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All entrepreneurs interact simultaneously with multiple entrepreneurial contexts throughout their entrepreneurial journey. This conceptual paper has two central aims: (1) it synthesises the current literature on gender and entrepreneurship, and (2) it increases our understanding of how gender norms, contextual embeddedness and (in)equality mechanisms interact within contexts. Illustrative contexts that are discussed include entrepreneurship education, business networks and finance.

This conceptual paper draws upon extant literature to develop its proposed conceptual framework. It provides suggestions for systemic policy interventions as well as pointing to promising paths for future research.

A literature-generated conceptual framework is developed to explain and address the systemic barriers faced by opportunity-driven women as they engage in entrepreneurial contexts. This conceptual framework visualises the interplay between gender norms, contextual embeddedness and inequality mechanisms to explain systemic disparities. An extra dimension is integrated in the framework to account for the power of agency within women and with others, whereby agency, either individually or collectively, may disrupt and subvert the current interplay with inequality mechanisms.

This work advances understanding of the underrepresentation of women entrepreneurs. The paper offers a conceptual framework that provides policymakers with a useful tool to understand how to intervene and increase contextual embeddedness for all entrepreneurs. Additionally, this paper suggests moving beyond “fixing” women entrepreneurs and points towards disrupting systemic disparities to accomplish this contextual embeddedness for all entrepreneurs. By doing so, this research adds to academic knowledge on the construction and reconstruction of gender in the field of entrepreneurship.

This article looks at the challenges for delivering personalisation across public services, the key for transformation of those services. Based on a recent publication, Housing Health and Care (Davis et al, 2009), it argues that the policy context, performance systems and local frameworks are now possibly better placed than ever before to deliver the integrated working that can underpin sustainable communities and allow for really personalised services.

This article looks at the importance of community‐based organisations in delivering culturally sensitive services, and how the pressures of efficiency may challenge this approach and the viability of small providers. It explores some ways in which providers and commissioners are trying to meet this challenge. It examines the developing local government framework in providing a way forward.

The article explores how the Government's framework of local strategic partnerships and local area agreements provides opportunities for greater collaboration between the strategic housing role for local authorities and leadership in health and social care, although the details of the framework are still to be developed.

At a significant time in the development of the Supporting People programme, this article considers the focus on individual service users, the proposals put forward to achieve it and the impact of this emphasis, reflecting the wider policy focus in other public services and the inherent tensions between the stated aims and delivery in a context of limited resources. In particular it focuses on the role of and impact on black and minority ethic (BME) providers.

The following remarks are dedicated to Norman D. Stevens, director of the Molesworth Institute, in anticipation of his retirement from the hustle bustle world of academia. They are offered in gratitude from his colleagues and fellow editorial board members at Reference Serials Review.

The new local government performance framework, in combination with the move towards greater personalisation in services, creates a radically new funding environment for housing with care and support. From the Public Service Agreement (PSA) on achieving settled accommodation for individuals at risk of exclusion, through to the impact of local joint strategic needs asessments and individual budgets, the principles and mechanisms of the new joint commissioning culture create more opportunities for providers to articulate the needs of the client group served, and to assert the case for more joined‐up and responsive services. This may require different skills and new styles of leadership at local level, and providers who have become adept at being competitors may need to re‐discover the skills of partnership. Meanwhile, new social exclusion policy frameworks are emerging for supported accommodation, which can support moves away from institutional care for those with mental health problems.