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A broad range of policy evaluations below is begun in Chapter 2 by Kate Johnston, Colette Henry and Simon Gillespie in their evaluation entitled ‘Encouraging Research and Development in Ireland's Biotechnology Enterprises’. This investigation critically evaluates Irish government policy towards biotechnology development over a preceding 10-year period. In Chapter 3, Anthony Ward, Sarah Cooper, Frank Cave and William Lucas examine ‘The Effect of Industrial Experience on Entrepreneurial Intent and Self-Efficacy in UK Engineering Undergraduates’ in a large-scale study that generally produces satisfactory results in terms of raising the profile of entrepreneurship among undergraduates. Deirdre Hunt, in Chapter 4, again focuses on the evolution of strategy in Ireland, this time towards the more general topic of new firm formation with a personal contribution entitled ‘Now You See Them — Now You Don’t: Paradoxes in Enterprise Development Strategy: The Case of the Disappearing Academic Start-Ups’.

This chapter seeks to understand the psychological mechanisms that support entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. That recognition is treated here from the perspective of Kirzner's (1979) entrepreneurial alertness, a perspective that calls attention to the unconscious processes of discovery. It begins with the proposition that a substantial fraction of opportunities recognised by nascent entrepreneurs are not conscious in the sense that they are not found through a process that is driven by rational search or even by the conscious focusing of one's attention. A cognitive theory of unconscious recognition and discovery is considered that might then explain this phenomenon, based on the proposition that individuals develop a directed attention through interest and experience to quite specific domains.

In contemporary, complex organizations, “open secrets” may be just as common as intentionally concealed secrets, and are often associated with ethical failures and administrative evil. This chapter explores the ethical implications of open secrets in contemporary organizations and the dynamics by which they can become masked. Both the space shuttle Challenger disaster and Enron's corporate collapse, as well as other similar ethical debacles, show how organizational actors at all levels can promote the public interest and recognize ethical issues, only if they require of themselves a broader scope of ethical standards and vigilance that addresses not just individual behavior but also, and even primarily, the organizational and cultural context of values and ethics. The evolution of a moral vacuum within a culture of technical rationality and the resulting ethically deficient organizational dynamics produced the inability to recognize the open secrets that masked the pathway to disaster.

The last three decades have witnessed a fundamental shift in the structure of many western economies, which have seen a decline in the number of large enterprises and a marked increase in the number of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (Cooper, 1998). In1999 there were 3.7 million enterprises in the UK, of which 24,000 were medium sized (50–249 employees) and there were only 7,000 large firms (250 or more); SMEs accounted for 38% of national turnover (Hawkins, 2001). There is growing recognition that the future of work for many will lie in SMEs, as small firms play an increasingly important role in economic development and growth, and opportunities for life-long careers in large firms decline (Cooper, 1997). The rate of technological and economic change will also lead to individuals as well as employers having a greater variety of careers; thus, the concept of the portfolio career is likely to become much more common (Henderson & Robertson, 2000). Such trends imply that the world of work, which today's graduates are entering, is very different from that which their counterparts stepped into a decade ago. Today's resource-constrained small firm represents a fast changing, dynamic environment in need of adaptable, flexible and multitasking employees, who are able to contribute and add value to the organisation from a very early stage. The challenge for education is to develop future employees who not only have the right skills but also the ability to learn from experience and adapt to a dynamic and rapidly changing environment.

F. A. Hayek’s macroeconomic theory and policy ideas have gained renewed attention since the cheap-money boom until 2007, and subsequent bust, followed the basic Hayekian narrative. Only to a very limited extent, however, do we find Hayek’s ideas on the agenda of mainstream macroeconomic researchers since Robert Lucas’s research program gave way to “Neoclassical” and “New Keynesian” DSGE models. We find examples of deeper interest on the periphery of the mainstream. Hayek’s influence on today’s macroeconomic policy discussions remains similarly limited, although he has become an icon to some opponents of loose monetary policy.

William J. Baumol was one of the most prolific economists of his generation, analyzing a broad range of central economic issues addressing real problems of the world. In this essay, we present and critically evaluate Baumol’s research contributions in entrepreneurship economics and point to areas for future research. Baumol contributed an impressive number of important insights, increasing our understanding of entrepreneurship from both a macro and a micro perspective. He also devoted a large part of his writings to discussing public policy, linking his theoretical insights with policy issues in practice. His analyses are rooted in contemporary mainstream neoclassical economics, and one of his main objectives was to integrate the entrepreneur into this tradition. Today, Baumol is best known for his tripartite distinction between productive, unproductive, and destructive entrepreneurship and his associated idea that the institutional framework, “the rules of the game,” will determine how entrepreneurs allocate their time and effort across different – productive or unproductive – activities. An institutional environment that encourages productive entrepreneurship and spontaneous experimentation while disincentivizing unproductive activities becomes, through this insightful lens, the driving force of economic growth. As an economist, Baumol was knowledgeable and well acquainted with earlier scholars and their writings about entrepreneurship. Baumol’s writings were greatly inspired by Joseph Schumpeter’s views on entrepreneurship, and he made several attempts to formalize Schumpeter’s concept of the innovative entrepreneur. Baumol was in all senses an innovative contributor to entrepreneurship economics. His work has inspired the research community of entrepreneurship scholars, but like all great scientists, he also encountered criticism. His effort to integrate entrepreneurship into the mainstream theory of the firm was only partly successful.