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The emergence of the lean start-up movement has cast doubt and skepticism among entrepreneurship educators and practitioners regarding the usefulness of writing a formal business plan for training the next generation of entrepreneurs. In one camp, there is a group of entrepreneurship education professionals who continue to advocate for the usefulness and necessity for teaching students these basic business plan development skills. In an alternative camp, there is another faction of education professionals who believe that the business plan process is counterproductive and is an unnecessary distraction for today’s millennial entrepreneurs seeking to create their own new ventures. In this chapter, we argue why it is important to adopt a lean start-up framework and approach in both entrepreneurship courses and in curriculum design in early-stage venturing. We offer 10 reasons why entrepreneurship educators should place less emphasis on business planning and more emphasis on business modeling during the early stages of evaluating the feasibility of a venture. We believe that educators and curriculum designers need to rethink the traditional approach of building an entrepreneurship program based upon the business plan as the guiding framework. We then conclude our discussion with suggestions on where and how elements of the business plan can and should be introduced into the new venture development process and appropriately positioned in entrepreneurship curricula. We propose a renewed and reconciled view of the Lean Start-up versus Business Plan debate, as both are considered necessary but neither is sufficient to support the full lifecycle of the venturing process.

Although the topic of span of control (SOC) has been discussed in detail in management literature and education, less focus has been placed on the decline research since the 1970s and, thus, the future relevance of the concept. By providing a historical overview of the literature on SOC through the work of key management scholars, this paper aims to explain why the literatures’ coverage of the topic has been significantly diminished in recent decades and offers suggestions as to why further research on the topic is needed.

The authors provide a historical literature review and analysis on the decline of SOC as a construct of interest.

The findings of the paper include a brief analysis of SOC. The concept was a very strong concept that declined as management became more scientific, rejecting classical management theory. This rejection occurred because SOC was impacted by multiple factors making it impossible to effectively study, making it imprecise. Likewise, SOC is too applied and lacked theoretical relevance. However, SOC still has value, especially when paired with a theory such as leader-member-exchange (LMX).

The authors argue that SOC is still relevant today and management scholars should align its study with its practice in modern organizational structures. However, its focus needs to change and be added to other theories such as LMX.

The purpose of this case study is to explore the principles and practices of sustainable development (SD) in the university curriculum.

To explore the principles linked with the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the learning and teaching practices in sustainability at the International University of Catalonia (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, UIC, in Catalan), an empirical study was carried out by using a mixed methodology for data collection. Indicators related to SDGs found in the University curriculum (quantitative analysis) were measured using Excel, combined with in-depth semi-structured interviews to the deans of different faculties (qualitative study), which were analysed using Atlas.ti.

Several visions, difficulties and challenges were identified in this mixed-method study around the concept of sustainability, which allowed the authors to describe and portray a specific starting position in relation to the SDGs at the UIC.

The presence of dimensions linked to the SDGs in the University curriculum were analysed by means of a quantitative study. However, global competences related to education for sustainable development were not studied.

Special emphasis was given to the challenges and opportunities for training future graduates and the whole University community in SD.

This paper shows a methodological exploration of the principles related to the SDGs and the learning and teaching practices in sustainability in higher education.

Many public, professional organizations have introduced performance measurement systems in the belief that they will lead to a transparent organization, offering incentives for performance and able to account for its performance. These systems produce a large number of perverse effects, however. The article presents five successive strategies aimed at preventing these effects where possible: tolerating competing product definitions; banning a monopoly on interpreting production figures; limiting the functions of and forums for performance measurement; strategically limiting the products that can be subjected to performance measurement; and using a process perspective of performance in addition to a product perspective.