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The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of relationship marketing (RM) in a new technology-based firm (NTBF) and to illustrate how social embeddednesss benefits can be achieved by engaging in RM in a rural resource-constrained bilingual context.

A single in-depth case study of a NTBF operating in a rural bilingual context was explored over a five-year period. As part of the case study, participant observation was carried out and interviews with the novice entrepreneur, the firm’s employees and its customers were conducted.

Developing mutually beneficial relationships with customers and key partners can enable a novice entrepreneur with no prior business ownership and limited marketing experience to accumulate and mobilise resources in order to achieve credibility and business growth. By analysing information from the NTBF’s entrepreneur, customers and other actors, the authors build theory and present propositions relating to the RM process.

This case illustrates that RM can enhance the legitimacy of an inexperienced entrepreneur, and can enable a firm to address the liabilities of newness in a rural resource-constrained context. Entrepreneurs need to focus on relevant and specialised partnership and alliance relationships that can provide strategic resources for firm development. The bilingual influence has also been shown to aid the development of new relationships and thus ensuring social embeddedness.

The theoretical contribution of this study is to integrate insights from both RM and social embeddedness theories, and illustrate the extent to which a NTBF demonstrates social embeddedness benefits relating to customer retention and accumulation of strategic resources due to RM.

The aim of this article is to develop an understanding of marketing and customer relationships in software SMEs (small to medium‐sized enterprises) using a mixed methods approach.

The methodology combined qualitative research methods along with quantitative adaptive conjoint analysis (ACA). A software SME was investigated as a case study during the first stage of the investigation. In order to ascertain detailed customer perceptions and expectations of their software supplier, 16 semi‐structured interviews were conducted with the software SME's customers. The interviews subsequently informed the ACA, which was chosen as an analytical tool to establish quantitative hierarchy of relevant attributes identified at the qualitative stage of the study.

Marketing in software SMEs is dependant on effective relationships between the firm and its customers and these relationships should be based on providing a quality software solution, understanding the customer requirement and professionalism. Other marketing tactics that are used to improve customer perceived credibility include forming alliances and partnerships within the technology sector.

Software SMEs should proactively develop relationships with prospective as well as current customers and strive for a balance between customer orientation and innovation by involving the customer throughout the development of the software solution. The study's pragmatic approach has provided applicable results due to insight into a management case complemented with industry expectation of software product and service delivery.

This combination of methods has made it possible to explore marketing and customer relationships in the software industry from multiple viewpoints. Therefore, the findings contribute to the limited literature of marketing in software SMEs and customers' decision‐making processes when purchasing software.

This paper seeks to provide insights into key areas of business support used by technology entrepreneurs who start businesses in north west Wales.

This research uses a qualitative research approach and a purposive sample of eight small technology firms based on and off technology parks. A card research methodology is piloted in one firm and then incorporated into semi‐structured interviews with entrepreneurs.

Technology entrepreneurs access direct and indirect support including: grants from local and central government; help from, banks and professionals; universities; technology incubation units, and; collaborations and networks. Evidence also confirms some of the challenges that entrepreneurs face in accessing business support.

This research provides clear indications to public sector organisations, universities and business support agencies as being the most important aspects of business support needed for new technology‐based firms.

Successful development of technology firms is recognised as a driver for change, particularly in deprived regions. Solutions to issues faced by technology entrepreneurs in terms of business support and accessibility to grants may increase the likelihood of business success and the boosting of local economies.

Although researchers have explored the value and role of university incubator firms and the role of networks, and also the importance of geographically situated incubation units in relation to stimulation of innovation and entrepreneurial activity, there is a paucity of research in the area of business support for technology entrepreneurs which this paper addresses.

This study seeks to explore the success and failure of two similar small software technology firms from a marketing perspective. Using a dyadic approach, the research aims to compare the degree of customer orientation and innovativeness exhibited in both firms and to understand contributing factors for success and failure.

A two‐case comparative case study was employed as the primary method of investigation. Participant‐observation in both firms and 22 semi‐structured interviews with owner‐managers, employees and customers provided a holistic approach to how these firms perceived and prioritised marketing and innovation.

There is a need for small software firms to strike a balance between customer orientation and innovativeness in order to survive. In terms of customer orientation, the findings show that it is not only related to customer contacts and relationships, but is also about delivering on the promise. The small firm's ability to achieve this is highly dependent on managerial style, communication between the firms and their customers, business planning, market research, promotion and firm culture.

The benefits of this study, which demonstrates the stark contrast between successful and unsuccessful behaviour, can act as a useful guide for small to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) managers who often have technical but less managerial competencies.

This is a unique study comparing two software SMEs, particularly one which failed and one which succeeded under similar conditions, thus illustrating good practice by contrasting with bad practice. It also contributes to the literature on how SMEs conduct marketing in the software industry and how to secure small firm sustainability and growth in developing regions.

I completed a degree in classics at Cambridge and entered the British Civil Service. After a moderately successful, if unremarkable career, I took an early retirement and now live in London, spending my now free time at the opera and the theatre …. No, that's not right. Start again. Having decided to become a social anthropologist, I had my first experience of fieldwork on the island of Crete. I went on to specialise in the anthropology of modern Greece, and also wrote several popular books about people and places in Greece. I now live in one of the picturesque hill-towns of the Peloponnese …. No, not that either. Try once more. My father, who was a gifted amateur photographer, gave me a classic Rolleiflex camera for my 21st birthday, and I became a professional photographer, specialising in documentary photographic essays on social conditions in rural Europe. No, not that either …. I combined my first degree in social anthropology with a postgraduate training in linguistics. I went on to research and publish on discourse and social interaction, bringing together interactionist sociology, anthropology and semiotics. Well, not quite …. As you will see, all of these – and other – lives might have been mine. The actual life seems no more coherent than those shreds of unrealised possibilities.

This chapter explores the numerous considerations that an external examiner (EE) of an undergraduate degree within a further-education (FE) college must be mindful. There may be the perception that our academic experience of lecturing within a university equips us with the knowledge to collaborate with colleagues within an FE institution. However, this is valid only to a certain point. There is a spectrum of contrasts between the higher education (HE) and FE environments that are reflected within the comparisons that this chapter highlights between the teaching-and-learning experiences. If we think back to the original purpose of an EE (where Oxford scholars were invited by Durham University to provide external guidance in the nineteenth century), we can appreciate the key task of an EE and its aim: to assess the comparability of student achievement. The landscape of HE has changed considerably since then, and now undulates with numerous opportunities for learners to gain a HE qualification. It is this difficulty in assessing comparability that an EE of a HE course within an FE environment must be willing to acknowledge. The fact that the student-and-learning experience varies wildly in HE and FE muddies the waters for the EE: how can comparableness be assessed?

Reviews recent interlending and document supply literature, with coverage of the following topics: why ILL requests fail; access versus holdings via electronic document delivery; evaluating the various suppliers, delivery options, page formats, costs and speed for electronic document delivery; electronic document delivery as one of the ways libraries can service the needs of open/distance learners; and the problems of document delivery to and for developing countries.

This study aims to determine that the factors that lead to university spin-offs (USOs) high-growth firms (HGFs). In recent years, HGFs have been a topic of growing interest in the field of economic research because of these companies’ capacity for job creation and the dynamism they bring to the growth of the economy. In parallel, companies that are born of knowledge or technology developed at universities, known as university spin-offs, have also received attention from the literature in entrepreneurship.

In this study, to analyse the extent to which USOs have become HGFs, a sample of 237 Spanish companies with university origins for a period of study from 2007 to 2014 were used. To contrast the present study’s hypotheses, eight different models were estimated using probit models.

The results show that factors such as number of employees, internationalization, profitability and indebtedness positively affect the probability that a USO will become an HGF. However, for age, industry, innovation, the presence of venture capital and productivity, no statistically significant relationship could be found.

This study contributes to the literature in HGFs and university entrepreneurship in different ways. First, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have analysed the determinants of becoming an HGF from a USO. Second, hypotheses that, until now, had not been analysed in previous studies, in particular the fact of being a knowledge-intensive company, are tested. Third, the results obtained allow the establishment of recommendations to improve policies to support HGF-USO.