Browsing by Subject "entrepreneurship"

Unprecedented environmental challenges require new entrepreneurs who develop disruptive ideas, products and services. These entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly dependent on their surrounding context and the other actors situated within this context. Against this background, this research focused on the emergence of bioeconomy entrepreneurial ecosystems in two Finnish regions: Lahti and Tampere, and investigated regional differences in entrepreneurial ecosystem emergence, evolution and legitimacy. This research was based on an iterative process of theory elaboration. Spigel’s relational perspective to entrepreneurial ecosystem attributes was used as the main guiding perspective. An integrative literature review conceptualized and synthesized literature around the topic. A comparative case study design was applied, and case regions were selected based on theoretical relevance. The primary data consisted of 21 interviews which were analyzed using thematic analyses. The results showed contrasting development paths for ecosystem emergence: the Lahti ecosystem was emerging from established and maintained arrangements, whereas the Tampere ecosystem was emerging from change processes; the change seemed to be easiest for those areas within cities that do not suffer from path-dependent arrangements. The findings challenge standard evolutionary models and bottom-up models of entrepreneurial ecosystems. When successful, changing ecosystems could potentially reduce the timespan for ecosystem development. Moreover, different ecosystems had different implications for legitimacy. In conclusion, the public sector and research institutions should play a more prominent role in the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems in the bioeconomy and work towards a more inclusive collaborative process. Nonetheless, the dichotomy between change and path dependence in entrepreneurial ecosystems was based on preliminary categorizations that can be elaborated in further study and broader empirical data.

Aims. Previous research on entrepreneurial education has mainly been driven by economic interest. It has been based on quantitative approaches focusing on learning outcomes. Entrepreneurial competencies have been observed as learnable and teachable, although there has been contradictory evidence about effectiveness of entrepreneurial education. Process perspective on entrepreneurial education has left as a minor viewpoint. By now, researchers’ have recommended socio-constructive and experiential approaches to pedagogics. The objective of this study is to bring together previously separate research traditions on educational outcomes and process, introducing more profound picture of learning entrepreneurial competencies especially from the students’ perspective. Methods. The study was conducted by interviewing 18 fifth-year engineering students, who had started their studies on August 1, 2013. The interview invitations were targeted based on study register data for reaching participants from diverse backgrounds on entrepreneurial studies. The research instrument was built on directions of narrative research, critical incident technique and lifeline approach. The data were analyzed with content analysis combined with abductive reasoning and data quantification. Results and conclusions. Consistently with the previous studies, entrepreneurial competencies were shown possible to learn. All students recognized learning of business competencies. However, competencies needed in early-phase entrepreneurship were emphasized by students, who had accomplished several entrepreneurial courses. Results concerning learning process indicated that combining formal learning environments with elements of informal learning resulted as a wide spectrum of learned entrepreneurial competencies. Learning was located especially in problem-solving and project working environments where students co-worked in inter- or multidisciplinary groups. However, other than entrepreneurial courses did not directly support learning of entrepreneurial competencies. Thus, the findings set base for further actions in integrating the elements of entrepreneurial courses into project courses.

This is an explorative case study on the transformations of the hegemonic self and the subaltern other in the spaces of Israel’s globalising economy. Inspired by the works of Saskia Sassen, the thesis is based on a premise that the modern binary categories of difference may transform in the spaces of global, destabilising the hegemonic state. To study this possibility, thesis collects individual imaginaries of difference from Israel where the state has started to integrate the Palestinians of Israel into the centre of Israel’s start-up economy and the key operations of global capital. The thesis deploys an innovative research design that approaches difference as imaginary, made in the living interaction of materialities, myths and creative sense-making. The data of the study consists of individual narrations of difference, collected from Israeli-Palestinian entrepreneurs and Jewish public officials who work together at the entrepreneurial spaces in Israel. The findings of the thesis demonstrate that the Palestinians of Israel who are included into the entrepreneurial space, seek to reject their Palestinian identity and past in order to escape from the national hegemonic conditions. Through analysing the sense-making of Israeli Palestinians, the thesis demonstrates that the entrepreneurial space systematically expels knowledges of otherness that do not fit into the binary logic of modernity. The thesis concludes that in essence, the entrepreneurial intervention is a tool for reproducing the modern emancipatory image of self through the inclusion of the other. At the entrepreneurial site, it is not fear but the hope of emancipation that motivates Palestinians of Israel to detach from Palestinian narratives and spaces. Zionism, it seems, is able to re-institute its binary categories of difference from within the hope that the global brings. The results of the thesis help to understand the hegemonic dynamics through which Zionism and global capital expand together into subaltern consciousness and spaces of political As imaginaries of entrepreneurial knowledge economy are expanding not just in Israel but throughout the globe, the findings of the thesis may open up analytical possibilities also elsewhere.

In the study the present is mirrored to the past in the Russian economy with focus on similarities in the fields of investment/capital, knowledge/technology and entrepreneurship. The periods were 1894 to 1914 and 2000 to 2020. The fields appeared as central factors in programs for economic modernization in 1890s and the 2000s. It was assumed, that there would be major similarities in the studied areas in the two periods. The hypothesis was tested by applying roughly the hypothetico-deductive method while utilizing freely the theories of Anthony Giddens. The material consisted primarily of secondary sources. Major similarities in investments were the primacy of defence and the transport sector, pipelines in the 2000s and before 1914 railways. Both served the export of raw materials, grain respective hydrocarbons. The incomes from these main export products were largely invested into the transport sector and the defence of the huge territory. The state remained the main actor steering largely investments in a way that increased the defence capability of the country, the railways having a military function. In both periods a strict monetary policy was conducted. In the field of knowledge, the structures favoured creation of theoretical knowledge but not of innovations. While private entrepreneurship remained important, the state became the main actor in the economy promoting modernization. In the earlier period it implemented an economic program whose main factors were the building of railways, attracting foreign investments and maintaining high custom barriers. In the 2000s the lack of one single program was compensated by the generally greater role of the state, state companies and the huge state-owned defence industry. The custom barriers were initially lowered, but in the 2010s the policy of import substitution and devaluation of the rouble brought similarities to the former system. In both periods the wealth and military power of the country grew from the initial level. Yet the results were far from the ambitious goals set. The systems remained monopolistic, relatively inefficient and disinterested of inventions, with corruption, bribery and dishonest business practices. The border between state and private sectors was blurred. Subsidies provided mainly by the export of raw materials bolstered the systems. These features could be seen as obstacles for economic modernization. To verify whether they all are would require including more theory of economic modernization. Both in good and bad, the structures of the two periods seem so much alike even on a detailed level, that one could suspect partial imitation of the past in the 2000s. The similarities could as well be due to long-term structures of Russia, be they cultural, institutional, geographical or geopolitical. They could result either from direct continuities from earlier periods or features that re-emerge due to a change of conditions. Mentions of similar traits in other periods of the Russian history might indicate the predominance of structural causes, making quick changes difficult. A more plausible explanation would require the widening of the study to include more countries and time periods.

This thesis focuses on studying Finland's entrepreneurship policy as the main research direction, specifically examining how to motivate high-impact entrepreneurship. The thesis provides a comprehensive theoretical discussion, addressing entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship policy, and entrepreneurship conditions in the Finnish context. It analyzes core concepts from multiple dimensions, including policy definitions, development processes, and potential challenges and barriers. Through innovative policy retrieval and classification methods, this thesis defines and reconstructs classification dimensions in the absence of previously collected entrepreneurship policy data. It systematically retrieves and summarizes Finland's entrepreneurship policies from 1993 to 2023. The research findings reveal that Finland is dedicated to constructing an innovative, full-lifecycle entrepreneurship policy driven by policy funding. This policy mix aligns with the characteristics of high-impact entrepreneurship and, to some extent, contributes to the development of high-impact entrepreneurship in Finland, as validated by data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. This thesis provides a certain degree of theoretical research foundation and data support for future studies.