical options for addressing the under‐capitalisation of businesses started under enterprise programmes are analysed, including increasing and targeting grant finance, providing soft‐loans, improving access to existing sources of public funding for small businesses, easing access to private finance, providing more support for the self‐employed through the welfare and tax credit systems and paying childcare subsidies.

The paper presents novel analysis of the capital structure of businesses started under an enterprise programme and employs this to explore the critical question of whether – and in what ways – these firms are under‐capitalised. It also presents new analysis of the policy options available for improving finance to disadvantaged groups. It fills gaps in the literatures relating to small business finance and small business and social inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among perception of past portfolio returns, optimism and financial decisions.

The relationships are examined using a data set of both retail and institutional investors in Malaysia and estimated using ordinary least square regression.

The results demonstrate that perception of past portfolio returns influences both retail and institutional investors’ trading and risk taking. Optimism measured as relative investment optimism and personal investment optimism similarly influences both groups of investors’ financial decisions. However, perception of past portfolio returns causes only retail investors to exhibit optimism. The results furthermore show that only for retail investors perception of past portfolio returns indirectly influences financial decisions, through the mediating channel of optimism.

The findings on the influences of perception of past portfolio returns and the mediating channel in decision process help to understand the differences between retail and institutional investors. Retail investors are found to be more susceptible to optimism. Therefore, regulators in Malaysia may enhance their initiatives by incorporating the peril of forming optimistic expectations in financial decisions, by giving special focus on retail investors.

This paper focuses on investors’ perception of past portfolio returns and its influence on various financial decisions, unlike past portfolio returns or market returns. Also, this paper is among the first to demonstrate the mediating channel of optimism in investors’ decision process.

This paper aims to examine the sources of consumer‐brand relationship investment, specifically isolating the sources and outcomes of communality and exchange relationship characteristics.

The paper utilizes a survey‐based empirical study and subsequent structural modeling approach to test a series of hypotheses concerning how brand performance perceptions influence the development of consumer relationship connections.

The paper finds that perceptions of product performance and service quality influence the development of brand reliability and brand fidelity respectively. Similarly, brand reliability is the primary source of an exchange orientation, while brand fidelity leads to communal brand connections and, ultimately, consumer‐brand relationship investment.

This research is limited by the scope of the sample, fast food restaurants. Future research should explore consumer relationship investment in other product and service categories in order to determine the extent to which relationship development processes vary by product category.

Brands that wish to develop enduring relationships with their customers must understand the relative impact of both personal and functional (exchange) relationship characteristics on the development of relationship investment. Each has a specific role to play and the roles of each vary at different relationship stages.

This research offers at least three significant contributions to the marketing discipline and marketing practice. First, it introduces constructs and associated scales for brand fidelity, communality, exchange and relationship investment. Second, it demonstrates how brand service and product performance differentially contribute to two dimensions of consumer‐brand relationships. Finally, it describes three discrete relationship development stages that play specific roles in the evolution of consumer‐brand relationship investment.

Over the past three decades, considerable disquiet has been expressed by many commentators over a movement away from financial asset‐holding by the personal sector and a concomitant institutionalization of the financial and stock markets. To a large extent, that concern has been occasioned by a concentration of interest on the equity market as a surrogate for all financial asset markets, and the burgeoning equity trading activities of the life companies and pension funds have served to bolster the arguments that private individuals are turning away from traditional forms of financial asset‐holding.

This paper is a response to a consultative document by the Personal Investment Authority (PIA), the UK financial services industry regulator. The PIA exists, not because the industry is a monopoly or concerned with health or safety, but because of the unsatisfactory quality it has provided to its customers. The approach of the paper is to examine if the quality management principles developed in manufacturing during past years could be useful in addressing this problem. The paper appears in two parts; the second part proposes a different type of regulatory system.

To investigate the nature of investment expertise and factors affecting the information processing and performance of investment experts, this paper hypothesizes normative characteristics of investment expertise and compares such characteristics with actual characteristics documented in prior literature on the investment expert. Based on collective evidence from these sources, a model of investment expertise is proposed.

Results support the existence of investment expertise in (1) the nature of knowledge, (2) problem solving and information search, and (3) performance. A variety of factors that could influence the information processing and performance of the investment expert, including personal, cognitive, and contextual elements, are also discussed in the paper and included in the proposed model of investment expertise.

Quality assurance is the process of providing confidence that the stated or implied requirements for quality are met. In financial investment services, “quality” is defined as the perception of the investor about achieving satisfactory returns under acceptable and generally accepted risks within a planned time. Investor’s confidence in achieving quality stems from the quality assurance efforts and processes of the investment service provider. In this paper, different types of investment services, from a simple provision of investment information, to a full‐service portfolio management are discussed. Principles of quality assurance in investment services are provided. A realistic portfolio management case indicates that a modern quality management system (ISO 9000) can enhance quality assurance and thus the quality of investment services.

In line with an emerging body of literature questioning student entrepreneurs’ practices, and recent calls to bridge the intention-action gap, this contribution aims to identify profiles of commitment among nascent entrepreneurs, and their relationship with the performance of entrepreneurial behaviors.

Relying on Meyer and Allen's multidimensional model, the authors build an empirical taxonomy regarding affective and instrumental forms of commitment experienced by nascent entrepreneurs (n = 328) operating within French higher education.

The authors identify three commitment profiles – weak, affective and total – associated with distinct levels of advancement and investment in the entrepreneurial process. This analysis leads them to map out the entrepreneurial process followed by nascent entrepreneurs with three main thresholds: the initial threshold, the resonance threshold and the irreversibility threshold.

The work contributes to an emerging field of research dedicated to student entrepreneurship. It highlights the existence of different trajectories among nascent entrepreneurs, but also to different ways of being tied to them. It also enriches more broadly the understanding of the entrepreneurial process, especially its volitional phase.

The results are also important to guide public action, especially to design relevant support programs accounting for nascent entrepreneurs' diversity.

This is the first research to identify profiles of nascent student entrepreneurs based on the way they feel tied to their project, but also to the broader project of becoming entrepreneurs.

The paper is aimed to obtain a clear understanding of influence factors that can increase the possibility to be business angels (BA).

This study develops the 3A model in the Chinese context to design questionnaire, and 334 questionnaires are obtained via focus group sample and targeted snowball approach, and the multinomial logit analysis is used to test a serious of hypotheses.

The paper confirmed that the entrepreneurial experience and wealth are determinants of investment for potential BA, and the wealth have both directly and indirectly positive influence on investment activity through risk preference, namely that richer people prefer risk which impel them to invest as BA.

There are two limitations in the paper: first, the macro environment in China has not been taken into consideration in the model; second, the source of the sample focuses on the developed cities in the middle and eastern of China, only reflect the characteristic of angels in these areas, which may somewhat diverges from the reality.

The paper would contribute to form the policy which could promote the development of angel investment in China.

This paper conducts a preliminary exploration of the factors that have impact on Chinese BA' investment activity based on current research.