This text has become a performance of (affirmative) entrepreneurship. This is done by a set of writing (and methodological) techniques: autoethnography, the triptych of mimesis, poiesis, kinesis and a life journey that forms the base of the chapter. As such, this text challenges some well-known shortcomings of entrepreneurship research such as being enacted by a distant observer/writer, decontextualized accounts of entrepreneurship and disregard of creativity and playfulness. The main contribution of the chapter is methodological, in its broadest sense (Steyaert, 2011): I propose autoethnography as “more than method” for engaging with processes of (affirmative) Entrepreneuring that speak to the increased attention for narrativity and playfulness in entrepreneurship (see for example Hjorth, 2017: Hjorth and Steyaert, 2004: Gartner, 2007; Johannisson, 2011). The autoethnographic story offers an engaging and relevant account of the practice of entrepreneurship and provides rich emic insight into the socio-materiality of lived experience. It also highlights the temporality of entrepreneurship – both in terms of chronos (continuous flow of time) and Kairos (taking advantage of the “right moment”) (Johannisson, 2011). And as I continue performing affirmations, I am curious how you are Entrepreneuring your life – tell me. This is a draft chapter/article. The final version is available in Research Handbook on Entrepreneurial Behavior, Practice and Process edited by William B. Gartner and Bruce T. Teague, published in 2020, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788114523
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Despite continuous efforts in various economies, amongst others in South-East Asia, the full potential of social entrepreneurship (SE) is difficult to realize (STEPup project comparative study findings). Challenges that need to be addressed include the lack of skilled employees, business understanding among founders, access to funding and infrastructure and a lack of social impact measurement. Higher education institutions (HEI) are often challenged with limited engagement, also in terms of student support of early entrepreneurial activity. This disbalance has also been observed in Thailand and Myanmar, with the Erasmus+ funded project STEPup (2020-2023) seeing an opportunity to create and strengthen innovative social entrepreneurship practices for disruptive business settings in the two participating countries. Research based on the review of scientific articles, the conduct of focus groups (n= 42 from 38 different external stakeholder organizations) and numerous interviews and creative sessions with stakeholders of the social entrepreneurship domain also revealed the necessity to act in a self-organizing and organic SE support system. This paper aims to present recommendations and strategic guidelines to increase access and opportunity for existing social enterprises and social entrepreneurs who are planning to create and sustain an SE ecosystem through the framework, support, expertise and structure of existing higher education institutions. In addition, Higher Education Institutions in Myanmar and Thailand would serve as a good practice case on how to design and develop resource hubs for social enterprise practitioners and engage stakeholders from all sectors to tackle social issues and promote awareness of the social enterprise sector’s potential.
MULTIFILE
The Dutch greenhouse horticulture industry is characterized by world leadership in high-tech innovation. The dynamics of this playing field are innovation in production systems and automation, reduction in energy consumption and sharing limited space. However, international competitive advantage of the industry is under pressure and sustainable growth of individual enterprises is no longer a certainty. The sector's ambition is to innovate better and grow faster than the competition in the rest of the world. Realizing this ambition requires strengthening the knowledge base, stimulating entrepreneurship, innovation (not just technological, but especially business process innovation). It also requires educating and professionalizing people. However, knowledge transfer in this industry is often fragmented and innovation through horizontal and vertical collaboration throughout the value chain is limited. This paper focuses on the question: how can the grower and the supplier in the greenhouse horticulture chain gain competitive advantage through radical product and process innovation. The challenge lies in time- to-market, in customer relationship, in developing new product/market combinations and in innovative entrepreneurship. In this paper an innovation and entrepreneurial educational and research programme is introduced. The programme aims at strengthening multidisciplinary collaboration between enterprise, education and research. Using best practice examples, the paper illustrates how companies can realize growth and improve the innovative capacity of the organization as well as the individual by linking economic and social sustainability. The paper continues to show how participants of the program develop competencies by means of going through a learning cycle of single-loop, double-loop and triple loop learning: reduction of mistakes, change towards new concepts and improvement of the ability to learn. Finally, the paper illustrates the importance of combining enterprise, education and research in regional networks, with examples from the greenhouse horticulture sector. These networks generate economic growth and international competitiveness by acting as business accelerators.
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