Background: The full potential of social entrepreneurship remains challenging to achieve, despite continuous efforts in various economies, including South-East Asia. Several obstacles need to be addressed, such as the scarcity of skilled employees, limited business understanding among founders, difficulties accessing funding and infrastructure, and the absence of proper social impact measurement. Higher education institutions (HEIs) often face constraints in engaging and supporting early entrepreneurial activities, exacerbating the imbalance in the social entrepreneurship landscape. This imbalance has been observed in both Thailand and Myanmar. Research objectives: The Erasmus+ funded project, STEPup, running from 2020 to 2023, recognized an opportunity to foster innovative social entrepreneurship practices tailored for disruptive business settings in these two countries. By applying the challenge-based learning approach through interactive case challenge proceedings involving social entrepreneurs, faculty mentors and students, the development of the entrepreneurial mindset of the latter group was studied. Research design and methods: To accomplish this, a multi-method research design was chosen, which involved a case-challenge experience within the framework of 6 universities, a questionnaire-based survey conducted among the student population which took part in the case-challenge experience and desk research. Results: The study revealed the necessity for a self-organizing and organic support system for social entrepreneurship. The objective of this paper is to present recommendations and strategic guidelines to enhance access and opportunities for existing social enterprises and social entrepreneurs seeking to establish and sustain a social enterprise ecosystem. The proposed framework leverages the support, expertise, and structure of existing higher education institutions. Conclusions: Higher Education Institutions can serve as excellent cases demonstrating how to design and develop resource hubs for social enterprise practitioners and engage stakeholders from all sectors to address social issues and promote awareness.
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Using a series of case studies, we show that global mindset is at the heart of global growth and opportunity for entrepreneurial ventures. We review how having an entrepreneurial mindset and international experience influence the rapidity of internationalization by discussing the entrepreneurial process and how the global mindset of founders of born global firms influences their choices in the competitive landscape. This chapter closes with a discussion of a continuum — globalization frustrated (focusing on firms with entrepreneurs that have global mindsets but cannot internationalize) to globalization mandated (focusing on firms that are forced to be global).
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The paper draws a comprehensive overview of relevant.•The paper critically analyzes the state of the art, indicating directions for future research. The paper discusses adoption of Serious Games (SGs) for supporting development of an entrepreneurial mindset in university students of technical and scientific universities. The paper relies on the authors experience in the eSG project, which aims at introducing students, mainly through practice, to basic concepts of entrepreneurship and company management. In the framework of the project, courses have been designed and carried out in three different countries: Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.The paper discusses the main requirements for the courses and presents a table template, based on state of the art models for entrepreneurship education, that we have used for the scouting of the most suited SGs and defining the most appropriate mix for their use in the courses, keeping into account targeted competences and skills, usability and pedagogical effectiveness.Using the template, the paper draws a comprehensive overview of relevant SGs available on the market and identifies, through an expert analysis, key benefits and issues concerning their adoption in teaching entrepreneurship for the target students. Finally, the paper critically analyzes the state of the art, indicating directions for future research that should lead to development of more effective SGs for entrepreneurship education.
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Questions we care about (objectives) This study contributes to the body of knowledge of entrepreneurial educators’ strategies to work towards gender inclusion in entrepreneurial education (EE). By illustrating how gender stereotypes and gender bias are constructed and reconstructed in EE. An important insight is taken from the study by (Jones, 2014), this author shows that entrepreneurs are presented in EE as a homogeneous group with similar character traits and an equal 'entrepreneurial mindset' (p. 244). This description portraits a right way to be an entrepreneur which is traditionally been associated with a white western man, masculine behaviour and masculine abilities (Jones, 2014). As a consequence, a paradox in EE appears; training and education reduces the gender gap on the one hand (Cheraghi and Schøtt, 2015), but at the same time it is also the place where the gender gap is maintained because these gender stereotypes are intertwined in this training and education (Korhonen, Komulainen and Räty, 2012). The aim of this paper is to use Social Role Theory in order to better understand the dynamics of gender in EE. This leads to the following research questions: what are the main mechanisms that contribute to gender-inclusive entrepreneurship education (EE) and how are the different mechanisms that contribute to gender inclusive entrepreneurship education (EE) integrated into the current curriculum?Approach In-depth interviews with 12 lecturers that teach/coach in the field of EE from across various faculties in a large University for Applied Sciences combined with newsletters created by one of largest EE programs at this institution (267 pages in 2020) is carried out. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to guide the in-depth interviews. Subsequently, discourse analysis gives insight into gendering in EE at the investigated institution. Results The main findings suggests that when questioned about the topic all respondents stressed the importance of gender equally, only a few seem to be aware of the need to address the issue in their classroom(s) while none of the programs currently adopt a gender perspective while coaching their potential entrepreneurs or when addressing how the entrepreneurial ecosystem functions. Implications These findings and perspectives point to the importance of recognizing that a “one size fits all” approach to curricula may not be appropriate, and that gender-sensitive programming, especially related to dealing with these gender stereotypes and gender bias, are needed. This means that in educational development there are opportunities to create better education and create equal opportunities for male and female students. Value/originalityWomen still form the minority amongst the population of (potential) entrepreneurs and find it more difficult to grow their venture due to a range of (institutional) barriers. This study shows that, thus far, EE insufficiently addresses this topic and points to opportunities for interventions for increasing the gender inclusiveness of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, especially for female ones, instilling in them the awareness and knowledge that as a female entrepreneur starting a business isn’t without gendered challenges. This research therefore adds to the body of knowledge on the construction and reconstruction of gender stereotypes and gender bias in the field of EE.
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Presentation about entrepreneurial thinking in games, animation and VFX industries.
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This report maps different programs that supportrefugees on the road to entrepreneurship. The municipality of The Hague, along with the refugee and migrant support organization EnterStart (MigrantINC) asked for an evaluation of the program The Hague Test Garden (from now on called The Test Garden) where refugees can ask for help starting their own businesses. The evaluation is not just based on the experiences in The Test Garden; other programs have been included in the evaluation to come to a broader view of the road to entrepreneurship and the obstacles encountered. The increased inflow of refugees in Dutch society and on the Dutch labor market has generated different support programs for starting-up a business. Some of these programs already existed but shifted to accommodate the needs of this specific target group. Other programs were initiated to support refugees because of perceived barriers in Dutch society. Most programs are private initiatives, funded on a project basis. In the Netherlands, refugees that hold a residence permit are called ‘status holders’. Upon arrival, they received a temporary permit for at least five years. They need to follow a civic integration and language program and they are expected to be part of the (regular) education system or labor market as soon as possible. The Test Garden started in 2016, a time when multiple support systems for refugee-entrepreneurs began their programs. This report starts with a short overview ofrefugee flows to the Netherlands. The main part of the report consists of the comparison and evaluation of the different programs. The information was gathered through literature, websites, and in-depth interviews with program managers and others involved. Interviews with the participants are only included for The Test Garden (Appendix 1 gives an overview of the meetings and interviews). LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karijn-nijhoff-89589316/
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Despite the increase in entrepreneurship initiatives and interventions, there is a poor understanding of entrepreneurship programs’ principles and learning objectives in secondary education. This study provides insight into the current range of entre‑ preneurship programs and their underlying pedagogy in secondary education in the Netherlands. To structure the analysis, we used the 11 design principles of Baggen et al. (Entrep Educ Pedagog 5(3):347–374, 2022). Data were collected from three different sources: the Vecon Business Schools (VBS) application forms, interviews with VBS schools, and additional documents. The findings show that most schools are unfamiliar with the definitions of entrepreneurship education. Many of the prin‑ ciples of broad entrepreneurship education focus on personal growth and the devel‑ opment of an entrepreneurial mindset. These are not always recognizable in sec‑ ondary schools’ current offerings of entrepreneurship education. Furthermore, the pedagogies on which entrepreneurship programs are based are mostly traditional, despite literature showing that (socially) constructivist entrepreneurship programs lend themselves better to developing an entrepreneurial mindset.
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This feasibility report aims to create a solid background for Savings Groups programming in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands where partner organisations of the LETS SAVEE1 project are based. This Erasmus+ funded project aims at exploring the potential of saving groups in the European countries’ context, by improving entrepreneurial skills and access to financial services and social networks of diverse target groups. This particular report provides the partner organisation as well as other interested implementing organisations with a better understanding of how the different contexts influences the setting up and/or scale up of saving groups. This report is set up as follows: The market potential is based on literature of societal developments and how they can be linked to the emergence of saving groups in the respective countries and what kind of target groups have potential for benefitting the services offered by savings groups. By mapping partner organisations, the feasibility study identifies present and potential partners and stakeholders which could play an essential role reaching out to target groups. Then, the study will inform partner organisations and other implementers about the legal framework in each country that allows them to set up Savings Groups accordingly and identify issues that might need advocacy actions. Finally, this report provides a mapping of risk factors and ways to mitigate risks for savings groups members that were applicable for all partner organizations.
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