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Venture capital (VC) is an essential element in healthy entrepreneurial environments; therefore, many countries in developing entrepreneurial economies support the industry via direct or indirect government interventions. The purpose of this study is to examine through the example of the Hungarian market, whether direct or hybrid state involvement has contributed more to the growth of the invested enterprises. The findings are relevant in the design of government VC schemes and in the contracts mitigating the moral hazards inherent in government funding.

The basis of empirical research is a unique hand-collected database covering Hungarian government-backed VC (GVC) investments. Based on the financial data of investee firms, the authors investigate whether firms financed by hybrid VC involving market participants are able to outperform firms that receive pure public financing using panel regression.

Based on Hungarian evidence, hybrid VC-backed firms generated lower growth and employment than their purely government-backed peers. Both schemes showed meagre innovation activity. The conclusion is that because of the conflict of private and economic policy objectives in hybrid financing, the exposure of hybrid risk capital to moral hazard is higher than that of pure public financing. Private interests in hybrid funds can only improve investment efficiency if they are structured along the lines of market-based independent financial intermediation and the contracts imitate the ones existing amongst limited and general partners in private schemes.

The research covers the data of Hungarian government-backed firms by tracking the full range of 86 investments made in the purely government scheme and 340 firms that received funding in the hybrid scheme. The research focuses on two government initiatives, and the results are influenced by the specific regulation of the programs; therefore, the results cannot be generalized for all government agendas; they are indicative in the designs of the agendas.

There is a limited number of empirical studies investigating the impact of VC in developing markets, especially in the Central and Eastern Europe region. This firm-level research on the impact of public VC can help improve the effectiveness of development policies. By analysing the entirety of investments of a VC program that is near to its completion, the authors provide new insight into the efficiency and prospects of GVC schemes in the region.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of leadership development programmes, underpinned by Transformational Learning Theory (TLT).

A corpus-informed analysis was conducted using survey data from 690 participants. Data were collected from participants’ responses to the question “please tell us about the impact of your overall experience”, which culminated in a combined corpus of 75,053 words.

Findings identified patterns of language clustered around the following frequently used word types, namely, confidence; influence; self-awareness; insight; and impact.

This in-depth qualitative evaluation of participants’ feedback has provided insight into how TLT can be applied to develop future health-care leaders. The extent to which learning has had a transformational impact at the individual level, in relation to their perceived ability to influence, holds promise for the wider impact of this group in relation to policy, practice and the promotion of clinical excellence in the future. However, the latter can only be ascertained by undertaking further realist evaluation and longitudinal study to understand the mechanisms by which transformational learning occurs and is successfully translated to influence in practice.

Previous research has expounded traditional leadership theories to guide the practice of health-care leadership development. The paper goes some way to demonstrate the impact of using the principles of TLT within health-care leadership development programmes. The approach taken by The Florence Nightingale Foundation has the potential to generate confident leaders who may be instrumental in creating positive changes across various clinical environments.

This study aimed to identify and describe how mentoring influences the mentor, by operationalising and specifying learning outcomes involved in mentoring.

This study used an action research approach, by uniting theory and practice to explore new ways of learning and evolve the field of practice in education. Thematic analysis was used to identify and organise patterns or themes that emerged from the data.

The results showed that mentoring changed the mentors' perspectives towards improved understanding, more flexibility and approval of other cultures. It seems that mentoring expanded the mentors' search for values, wishes and resources, including an awareness that our values, wishes and needs are more similar than different. Mentoring also seems to have improved the ability to reformulate, be flexible, strive to optimise user engagement and engage with people as they are, based on their own prerequisites.

The low number of participants means the results cannot be generalised, and voluntary participation may have led to more motivated involvement and positive results.

This study shows that mentoring has had an impact on students' development of intercultural competence and cultural sensitivity through regular meetings with individuals from a different cultural background. Mentoring seems to have revealed insights into underlying prejudices and changed perspectives towards better understanding, thus increased acceptance of other cultures.

Search for similar studies shows a lack of research that operationalises and specifies the learning outcomes that mentors gain from being a mentor.