Search results for "entrepreneurship."

Franchisee Discontinuance and Failure Empirical Findings from Finland

2008

The present study focuses on franchisee discontinuances and failures during 1999–2001. The paper deals with notions relating to discontinuance and failure. Franchising is approached from entrepreneurs hip viewpoint and taken as a form of starting and conducting entrepreneurship and business. The study was carried out in 2002 in Finland. The 46 member franchisors of the Finnish Franchising Association (FFA) were surveyed. Altogether 33 responses were received, adding up to a response rate of 72%. The results were parallel with the findings of the previous international studies. The results indicate that the average annual franchisee turnover rate was 11% in 1999–2001 in the studied franchise…

Entrepreneurial marketing: a comparative study

2013

This paper uses a comparative study to explore entrepreneurial marketing orientation in small software technology firms, in relation to firm growth. Entrepreneurial Marketing (EM) acknowledges the interface between entrepreneurship, marketing and innovation and, pursuance of customer value. Researchers acknowledge that firms adopting other strategic orientations combined with a market orientation are more likely to outperform their competitors. Currently, there are few comparative studies of knowledge-intensive technology firms and no comparative cross-country studies, which consider firm growth and orientation from the EM perspective. This paper addresses these issues by using an entrepren…

Contributions to the study of returns to education : the Tunisian case

2016

In Tunisia, enrollment rates in tertiary education had soared up over the past two decades. A significant increase of student annual flows imposed the implementation of reforms that led to an increase in the number of higher education institutions and universities. One of the challenges in Tunisia and many African countries is to improve the efficiency of education systems to promote employability and graduates employment. This thesis discuss the question of the efficiency of education from an economic approach based on returns to education in the labor market. The first chapter analyses private returns to education particularly higher education in African countries. Our findings highlight …

Humanities and Social Sciences. Latvia, vol. 29, N 2 (Autumn-Winter 2021)

2021

Engineering students’ conceptions of entrepreneurial learning as part of their education

2015

The purpose of this study was to examine what kinds of conceptions of entrepreneurial learning engineering students expressed in an entrepreneurship course integrated in their study programme. The data were collected during an entrepreneurship course in Estonia that was organised for fourth-year engineering students, using video-recorded group interviews (N = 48) and individual in-depth interviews (N = 16). As a result of the phenomenographic analysis, four qualitatively distinctive conceptions of entrepreneurial learning were discerned. Entrepreneurial learning was seen to involve (1) applying entrepreneurial ideas to engineering, (2) understanding entrepreneurial issues in a new way, (3) …

The university, driver of innovation

2019

Several universities have recently made the front page of newspapers, televisions, and other media, but, unfortunately, the reason behind this was not their day-to-day work, focused on training and research, but some cases of malpractice by certain academics who used and abused the institution for personal gain. 
 By its very nature as a public service, the University is based on analysis and criticism, including self-criticism. Very few institutions are. Perhaps that is why, without ignoring the fact that there is room for improvement, we must prove the increasingly important role that these public bodies have been given, as well as their achievements for social benefit and progress. …

Identifying Social Entrepreneurial Behaviour in Farmers participation in Alternative Food Network

2016

The concept of social entrepreneurship is growing rapidly and attracting increased attention from research institutions and business schools around the world to understand how these satisfy the needs of communities, those private and public institutions are not adequately addressing. Social entrepreneurship, identified as activity with a social objective, was used in this study as a conceptual tool to empirically examine farmer’s participation in AFNs. Using a behavioural approach, we conducted a survey in Sicily, Italy, using a questionnaire with modified items from the Edinburgh Study of Decision Making on Farms. From the results emerges that around 64% of the farmers participating in AFN…

The Nexus Knowledge-Market and Innovation in University Education: Lessons Learned from University Start Ups

2013

The pace of evolution of the university education lags behind the changes in the labour market and it is necessary to accelerate the innovation in the University education to prepare young people to face a new world order. An empirical search among a relevant sample of the start ups of the University of Palermo has been carried out in order to identify possible guidelines for the innovation of several curricula. The authors selected the founders of the new companies as privileged witnesses of the connection between knowledge and market due to their experience gained in commercialize knowledge acquired through their university education. The empirical search pointed out several regularities,…

Interactive Learning Environment as Innovative Teaching Method for Entrepreneurship Education

2014

The main aim of this paper is to show an innovative web-based interactive learning environment (ILE) for promoting and improving entrepreneurship in a complex and non-linear business context. The web-based ILE allows the interaction among participants both at national and international level in order to stimulate the sharing of knowledge and experience. The adoption of an ILE as teaching method will help entrepreneurs to become more aware of their entrepreneurial attributes and skills and see entrepreneurship as a realistic and interesting career path.

The social innovation of social cooperatives operating on confiscated mafia properties: support factors and critical issues.

2015

In recent years, the theme of Social Innovation (SI) has gained significant importance both in academic studies and in policy. In the many definitions of SI proposed by scholars the aspect of change seems to be central. Making social innovation means to find and to provide new solutions to the social needs of individuals and communities; to develop and to introduce changes in the relationships between individuals and institutions; and again, to redefine the priorities of the economic and social development. In this paper we focus on a particular form of SI realized by social cooperatives operating in Italy on assets confiscated from the mafia. Thanks to a law of popular initiative these goo…