Louisa Huxtable-Thomas

An investigation into the role of emotion in leadership development for entrepreneurs

Purpose – The Holy Grail of leadership learning is to stimulate behavioural changes that continue beyond the learning environment into the workplace, ultimately leading to improved productivity and value. The purpose of this paper is to explore the interface between emotion and leadership learning and provides evidence from research undertaken in Wales (UK) to support further research on the use of emotion in this endeavour. Design/methodology/approach – Unique access to a successful programme of guided leadership development for owner-managers of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Wales, UK, provided an opportunity to observe emotion being used and experienced by both learners and trainers. Literature reviews were used to inform initial inferences made during participant observations of a sample of the learners (n=91). Focus groups were undertaken with a sample (n=27) of participants in order to determine the emotional impact and perceived effectiveness of the method by the learners. Findings –...

Life Sciences and Health in South West Wales: A Sub-regional Innovation Ecosystem

South Wales has been nurturing a nascent Life Sciences cluster through initiatives including the Institute of Life Science (ILS) at Swansea University Medical School. ILS aims to provide an entrepreneurial learning environment transcending industry, health care, academia and further education. This chapter describes how efforts to develop the sector have been undertaken through structured efforts of Understanding, Acting and Measuring, resulting in new ventures formed through spin-outs to commercialise research output and collaboration with other enterprises. Building upon concepts of clustering and regional innovation systems, the approach demonstrates the harnessing of a long-term strategy involving smart specialisation resulting in emerging and meaningful economic impact. Networking and knowledge exchange are shown as core components of a system reaching across wider sectors involving a diversity of skills. The conclusions demonstrate how entrepreneurial learning has also helped develop further actions including Talent Bank in support of the region’s broader ambition of A Regional Collaboration for Health.

The Role of Entrepreneurial Leadership in City Region Economies: A Case of Developing Small Firm Leaders

Entrepreneurs are key actors in the knowledge economy and are fundamental to any entrepreneurial and dynamic ecosystem. They drive change and innovation through starting new ventures, growing businesses and investing in new ideas. They spot viable opportunities, they mobilise resources, they take risks and they are action focussed. The capacity and capability of entrepreneurs to lead and develop their ventures affect future success and sustainability. How entrepreneurial actors learn to lead is then central to developing a strong and adaptable ecosystem able to respond to the challenges presented by unpredictable and complex environments. This chapter presents a case study of how a leadership learning programme has been used in Wales to improve the learning of leaders of SMEs and how this has subsequently impacted on the regional economy as a result.

Relationship marketing in high technology based SMEs: a customer perspective

There has been much research already conducted with regard to Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) technology companies and their management techniques; however there is still a lack of studies focusing more specifically on relationship marketing in high-technology based SMEs. This study looks to expand the research carried out by Parry et al. (2011), which looked to develop an understanding of marketing and customer relationships in software SMEs. This paper will look most specifically at the clients of a high-technology based SME from South Wales as the importance of customer relationships in this context.