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The introduction sets out the scope of the special issue and suggests areas for further research.

This introductory article sets out the rationale and contents of the special issue of History of Education Review on “Outdoor Education in Historical Perspective”. It briefly summarizes the existing state of research and introduces the six articles that comprise the issue.

The introduction identifies four particular themes that arise from the existing literature and from the diverse contributions to this special issue: transculturality; space and place; religion and spirituality; and personality/personalities.

This special issue contains six original contributions to the study of the history of outdoor education, focussing on different locations in Europe and North America.

We extend theories of the firm to the entrepreneurial finance setting and argue that R&D-focused start-up firms will have a greater likelihood of financing themselves with equity rather than debt. We argue that mechanisms which reduce information asymmetry, including owner work experience and financier reputation, will increase the probability of funding with more debt. We also argue that start-ups that correctly align their financing mix to their R&D focus will perform better than firms that are misaligned. We study these ideas using a large nationally representative dataset on start-up firms in the United States.

A monthly feature giving news of recent Government and professional appointments, industrial developments and business changes, etc.

IN SAMOA seventy‐five years ago this December, Robert Louis Stevenson died far away from his ‘hills of home’. Samoa has chosen to commemorate this occasion with a special issue of postage stamps, each one carrying a head of Stevenson and scenes from some of his well known books. From Treasure Island, Long John Silver is shown hurrying up the beach with his parrot, Captain Flint, on his shoulder, while the schooner, Hispaniola, is lying at anchor in the background with sails furled, flying the Jolly Roger. From Kidnapped, Alan Breck is seen striding over the moors on a stormy evening with David Balfour in the distance. From Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Mr Hyde is shown walking out into the foggy night while Dr Jekyll drinks the evil potion. From Weir of Hermiston, Archie Weir and Christina Elliott are seen meeting at the Weaver's Stone.

The aim of this paper is to provide discursive background to a consideration of higher education's approach to online learning and set out the terms of engagement represented by the articles in this issue.

The paper is in the form of a narrative surveying the state of the discourse on online learning and providing a brief introduction to each of the articles.

The paper finds that history of online education has been compressed into a brief period, but it has already undergone several phases: from initial euphoria over the possibilities for expanded enrollments to a realization that online learning posed a new set of knotty pedagogical and institutional issues, to a current maturing phase. In this latter phase there is a pressing need for a public dialog that addresses the institutional challenges inherent in online education, and that provides examples of successful experiences and even specific guidelines for any institution or program involved with – or considering initiation of – an online program. This special issue of On the Horizon is intended as a contribution to this dialog.

The paper establishes a framework for in‐depth consideration of the issues addressed in this issue of On the Horizon.

This work addresses how consumer perceptions of quality may be influenced by the composition of competition. I develop a theoretical framework that explains how consumer evaluations of quality can be negatively impacted by a product's stylistic similarity to popular competitors. These issues are examined empirically using more than 75,000 online consumer evaluations, from the evaluation aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, of 123 feature films released in the United States during 2007. Results suggest that during a movie's opening week, movies that are stylistically similar to the top-performing box office movie are evaluated less favorably. Additional analyses indicate that this negative effect may persist in later periods due to social conformity pressures, and that there is reduced demand for those movies that are stylistically similar to the top box office performer. This article contributes to the broader literature in strategic management by depicting how stylistic features of competitors can affect consumer behaviour and perceptions of quality in markets. This work also suggests managerial implications for entry-timing decisions and positioning choices.

Prof Dr lng. Heinrich Hertel celebrated his 75th birthday on 13th November 1976. He was born in Düsseldorf, went to school in Magdeburg, passed his preliminary examination for civil engineering in 1923 at the Technical University in Munich and graduated in 1926. He was awarded his doctorate for engineering at the Technical University, Berlin, in 1931. Heinrich Hertel had already begun his scientific work at the German Institute of Research for Aviation in Berlin Adlershof five years earlier. In 1933 he left Aldershof and joined Prof Dr Ernst Heinkel as chief technical assistant. One year later he was appointed technical director of the Heinkel‐Werke. In 1938 he was made honorary professor. In 1939 he was nominated into the board of management of Junkers Flugzeug‐ und Motorenwerke AG, Dessau, as head of aircraft development.

To trace a shift in attitudes towards control since the mid-twentieth century, as reflected in a shift in rhetoric that accompanied the extension from first- to second-order cybernetics.

Narratives of exploration that have emerged from NASA’s lunar programme and recent design cybernetics are juxtaposed to show a transition away from the legitimisation of goal-oriented decision-making and control towards advocacy of partial control avoidance and accommodation of the unanticipated.

Contemporary cybernetic theory recognises the importance of both the partial presence and the partial absence of control in creative epistemic practice. It is thus unsurprising that, according to historical records, NASA’s journey to the moon was enabled not only by the assurance of control but also by lapses of control. However, NASA’s rhetorical posture during the race to the moon focused on predictable control and goal orientation, differing notably from the recent design-cybernetic openness towards uncertainty, error, and serendipity. This difference is encapsulated by the “Failure is not an option” dictum that was associated with NASA’s lunar programme and the “Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better” equivalent associated with design cybernetics. Recognition of the more recent cybernetic perspective is impeded by its continuing omission from narratives of earlier cybernetic accomplishments.

To the extent that narratives examined in this paper refer to exceptional initiatives and spontaneous events, the repeatability and generalisability of the presented argument are limited.

The paper highlights changing cybernetic narratives of creative invention by examining how spontaneous changes in variety were reported to have been addressed in NASA’s lunar programme, and how recent cybernetic design theory suggests they should be addressed.

The article discusses Outward Bound's participation in the human potential movement through its incorporation of T-group practices and the reform language of experiential education in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The article reports on original research conducted using materials from Dartmouth College and other Outward Bound collections from 1957 to 1976. It follows a case study approach to illustrate themes pertaining to Outward Bound's creation and evolution in the United States, and the establishment of experiential education more broadly.

Building on prior research (Freeman, 2011; Millikan, 2006), the present article elaborates on the conditions under which Outward Bound abandoned muscular Christianity in favor of humanistic psychology. Experiential education provided both a set of practices and a reform language that helped Outward Bound expand into the educational mainstream, which also helped to extend self-expressive pedagogies into formal and nonformal settings.

The Dartmouth Outward Bound Center's tenure coincided with and reflected broader cultural changes, from the cold war motif of spiritual warfare, frontier masculinity and national service to the rise of self-expression in education. Future scholars can situate specific curricular initiatives in the context of these paradigms, particularly in outdoor education.

The article draws attention to one of the forms that the human potential movement took in education – experiential education – and the reasons for its adoption. It also reinforces emerging understandings of post-WWII American outdoor education as a product of the cold war and reflective of subsequent changes in the wider culture to a narrower focus on the self.