Graduates as strategic change agents in small firms: a case study of graduate placements and...

Graduates asstrategic changeagents in smallfirms: a case studyof graduateplacements andlifelong learning

$ Small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) are often resistant to theemployment opportunities offered byskilled graduates.

$ The Centre for Lifelong Learning atBrunel University ran a two-yearproject aimed at encouraging localSMEs to consider unemployedgraduates as suitable new employeesthrough short-term placements.

$ The concept of workplace-basedlearning was introduced into firmsby the graduates acting as strategicchange agents.

$ A valuable learning experience canbe gained by both small firms andgraduates searching for workexperience through the brokeragerole of a university.

$ There is a limit to the impact ofexternal factors in generatingorganizational changes in smallfirms.

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Anne Jones, Adrian Woods,Anne-Marie Coles*and Melanie ReinSchool of Business and Management,

Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK

*Correspondence to: Anne-Marie Coles, School ofBusiness and Management, Brunel University, Uxbridge,Middlesex, UB8 3PH, UK.E-mail: [email protected]

Strat. Change 10: 59 – 69 (2001) Strategic Change

Copyright # 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Strategic Change, Jan–Feb 2001

Introduction

It has long been recognized that as thenumber of small firms increases, moregraduates will become employed in thissector. One immediate difficulty arises asmany small firms lack experience of gradu-ate employees, often having quite negativeperceptions of their potential. However,small firms often complain about a lack ofsuitably qualified employees. One obviousway to help small firms find suitableemployees for hard to fill vacancies is toencourage them to consider graduates.However, graduates themselves are oftenreluctant to consider working for smallfirms as it is believed the employmentopportunities on offer are not as good asthose offered by larger ones.

This paper reports on an initiative under-taken by The Centre for Lifelong Learning atBrunel University to implement a projectwhich would identify the recruitment needsof local SMEs and match them to a parti-cular graduate from a database compiled bythe university (Jones and Rein, 1998). Interms of ongoing training and employmentopportunities for the graduates who wereplaced under this scheme, the peopleinvolved gave a favourable response totheir participation in it. However, it appearsthat for the firms involved, this type ofbrokerage system may still fail to deliversuitable candidates for vacancies defined as‘hard to fill’ (Joyce and Woods, 1998) andalso fail to import the process for morestrategic changes into the firm.

The project reported in this article wasdesigned to support newly qualified gradu-ates in obtaining placements with smallfirms to give them employment experiencein this sector. The support extended toselected small firms to help them bothrecruit graduates and maximize the gradu-ate’s contribution while they were on place-ment. Further the project used the conceptof lifelong learning to encourage the gradu-ate to continue development while in theworkplace, in the hope that this demonstra-tion could act as a facilitator of change

within the business, resulting in the adop-tion of some parts of the lifelong learningphilosophy for the other employees.

In brief, small firms would gain experi-ence of employing graduates and thegraduates would gain some experienceof working for a small firm. Both partieswould be exposed to the Lifelong Learn-ing System in practice with the aim ofmaking it a normal part of both thefirm’s and the student’s continued learn-ing.

The aim was to assess whether supportinga graduate and a firm in this way would leadto the wider take up of ideas of lifelonglearning and lead to fundamental changesin the firm which, in time, could lead toimproved business performance. It wasenvisaged that graduates could play therole of strategic change agent by partici-pation in this project in a number of ways.

In terms of general qualifications graduatescan have better than average informationtechnology skills, inter-personal communityand cooperation skills and a high level oforganizational skill developed during theircourse of study. In addition, Brunel stu-dents have experience of adjustment to newenvironments from the work practice ele-ment in their courses.

All these advantages would be importedinto the participating enterprise, along withthe specific knowledge of their degreesubject. In particular, they would be takingmulti-faced learning skills into the firm,together with the motivation to learn. Thefirm would also gain by introduction of thelifelong learning philosophy as well as apractical demonstration, as all graduates inthe project had access to a formal, on-linelearning assessment and recording systemas part of the trial. In addition both the

It was envisaged thatgraduates could play the role

of strategic change agent

60 Anne Jones et al.


graduate and the business had access toadvice from the university staff involved inthe project who were involved in develop-ing systems of lifelong learning.

Learning and change

The continual development of learningskills has been identified as a significantfactor in improved productivity, and isrelated to continued national economicsuccess (DfEE, 1998).

The assumption of such a link betweenmacro-economic performance and indi-vidual attainment lies behind currentrhetoric surrounding the concept of ‘life-long learning’, which is conceivedbroadly as the need for individuals tobe committed to a continual process ofpersonal development.

This concept has much wider implica-tions however, than the relatively simplenotion of filling a perceived ‘skills gap’ andwide variations in interpretation of theconcept of ‘lifelong learning’ have beennoted elsewhere (Woodrow, 1999). Indivi-dual or managerial learning is not consid-ered enough to generate change at theorganizational level and the relationshipbetween individual learning and organiza-tional adaptation is not well documented.Ongoing personal learning is not necessa-rily a condition for organizational learning,unless this is widespread throughout theorganization and forms a basis for strategicchange.

The aim of the Brunel project was toassess whether the graduate might start thisprocess, whereby small firm managers seethe benefits of lifelong learning for thegraduate in practice and their enhancedcontribution as an employee — and in con-sequence, start to introduce the concept oflifelong learning to the firm in general. Thegraduate would act as an exemplar, engen-dering change in the firm.

In the literature a number of factors havebeen identified as affecting such change.Organizational learning, as both Pucik

(1988) and Adler (1990) point out requiresgood communication and information shar-ing between different organizational func-tions. Others have attempted to analyse thenature of learning involved in promotingboth management and organizational learn-ing (Dale, 1994; Spender, 1994). Somewriters have focused on the difficulties andcomplex nature of interactions within orga-nizations as barriers to the speed of learningand the uptake of new practices (Salamanand Butler, 1994). Others have focused onthe role of team building (Anderson et al.,1994) and the development of specificcompetences (Kolb et al., 1994). Experien-tial learning or ‘learning by doing’ (Arrow,1962) is the main means by which peopleobtain competence on-the-job, yet this typeof learning is often under-recognized andunder-valued due to its specificity, narrow-ness and a lack of written proceduresthrough which such learning might gainexplicit recognition throughout the organi-zation. The project reported on in thispaper however, actively aimed to encouragegraduates who were placed with a smallfirm for a period of 16 weeks to participatein this process of work-based learning.

Torbert (1994) and Burgoyne (1994)claim that organizational learning is linkedto management learning and by implication,learning by every member of the workforce,through which it can be suggested thatthere is a link between individual learningand the process of organizational change. Itis not clear however, what factors are reallyimportant in generating such change orwhether it might reflect on the lack ofattainment that has been identified in theUK workforce in general (see DfEE, 1999).

In addition, the concept of lifelong learn-ing includes a much broader base thanlearning to perform specific employment-based tasks, linked to such aims as supportfor individual development, increasedemployability and transferable skills suitablefor a modern, flexible career path. Increasedindividual flexibility may be promotedthrough the development of improved pro-

Graduates as strategic change agents 61


blem solving or information technologyskills. In particular, constraints facing theoperation of small and medium sized enter-prises (SMEs) might affect the potential forindividual learning in the workplace and soit seems pertinent to also consider theliterature that has considered the role oflearning in smaller firms.

Learning in small firms

Although the overall number of SMEs in theUK is rising, it has also been argued thatrequired levels of skills and knowledge inthe workforce is increasing in response tomore stringent market demands (MacNair,1998). Such trends appear to suggest theneed to promote closer links between smallfirms and the higher education sector,although some research has focused on theexisting nature of the links between smallerenterprises and universities (Lawton Smith,1990) — this has not generally viewedhigher education as a dedicated source ofskilled personnel. In addition, small busi-ness research has identified a regionalaspect to the sector, particularly in thathigh-technology firms tend to exhibit aregional clustering effect.

One of the main strands of research hasfocused on the regional nature of smallfirms and the potential for ‘collectivelearning’ in clusters of SMEs. This conceptrests on the importance of shared knowl-edge as a prerequisite for learning, definedin a general sense, such as shared normsof reciprocity and knowledge exchangewithin a local district. Lorenz (1998) high-lights the role of shared tacit knowledge incombining diverse and complementarycapacity in regionally clustered high-tech-nology small firms. Researchers have alsoidentified other factors in small firm learn-ing which implies that learning dependson a balance between the internal compe-tence of a firm to assimilate knowledge, itsaccess to external knowledge sources interms of links with local customers andsuppliers and the creation of knowledge

transfer channels between the two (seeCapello, 1998).

Other factors have been shown to relateto sector, for example regional clusters ofhigh-technology innovative firms in Oxford(Lawton Smith, 1998) and Cambridge(Keeble and Lawson, 1998).

If there is any link to be drawnbetween the areas of small firm learning,organizational learning and individuallearning, it is in the necessity to developinternal competences.

Such competences would enable theorganization to develop the flexibility toabsorb external knowledge and act on thisto adapt and change to a changing externalenvironment (cf. Cohen and Leventhal,1990; Teece and Pisano, 1994). It alsoenables the movement of labour betweensmall firms as a factor, which contributes tothe conditions necessary for the transfer oflearning skill at both the local and regionallevel, contributing to continual economicdevelopment in general. This discussionalso allows examination of the factors thatmight encourage or inhibit small firm learn-ing, such as the lack of a cluster of similarfirms and the heterogeneous nature of aregion.

In many cases the normal conditions forSMEs will not necessary be shared require-ments but a conglomeration of very differ-ent small organizations with very differentexpectations and requirements. In additionthe internal state of the firms must beconsidered in terms of identifying the inter-nal factors which affect both specific andorganizational wide learning and ultimatelythe creation of a ‘learning organization’.The literature indicates the necessity ofreciprocity between internal responses tochange and external sources of knowledgeand changing conditions, which raises ques-tions as to the potential beneficial role of anintermediary such as a broker. This is one ofthe roles that Brunel University played inthis project, as a mediator between anavailable pool of highly trained graduatesand in the internal human resource needs



of small firms. However, we should not losesight of the role the graduate could poten-tially play as an agent for real strategicchange within the firm.

It could appear therefore, that there is arole for university brokerage between SMEsand graduates searching for work but thatthis might be highly localized in terms bothof the type of skills required by the firm andthe ability of the small firm to manage therecruitment of suitable highly skilledemployees. This regional effect has beenrecognized at least in terms of the develop-ment of employment initiatives for graduatestudents in Wales.

The issue here has been to convincesmall firm owners of the potential addedvalue represented by a graduate in aclimate where employment of suchskilled employees is relatively rareamong small firms (Roffe, 1996).

The Brunel-Link project

The project was originally designed toencourage SMEs in the engineering sectorto employ graduate engineers and Brunel-Link would be the catalyst by canvassing theneeds of local businesses and supplyingpotential graduate employees. A preliminarypilot test would place graduates with 10employers in west London, followed by afurther 20 in the same locality. The finalobjective was to place 50 graduates overallwith an extension of the project to theCambridge region.

The design of the project however, wassubstantially altered at an early stage, as itbecame clear that confining participation toengineering firms would be impractical. Ittranspired that few engineering vacanciescould be identified in small firms in thisarea and the scope was extended to includeall local SMEs. The deficiency in engineeringopportunities could be due to many factors,such as the relative decline of manufactur-ing industry in the area and resultingdecline in demand for specialist graduates.

As the project developed, more emphasiswas given to development of the graduates’skills in the workplace and to the introduc-tion of the idea of lifelong learning into theSMEs.

Involving small and medium-sized

enterprises

Brunel-Link was the vehicle for bringingtogether graduates looking for work andSMEs wishing to recruit employees. It pre-sented the opportunity for individuals andSMEs to test out their compatibility and as ameans by which a firm could take on anadditional employee for a short term, over abusy period or on a particular project. Thegraduate would develop skills and gainexperience in a real employment situation.Local firms were expected to benefit fromparticipation in the scheme throughimproved business performance obtainedby employing new graduate talent whowould input new ideas as well as offer acost effective general management skill.

Further, it was hoped that the graduatesmight (as they were engaging in lifelonglearning activities) start to change the inter-nal values of the firm towards a wideracceptance of the benefits of this activity.

The firms were attracted to the scheme ina number of ways. A database of employersinterested in attracting graduates was builtup by monitoring firms which were adver-tising in newspapers or through the careersservice, as well as making indirect contactthrough business support systems such asthe local Business Link organization. Inter-ested firms were advised that they couldemploy a graduate for 16 weeks and thatBrunel-Link would help them find the rightperson. As the project developed an aspectof networking was introduced as satisfiedfirms informed their business colleaguesabout the scheme.

Where possible, it was policy to visit eachfirm interested in joining the scheme. Overthe two-year period, 51 firms were visited todiscuss their employment needs and toprepare job descriptions with them. These



initial meetings were often crucial in devel-oping a strong relationship with the busi-ness involved. The meetings were used toascertain the type of firm, its needs regard-ing graduate employment, future plans andthe ways in which the project might supportthe business on an ongoing basis. Prepara-tion of the job descriptions proved to be auseful means to encourage the firms toarticulate exactly what they expected from agraduate and to ensure that they wererealistic in their expectations. Advice wasalso given on employment issues where thiswas requested, although all graduates wereemployed directly by the firm and Brunel-Link existed in an advisory capacity only. It

was clear by the end of the project that theSMEs often needed help and training inevery aspect of recruitment. This is a findingconsistent with what others have found.

Selecting the graduates

Graduates were introduced to the schemevia the career service at Brunel, attendanceat three careers fairs throughout the year,through the graduate network and personalrecommendations and lunchtime meetings.In total, during the lifetime of the project atotal of 353 graduates were placed on thedatabase, although some of these subse-quently found work on their own. Everyonewho applied to join was interviewed beforebeing accepted. The interviews were used toascertain career aspirations of the graduateand to help to focus them more realisticallyon the types of jobs that they might pursuewith their particular academic background.Entry to the scheme gave the graduate anopportunity to try out different options andthe interview was also used as an opportu-

nity for the graduate to discuss particularvacancies prior to application for a position.

Placement issues

The first step in the placement process wasto convert a temporary or permanent needfor labour within a smaller enterprise into aplacement opportunity for a graduate.These were created both through eventssuch as permanent staff taking a holiday, ora need arising from a specific project andcovered both temporary requirements forextra personnel, or from a need arisingfrom a vacancy that had been difficult to fill.

When potential vacancies were firstobtained from firms, there were two meth-ods by which suitable graduates wereidentified. Selection was either through thegraduate expressing interest in a vacancy orthe Brunel-Link team identifying suitablegraduates from the database and contactingthem in person to assess their interest in theposition. Firms would then have the oppor-tunity to consider a number of graduatesfrom which data they chose a selectionwhom they wished to interview and even-tually employ. Once a firm had made adecision to take on a graduate through thescheme, an agreement was signed betweenthe firm and Brunel-Link to allow thegraduate to stay on the scheme and attendcourses and Graduate Club meetings.

The next step consisted of a period inwhich the graduate settled into the firmthey had joined, learnt what was expectedof them and became part of the internalsocial and working relationship that existedwithin the business. At this stage, it washoped that the graduate would start totransfer more ideas about lifelong learningto the firm. The graduate could then beginto make a contribution to the business, inresponse to demands and requirements.During the placement one of the Brunel-Link staff would visit the graduate at workto provide an opportunity for both partiesto discuss progress and identify any difficul-ties and to identify any learning needs.

It was clear that SMEs oftenneeded help and training inevery aspect of recruitment



At the end of the placement, irrespectiveof whether the graduate was being retainedby the company, the employer wouldcomplete a final evaluation, which wascopied to the graduate. In addition, theBrunel-Link team offered both regular train-ing courses and Graduate Club meetingsonce a month both for graduates who hadbeen placed in employment and those whowere still looking for work.

Testing regional effects

In order to develop a comparative aspect tothe project and to test out the viability ofthe Link process in an area with a ratherdifferent industrial profile and educationalinfrastructure, the project was extendedinto the Cambridge area. The Cambridgeeconomic area is a small, highly prosperousregion characterized by a high number ofdynamic high-technology SMEs and stronglyinfluenced by the research activity of theUniversity of Cambridge. Beyond the areadominated by the city of Cambridge how-ever the region is predominantly rural andthe profile of SMEs is more conventionallylocal (Jones and Rein, 1998). The Cam-bridge arm of the project was run by theCambridge Program for Industry (CPI), aunit of the University of Cambridge respon-sible for continuing professional develop-ment. This part of the project lasted for sixmonths and significant benefits have beennoted which the replication process gener-ated. The objectives of this short projectincluded placing 10 graduates over a periodof six months, to make placements in theCambridge area available to graduates fromthe Brunel-Link project and to compare thepatterns of response and placementbetween the two areas.

The Cambridge project was advertised bypost to over 1000 SMEs in the Cambridgearea and about 50 firms sought furtherinformation, which eventually resulted in15 placements offered through the Linkproject. The participating firms rangedfrom micro firms (with less than 10 employ-ees) to relatively well established firms with

50 or more staff and included a number ofsmall sub-units of much larger, non-SMEorganizations. All of the participating firmswere located within a 20-mile radius of thecity of Cambridge and 80% were high-technology producers or consultancies. Inresponse to vacancies 45 graduate resumeswere sent to firms, 17 from Cambridge and28 from the existing pool of Brunel gradu-ates. A slow start meant that five monthsinto the project only five graduates hadbeen placed with firms in the Cambridgeregion, all of which had been registeredwith the Cambridge scheme. They wereplaced with very small firms operating inthe high-technology and knowledge-basedsectors. All had graduate founders or man-agers and had experience of appointinggraduates to the firm before.

The result of the extension into anotherregion brought useful experience into theproject as a whole.

Methodology and data analysis

The research used two main methods,action research, which covered the projectfrom inception to conclusion, as well as asemi-structured questionnaire for both SMEowner/managers and graduates, which wasadministered towards the end of the pro-ject. A total of 116 firms were contactedduring the lifetime of the project. Of these102 (90%) were from SMEs or organizationsmanaged as a separate business unit, 10(9%) were from large firms or organizationsand the rest were unknown. From thisdatabase, 26 firms used the Link scheme toemploy graduates, three were large organi-zations and the rest were small firms. Thelargest sector (32%) was in the informationtechnology and software sectors, while 19%went into engineering and an equal numberwere placed in employment by the Cam-bridge project. The remainder, 15% wentinto education and training and 15% wentinto service industries.

The graduate database supported 353people although they were not all specifi-cally searching for employment within the



SME sector. The majority of the graduates(53%) had a first degree from Brunel, 32%from other universities and 10% from Cam-bridge; the remainder was unknown. It was

noticeable that graduates who had substan-tial work experience as part of their degreewere much easier to place than those whohad not.

Lifelong learning and Brunel-Link

A specific aim of the project was to providecontinual support and encouragement tothe graduates so they could continue theirprofessional development throughout theduration of their placement, by becomingaware of the value of the skills they weredeveloping throughout the placement pro-cess. This learning process started duringthe initial interviews with graduates whentheir curriculum vitae was discussed and itcontinued through meetings of the Gradu-ate Club. In some cases the graduatesreceived the Brunel electronic LifelongLearning System in their workplace as alearning support tool and the Brunel-Linkteam visited to assist themin completing the National Record ofAchievement.

The SMEs themselves varied greatly interms of the formal training offered tostaff. In fact there appeared to be con-siderable confusion about the meaningof the term ‘training’.

Both graduates and employers thought offormal training as attending a course with-out recognizing the amount of training thatwas already being provided in-house. Overhalf the firms involved in the project how-ever, did provide some form of trainingsuch as new staff induction, annual trainingplans, use of multimedia and technical

training. Some of this workplace learningwas provided directly by on-the-job gui-dance by a more experienced member ofstaff. This on-site training was much morewidespread than use of off-site courses butcould be under-valued in terms of itsrecognition.

Some graduates found it difficult to takeresponsibility for the management of theirown learning but nearly all the graduatescould identify some new skills that they haddeveloped, both hard technical skills andsofter interpersonal team working andnegotiating skills. Others felt that the workplacement experience had helped them tofocus and develop skills they already pos-sessed.

Employers responses to the scheme

The majority of firms that became involvedin the scheme had graduate directors andhad previously employed graduates. It hadproved difficult to penetrate non-gradu-ate SMEs, which is a significant point tonote. The most important criteria the firmsused for employing graduates were qualifi-cations, enthusiasm and the ability of thegraduate to learn new tasks. In additionthere were specific skills that the employerexpected the graduate to possess, for exam-ple particular technical skills related totechnical vacancies. An ongoing concernwas the cost of training inexperiencedgraduates who might then leave, althoughsome felt that offering training was animportant part of the job package.

At the end of the project there were still38 firms looking for a graduate employeeand 160 graduates searching for employ-ment within the SME sector. Some firms hadvery high expectations of the type of skills agraduate would possess and did not realizethat extra training would be important tobring the graduate up to par for a specificfirm. The employers also often requiredspecific technical skills, particularly compu-ter skills that the graduates did not alwayspossess.

Graduates who hadsubstantial work experienceas part of their degree were

much easier to place



It was significant however thatalthough the scheme had been designedto provide 16 week work placementswith a single small firm, all but one firmkept their graduates on either by extend-ing their contracts or taking them onpermanently.

Although graduate views of the schemevaried, the majority of graduates felt theBrunel-Link scheme had been helpful. Inparticular the graduates appreciated theopportunity to swap stories with others ina similar situation and to gain access to peergroup support. Some 44% felt that thescheme had helped them to decide towork in the SME sector that had theadvantages of having a more flexible envir-onment than a larger organization.

Discussion and conclusions

One of the principal outcomes of thisproject is that the concept of lifelonglearning to develop individual employeeskills is quite difficult to import intosmall firms.

Members of the Brunel-Link teamreported difficulties in raising awarenessof managers to the potential for ongoing,work-based learning even after a number ofvisits to the firms. The graduates involvedin the scheme often preferred to attendmeetings out of work time to further theirown learning development. In addition, thefact that many of the firms needed supportto identify and develop personnel require-ments indicates internal shortcomings ofSMEs in terms of recognizing types of skillsgraduates hold that could benefit the firm.

This view is supported to a degree by thefact that firms often held unrealistic expec-tations of graduate capability which meantthat graduates were in fact not suitable for

many hard to fill vacancies. Such vacanciesmay require specific and rare technicalskills but they may also reveal a certainresistance within the firm either to investin training or to reassess the nature of thevacancy.

Other questions have also been raised bythe outcome of this project in terms of theregional nature of small firms and theiremployment practices. In the west Londonarea which succeeded in placing therequired 50 graduates during the project,there is a heterogeneous mix of SMEs,which does not necessarily constitute acluster. It appears that firms that alreadyemployed graduates became involved butthe project failed to encourage firms withnon-graduate owners or managers to acceptgraduate employees. On the other hand, theregional nature of high-tech small firms inthe Cambridge region and the highly net-worked activities in which they are involvedraises the question as to the role of amediator in placing new personnel. TheBrunel-Link scheme became one of manyavenues by which firms could search for andattract skilled personnel and was possibly ofless importance than existing linkages withspecific technical departments within Cam-bridge University.

Most firms involved in this projectappeared to offer in-house training ofsome kind. This fact is not always recog-nized within the firm, indicating that theremay be a low appreciation of the value ofexpertise that has been accumulatedexperientially, on-the-job. This mayexplain to some extent the difficulty inintroducing the concept of lifelong learn-ing widely within firms in a more formalmanner. In particular, the graduatesplaced in this project appeared to bemore comfortable in taking an indivi-dual responsibility for their ongoinglearning in ways which did not clashwith the demands of their workingenvironment, rather than letting learn-ing become part of their day-to-daywork based tasks.

Firms often held unrealisticexpectations of graduate

capability



This project has identified some of thefactors that provide barriers and resistancefrom within SMEs both to employing highlytrained graduates and initiating widespreadlearning programmes more widely withinthe firm. It lends support to the literaturethat questions the appreciation of causallink between training and business perfor-mance within small firms. While it is truethat larger firms generally undertake moretraining, it cannot be concluded that it isthe training that has lead to growth. It couldbe the opposite, that growth leads toincreased training.

This project also supports the view thateven with individual commitment to life-long learning within a firm, this does notnecessarily lead to wider organizationalchange or towards a wider participation inmore formal learning schemes.

Biographical notes

Professor Anne Jones is Director of theCentre for Lifelong Learning at BrunelUniversity. Her research interests includeencouraging the introduction of lifelonglearning schemes in the small businesssector.

Professor Adrian Woods is Dean of SocialSciences at Brunel University. His researchhas focused on the business activities ofsmall firms and he has recently beeninvolved in a project concerned with theuse of intellectual property by small textilefirms.Dr Anne-Marie Coles is a Research Fellow inthe School of Business and Management at

Brunel University. She is currently workingon a project investigating the role of net-works in new product development inEurope.

Dr Melanie Rein was Director of the Brunel-Link project in the Centre for LifelongLearning at Brunel University.

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