Supporting Microenterprises Growth and Innovation by Regional Partnership Model
Manninen, Anneli; Meristö, Tarja (2020)
Manninen, Anneli
Meristö, Tarja
Editoija
De Nisco, Alessandro
Academic Conferences International
2020
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2020091870143
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2020091870143
Tiivistelmä
Microenterprises are mostly unable to give enough thought for their future business development and innovation. Development Companies’ task is to foster growth and development of individual enterprises. At the same time, students and teachers from the Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) are so engaged in disciplinary content that more advanced skills for entrepreneurship may suffer. We have brought these parties together in order to study how to build a joint holistic co-creation framework.
Pedagogical approach Learning by Developing (LbD) action model links learning to applied research, development projects and regional developing. Emphasis is in social interaction, knowledge and competence sharing, researching and problem solving. LbD enhances sharing knowledge, creativity and the contact network of the university with working life.
In this study, three Regional Development Companies recruited 43 companies to participate training programme built by Laurea UAS. Simultaneously business field students integrating entrepreneurial competence into their programmes were engaged in the development work. All together 13 thesis and 16 development projects were carried out with enterprises. Student engagement gave microenterprises new perspective for customer and business surface evaluation in addition to entrepreneurial capabilities.
The results reveal three different kind of approaches to partnership creation as well as their future development. Critical elements of the model are 1) Equality in partnerships, no sub-contractor roles; 2) Enabling synergy effects for the entrepreneurs to enable joint learning and value creation; 3) Realistic expectations from the students as stakeholding learners and; 4) Ability to meet the demands of rapidly changing environment.
Our aim is to create a permanent engagement platform for matching microenterprises’ needs with regional development companies’ and university’s resources and know how. Anticipating future needs and ability to change accordingly has to be built in this model.
Pedagogical approach Learning by Developing (LbD) action model links learning to applied research, development projects and regional developing. Emphasis is in social interaction, knowledge and competence sharing, researching and problem solving. LbD enhances sharing knowledge, creativity and the contact network of the university with working life.
In this study, three Regional Development Companies recruited 43 companies to participate training programme built by Laurea UAS. Simultaneously business field students integrating entrepreneurial competence into their programmes were engaged in the development work. All together 13 thesis and 16 development projects were carried out with enterprises. Student engagement gave microenterprises new perspective for customer and business surface evaluation in addition to entrepreneurial capabilities.
The results reveal three different kind of approaches to partnership creation as well as their future development. Critical elements of the model are 1) Equality in partnerships, no sub-contractor roles; 2) Enabling synergy effects for the entrepreneurs to enable joint learning and value creation; 3) Realistic expectations from the students as stakeholding learners and; 4) Ability to meet the demands of rapidly changing environment.
Our aim is to create a permanent engagement platform for matching microenterprises’ needs with regional development companies’ and university’s resources and know how. Anticipating future needs and ability to change accordingly has to be built in this model.