Hill and Willoughby's (Sex Roles, 53:531-544, 2005) Genderism and Transphobia Scale (GTS), originally developed in Canada, was examined with a Hong Kong sample. Undergraduate students, 82 female and 121 male (total n = 203), completed a Chinese version of the instrument. Overall scores and factor structure of the Hong Kong sample were compared with Hill and Willoughby's Canadian data. Gender differences in transphobia were investigated, both in terms of the participants' gender as well as the gender of the gender variant persons to whom GTS items referred. Transphobia was higher in Hong Kong than in Canada. The factor structure for Hong Kong differed from Canada. Five factors were identified (with a gender effect on Factors II and V). They were: I, Anti Sissy Prejudice; II, Anti Trans Violence; III, Trans Unnaturalness; IV, Trans Immorality; and V, Background Genderism. Hong Kong men were more transphobic than women. Gender variance in men was viewed less favourably than in women.

Purpose -This paper aims to investigate age and gender differences in initial motivations for starting a business. What is not known, however, is whether the initial motivations for starting the business are different for older people and whether any gender differences exist. Historically, women were "pushed" rather than "pulled" into business ownership, but more recent studies have indicated that, overall, many women now actively choose self-employment. However, age may be a new barrier for women and men. Design/methodology/approach -The study combined a self-administered questionnaire which was used to collect data relating to general information about the respondent and their business, in addition to their start-up motivations. In total 270 questionnaires were returned. About 15 in-depth interviews were also conducted to verify the empirical findings. Findings -The results showed that self-employment is a reactive rather than proactive decision for both older women and men; however, women were less inclined to actively seek self-employment as their employment option of choice. In addition, the findings also show that a significant motivation for many younger women is still because of the double domestic shift, indicating therefore that some things change but some things stay the same for women. Originality/value -Whereas the majority of previous research has looked at start-up motivation, few have considered age and gender as independent variables. Given the increasing number of "baby boomers" starting their own businesses, this research can have practical policy implications.

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Purpose -The reasons often cited for the poor relationship between small businesses and their uptake of vocational education and training is because small business ownermanagers claim they are too busy to engage in training or any type of learning activity and that most training is of little value to them. The aim of the research was to examine the relationship between these factors.Design/ Methodology/ Approach -Using qualitative research methods the study collected data of the knowledge, attitudes and needs of small business ownermanagers, both before and after participation in a training program.Findings -This study has indicated that small business owners are interested in skills development and training opportunities, providing they are directly applicable to the current situation in their business, and as long as the delivery process is carefully structured in terms of location, time of day, and length of session.Practical Implications -The success of a human resource management training program offers both an incentive for other educators to continue to pursue small business participation and useful guidelines for the implementation and the development of new programs for the small business sector.Originality/Value -The approach taken in this research has offered important insights of the value of training and how it is evaluated by small business owner-2 managers. This is important as owner managers are the primary decision makers about whether or not training takes place.

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