Abstract:The informal sector of the Tanzanian economy is a changing, heterogeneous mixture of enterprises operating wholly or partially outside of the government system of regulation. It flourishes partly because informality offers opportunities of economic necessity to the poor, most of who will never be able to assimilate the costs of formalization, and partly because it offers others a low cost arena for experimentation that can lead to business growth. Some enterprises do formalise voluntarily, the stimulus for which can be represented as an economic function determined by the values that operators assign to institutional incentives, opportunity costs and formalization costs, and the process can be represented as an exchange transaction with government. Government tolerates the informal sector because it reduces unemployment and contributes to poverty alleviation, but it is not officially recognized and government is under some pressure to formalize it. A policy based on formalization seen as a voluntary transaction between operators and government could focus on mutual benefits and reduce the risk of damaging fragile enterprises and livelihoods for little benefit.

Demonstrates the structure and approach used in a workshop to train trainers in case research and writing skills. The purpose of the workshop is to apply basic principles to the design of a practical methodology for monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of training programmes and to produce indigenous training materials for future courses in the field of business development and entrepreneurship. The research subjects are new entrepreneurs and new enterprise ventures in a transitional economy. The context is a know‐how transfer project designed to develop the capability of the staff of an eastern European partner institution. The workshop approach is presumed to be an effective mechanism for concept sharing to avoid the worst of the obstacles that can be encountered due to differences in culture and language. Deals with questions of principle and application in two parallel themes, presenting general principles for case research and case writing, and describing how the case research team applied them to produce a practical methodology to achieve their own project objectives. Concludes that the model works effectively to achieve the training objectives.

IntrodcrctionSINCE the development of Anthony's framework for analysing planning and control systems,1 there have been a number of attempts (most notably that of Lowe and McInnes)2 to produce frameworks using elements of systems thinking which will provide assistance with empirical studies in the field of management control systems. The need has been to develop a framework for the analysis and improvement of the level of effective managerial control in an organization, which is both justifiable theoretically, and can be seen to be practically viable and useful to managers wrestling with the problem of ensuring flexible and successful organizational adaptation in a period when change in the substantive environment of employing organizations is at an unprecedented level.The authors believed that by bringing together a selected number of the developed threads within control theory and some of the elements of general systems theory, a framework could be developed which would go some way towards helping managers to analyse the complexity of the management control process in such a way that they could both determine the potential opportunities available to them for raising the level of control, or adjusting the balance of controls within the organization, and then, subsequently, explain and demonstrate the results of such decisions as they make.It has long been recognized that the topic of management control systems covers an area which draws into its material for the study of integration, valuable understanding from a number of other more traditional schools of academic study. Equally, the acceptance of management control frameworks at a practical level has been bedevilled by the need for them to be applicable both to those systems of control which have been rigorously and systematically developed, and also to the range of informal, situational, systems of control (usually larger in number and more divergent in type and purpose than formal systems) which have developed organically within the organization.In this article the authors outline the basis on which one such new frame-BY Anthony, R. N., Planning and Control Systems -A Framework f m Ana&ri.r, Boston, Mass.: Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, 1965. Lowe, E. A. and Mclnnes, J. M., 'Control in Socio-Economic Organizations: A Rationale for the Design of Management Control Systems,'Jownal of Managemen: Studies, Vol. 8 , No. 2, May 1971, pp. 1-12.

As part of the Romanian Government′s plan to create a market economy, state firms are required to restructure by disaggregating, commercializing and privatizing their operations. The Government is also encouraging the development of a small and medium‐sized enterprises (SME) sector, and one of the best prospects for the creation of SMEs is for them to be spun off from state firms as they disaggregate and downsize. Among the barriers to this are the lack of experience in creating new venture spin‐offs and the lack of entrepreneurial managers to take charge of them. Suggests conceptual mapping as a means to explore implications of restructuring and opportunities for training interventions. Describes a training and development project, the key to which is the commitment of senior management to the process of change. Describes and evaluates a process‐based training programme designed for senior managers, based on the experience of six workshops for 60 participating firms in Russia.

The context in which changing small business needs and the impact of government policies are making new demands on trainers are reviewed. The performance of the SME sector as a whole, and the survival and competitiveness of individual firms, are factors of critical importance in both developed and developing economies. This is recognised by the UK Government, which is adopting measures designed to stimulate the take‐up of services designed for the support of small firms. Thus, the SME sector offers a potentially large and relatively unexploited market for business trainers in which demand depends on the relevance of the supply of training as perceived by owner‐managers. The key to this market is the competence of small business trainers to design and deliver relevant products. This is an important determinant of the choice and quality of the support on offer to owner‐managers. An indicative survey of small business trainers in the UK shows that they themselves recognise a need to enhance their competence in both the design and delivery of products through continued professional development. The way forward for the professional development of trainers is discussed.