The relationship between professional bodies and higher education (HE) institutes was studied, with particular attention to the roles of each in producing future generations of fully qualified, competent practitioners. The authors examined new and evolving challenges facing consulting quantity surveyors (CQSs) and discuss the complex interactions…

Higher education institutions need to align themselves more closely with the needs of businesses and equip students with the skills and experience necessary to make them more successful and value-adding employees. This paper explores undergraduate student perceptions of the effectiveness of the case study teaching and learning method in the…

Partnerships between higher education and business have long been an important part of the academic landscape, but often they are based on shorter-term transactional objectives rather than on longer-term strategic goals. BHEF's National Higher Education and Workforce Initiative brings together business and academia at the institutional,…

This paper arises from the contents of the Lisbon Strategy, a set of cooperation policies stressing the role of education and training. The findings from a comparative study of the influence that entrepreneurial training--classified as formal or informal--can have on start-up expectations are analysed. The study covers fifteen European countries…

Business planning competitions [BPCs] are a commonly offered yet under-examined extracurricular activity. Given the extent of sceptical comment about business planning, this paper offers what the authors believe is a much-needed critical discussion of the assumptions that underpin the provision of such competitions. In doing so it is suggested…

The field of entrepreneurship has struggled with fundamental questions concerning the subject's nature and purpose. To whom and to what means are educational and training agendas ultimately directed? Such questions have become of central importance to policy makers, practitioners and academics alike. There are suggestions that university…

Business plays an important role in most economies around the world, but businesses rely on the higher education system to supply an adequate number of qualified business graduates. In nations such as the USA, the UK and Australia, business degrees are the most popular university qualification; and the growth in the number of Chinese…

Universities worldwide are becoming increasingly interested in the importance of emerging co-curricula that focus on developing graduate attributes beyond specific academic disciplines. This is being influenced by industry demands for graduates with behavioural and cognitive skills aligned to the work they will do in their early careers. This…

The authors investigate how Third Mission activities at universities, such as the outreach and technology transfer functions, are anchored in organizational structures and practices, and discuss the implications of this relationship for the success of the activities. They draw on case studies of two Swedish university colleges to illustrate the…

This paper introduces the concept of Triple Helix systems as an analytical construct that synthesizes the key features of university--industry--government (Triple Helix) interactions into an "innovation system" format, defined according to systems theory as a set of components, relationships and functions. Among the components of Triple…

Research on sustainability and innovation-driven economic growth has exposed a lack of sufficient knowledge in the governance literature about the appropriate extent of government involvement. This paper focuses on the governance of innovation and the intermediary role of the state. The author synthesizes the literature on governance and…

This article considers the effects of the Leahy--Smith America Invents Act, signed into law in September 2011, on the US patent system and its potential negative implications for US patent activities and patent culture. (Contains 2 notes.)

This paper explores the relevance to industry's needs of operations management (OM) teaching in higher education, by researching the content of OM modules delivered by UK academics and comparing the results of this research with the views of business practitioners having had first-hand experience of OM teaching on MBA programmes. To determine…

It is argued that the delivery of learning and the development of skills and competences are central to SME success; and there appears to be a requirement for higher-order education and training that can deliver a certain level of skills through the social aspects of learning. The author uses discourse analysis to examine data generated from a…

This paper reports on an examination of the perspectives of academics, enterprise enablers and graduate entrepreneurs of an entrepreneurial higher education institution (HEI). The research was conducted in Ireland among 30 graduate entrepreneurs and 15 academics and enterprise enablers (enterprise development agency personnel) to provide a…