Municipalities often collaborate with other stakeholders in smart city projects to develop and implement technological innovations to address complex urban issues. We propose the shared portfolio approach as an alternative way of collaborating, because we have identified possible limitations when the commonly used single-project approach is adopted in complex contexts, such as the smart city context. The portfolio approach enhances flexibility, an embedded focus and cross-project learning, because partners work on multiple projects – either in parallel or in succession – to develop multiple solutions to a specific problem. An in-depth case study is used to illustrate how the shared portfolio approach works. In practice, these insights can be used by public bodies who aim to collaborate in smart city development or by partners who work on smart city projects and wish to continue their collaboration in a portfolio setting. Conceptually, our paper develops a connection between cross-sector partnership literature and smart city literature by revealing how the shared portfolio approach could be an effective way to deal with the complexities of innovation in the smart city context.
We are at the start of the research group ‘Entrepreneurship in Transition’, which is an initiative of Hanze University of Applied Sciences and Alfa-college to conduct research and valorise knowledge about the relationship between entrepreneurship and education, entrepreneurial success factors, retail and succession.In the research group, students of vocational education (mbo), university ofapplied sciences (hbo), staffand other partners involved, study the dynamics ofentrepreneurship in the northern region of the Netherlands. Our goal is to contribute to a sustainable social, cultural and economic healthy region through research and practises. An important parameter for the research group is the concept of explorative space. In short is this a space where people and organisations are encouraged and welcomed to explore their potentialities and find ways to actualise them.
MULTIFILE
The main purpose of this dissertation is to identify the factors that explain success and failure in SME business transfers. Three key concepts have been defined in the research framework: firm resources, capabilities (of predecessor and successor) and (successor’s) strategic renewal. Altogether these three key concepts serve as predictors for the transfer outcomes: exit choice, transfer duration, obtained price, satisfaction and the post-transfer firm performance. Testing reveals that both firm resources and owner capabilities are of importance for exit choice. Results indicate further that especially “acquisition experience” and “years of ownership” predict the exit choice in well performing firms. In poorly performing firms, firm resources prevail as the predictors for exit choice. Most consistently, owner capabilities like “familiarity with the successor” and “flexibility” and not firm resources predict success during a transfer. The firm resource “succession planning” predicts only the level of satisfaction with the transfer. Regarding owner capabilities, a distinction is made between generic and specific human capital. Results indicate the importance of specific human capital (owner competencies and experience) rather than generic human capital (level of education). All types of renewal (i.e. product/market innovation, organizational change or a combination of the two) after succession show better post-transfer firm performance compared to no changes in the first two years.
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