12/17/10

Boost Turku is kicking ass

Happy happy joy joy!

Finnish university students have entrepreneurial intentions after all! That's great news! During the past two years we have witnessed a wide wave of entrepreneurship societies (generated by students themselves). My personal favorite is (of course) BoostTurku, but you may find an ES other cities, too. At last there are a legitimate venues for pursuing entrepreneurial thoughts, pitching your business ideas and get together with similar minded individuals from different majors - by entrepreneurial students for entrepreneurial students. That is just brilliant! I bet that nothing like this would have happened via goverment interventions which makes this current stream of entrepreneurial attitude even more awesome.

Guys and girls... you kick ass!

12/14/10

Divergent thinking, creativity and best schools in the world

According to the latest PISA assessment, Finland has still the third best education system in the world. That's just awesome. On the other hand is it?

At the same time the education is seen as a silent killer of divergent thinking. Does the presence of this appreciated institutional organization actually hinder the essential substance for creativity and entrepreneurship??? Maybe, but in reality the story is not this simple, since public education still generates a population with necessary abilities to read, write and calculate. They also seem pretty helpful...

12/8/10

Finnish entrepreneurs still say no to growth

Global Entrepreneur Monitor's results have said the same thing for years. Professor Autio from Imperial College emphasized it again last fall (report here).

Now Finnish entrepreneurs themselves say it aloud. This fall the Finnish Federation for Finnish Entrepreneurs published a report based on a survey on self-employed individuals. With 1.300 opinions and 20% response rate the FFF concludes that 60% of self-employed entrepreneurs see no motivation for employing anyone else. Reason for this is simply their mundane-type-of-businesses:

"...The biggest reason for not to employ anyone else in their firms is that there is not job for more than one person..." This is then followed the usual epistle comprising too high employment costs and the lack of needs for growing their businesses.

What is wrong in this picture? The institutional forces have for years tried to open up venues for growth (e.g. offering financial support for employing new personnel). At the same time some other organizations cry out loud that business successions are in the blind alley simply because of Finnish taxation laws give businesses so hard time. Are you sure? Could it be so that some of the Finnish entrepreneurs are simply running (mundane) ventures that provide what they need and nothing more. Accordingly, it is okay to blame it on institutions if you don't see the forest from the trees, right? Or should we limit our mindset so that growth-oriented behavior is better left only for the best and the brightest?

Maybe/maybe not. I see that all eyes should be on the next generation of entrepreneurs.... Go for it Entrepreneurship Societies...

Reshaping the blog

This blog will go through a renewal. More on entrepreneurship in Finland will follow.

5/17/10

Less growth without discovery of growth opportunities

Our tentative firm-level results show that the engagement in entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in family firms enhances the changes for achieving growth in turnover and in the number of employees. Thus, it is likely that risk-taking, innovative and proactive behavior is later rewarded by firm growth. Our study examined the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and the discovery of growth opportunities in a data comprising 223 family firms included in the Innocas data set.

In addition to EO's positive effect on firm growth, our results show that the discovery of growth opportunities is positively associated with firm growth. It also mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm growth. This suggests that EO itself may not be enough, but firms have to be alert and aware of the ongoing changes in the markets. EO in family firms enhances the chances of recognizing suitable opportunites (e.g. new product-market combinations, new niches) for growth which again increase the chances for achieving firm growth. Accordingly, we argue that family firms like any other firm need to renew their strategies and discover new opportunities for the future in order to be able to secure the continuity of their businesses.

Adapted from:
Stenholm P., Pukkinen T. & Heinonen J.: Firm Growth in Family Businesses- The Role of EO and the Discovery of Growth Opportunities. A paper accepted to be presented at the 16th Nordic Conference on Small Business Research, Kolding, Denmark 20.-21.5.2010.

3/9/10

New Data Gadget by Google

Long time, no see.

Google took on new hoods by introducing Google Public Data Explorer. How conveniet is that? (For general data of course).