The context of the professional business advisor is explored, with specific focus on the culture, com m unication preferences and learning styles they prefer.The advisor's rational and analytic world-view is contrasted with the inform al and idiosyncratic world of the typical sm all business owner. Interviews with ten professional advisors suggest that there is som e truth to the assum ption that advisors and owners have disparate world-views. Advisors do recognize this disparity, but recognition of the problem is only the first step. Even advisors who are m otivated to improve the advice relationship by im m ersing them selves in the world of the sm all business owner can expect to face challenges because of the dynam ic nature of the advisory relationship and of the firm 's development.

Despite tremendous investments in information technology (IT), many technological interventions in organizations fail because employees do not fully accept and use IT. The present study explored how two aspects of work climateperceived organizational support and distributive justiceaffect employee reactions to new IT (i.e., usage and attitudes) from a motivational point of view. Self-determination theory was used to understand how different motivational styles, varying in degree of selfdetermination, mediate the relationship between work climate and reactions to new IT. Results showed that perceived organizational support and distributive justice were associated to intrinsic and identified motivation to use the IT, and also to enjoyment and acceptance of the IT. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were both associated with IT usage, but IT usage was associated with enjoyment and acceptance only when people were intrinsically motivated. Intrinsic motivation also mediated the effects of support and justice on enjoyment and acceptance. Moreover, intrinsically motivated users were less likely to use a paper-based appointment booking alternative than those who were not. Implications for managing IT implementations and training are discussed.

The research explored the antecedents and outcomes of seeking information and advice about the marketplace in which a small firm exists. A survey of 185 small business owners suggested that both operating in a dynamic environment and having complex marketing activities had a direct link to the frequency with which the small business owner sought marketplace information and advice. Marketplace advice seeking, in turn, was positively correlated with owners' perceptions of business performance. The usefulness of the findings for owners and business-support advisors was discussed.

Schemata consist of components and links among the components, and schema development progresses from learning components to learning links to umtization. according to one theory (Hayes-Roth, 1977). This theory has been supported for nonsense syllable stimuli. Two experiments tested its generalizability to meaningful social stimuli. In both studies, the independent variable was stage of schema development, operationalized as degree of initial exposure to novel schemata. According to the theory, different points along the exposure continuum have nonmonotonic effects on subjects' ability to learn related material; more specifically, exposure affects positive and negative transfer of learning, resulting in a cubic function (sequentially: no transfer, positive transfer, negative transfer, no transfer). In the first experiment, both positive and negative transfer effects were obtained with social stimuli, resulting in the exact cubic function predicted by the theory. In the second experiment, the cubic transfer function was replicated over the time frame more typical of developing social knowledge (i.e., several weeks). These results show that low levels of schema development facilitate related social learning, whereas intermediate levels interfere and high levels have no effect. The nonmonotonic effects of schema development may account for some anomalous findings in social schema research.

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