Education and Experience beyond the Classroom

The Sage Handbook of Social Media Research Methods

Crises and entrepreneurial opportunities: Digital social innovation in response to physical distancing

The COVID-19 crisis triggered by the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and the infection control measures taken have extended beyond affecting health issues to impact economic activity worldwide. In this structured literature review, the focus is specifically on how the crisis has impacted entrepreneurial activity. The review focuses on the early empirical literature that primarily relied on data collected during the first wave of the pandemic. These empirical results are synthesized in a thematic literature review. The entrepreneurship research on the COVID-19 crisis is marked by three perspectives: the uncertainty perspective, the resilience perspective, and the opportunity perspective. To obtain a complete picture of the effects of the crisis on entrepreneurship, these three perspectives should be considered in combination. We provide implications for future research, policymakers, and entrepreneurs discussing how the interplay of the reviewed perspectives provides paths toward creative reconstruction, that is, the opportunity to move beyond pre-crisis levels of innovation and entrepreneurial action.

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Creative reconstruction a structured literature review of the early empirical research on the COVID ‑ 19 crisis and entrepreneurship

Which crisis strategies are (expectedly) effective among SMEs during COVID-19?

Expanding entrepreneurial solution spaces in times of crisis: Business model experimentation amongst packaged food and beverage ventures

As the landscape of higher education is changing with increased competition, being able to clearly articulate learning outcomes and their significance to students is becoming more and more important for universities. Project-and problem-based industry collaboration has been on the rise in order to cultivate more ‘work life skills’. Typically, student feedback is collected at the end of such courses, perhaps augmented by feedback collected before and during the course as well. However, during their studies, students have yet limited understanding of professional activities in their discipline and work life, and thus may not be able to accurately evaluate the usefulness and applicability of the learning experience from a long-term perspective. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to gain better understanding of the real-world impact of these project-and problem-based courses in the long run, and what skills and attitudes alumni from project-and problem-based industry collaboration courses have found useful and utilized in development activities in their current careers. Moreover, we were interested to study if they differ from perceived skills learned directly from the course. In order to address this aim, the current paper represents a case study of the perceived long-term impact of one of the longest running multidisciplinary project-based courses in Aalto University, Finland. During nine months, the interdisciplinary and international student teams translate an open design brief provided by a industry sponsor into a functional prototype. We reached out to the PDP course alumni to find out what they considered as significant learning outcomes from the course in hindsight, as well what skills, knowledge and attitudes have they utilized in the development efforts of their current careers. Based on 33 interviews and 239 survey responses from alumni that had completed the course between 1999 and 2016, we categorized the content of responses based on the thematic similarity of the reported learning outcomes from the course and reported needs in development efforts of their current careers. Overall, the results highlight the perceived significance of socio-behavioral interpersonal skills, in which teamwork, multidisciplinarity and communication skills formed the largest categories. The second largest group was formed by attitudes, such as constant learning, having a ‘can do spirit’ and optimism, out of which the majority were brought up as a part in the development activities of the alumnis’ current careers rather than perceived learning outcomes from the course. These skills and attitudes were then followed by a better understanding of the development process and project management, with the PDP course often representing a first complete development project experience for the alumni, rather than a piecemeal phase or task of it. The usefulness of being able to handle ambiguity and defining problems was also highlighted. Interestingly, domain-specific skills were the smallest group reported in both currently utilized skills and in learning outcomes from the course. The results thus emphasize the social nature of professional design and development efforts, as well as the additional insights long-term feedback collection and reflection from former course participants can yield.

Perceived long term value of industry project-based design courses: Alumni reflections from two decades of the Product Development Project

Established companies turn to new ventures for bolstering exploration activities, but we know relatively little of the product development processes of startups and new ventures and how different stakeholders are utilized in these. The current study investigated the product development activities and experiments of eight Finnish food and beverage ventures in a multiple case study based on 22 interviews. How the developed products fit into the existing portfolio and experience of the ventures seemed to define their enacted development process. Internal experimentation was a constant feature, although the type of experiments varied between different phases of the development process. External-facing experiments were less frequent and more for validation than concept generation. On the other hand, they also carried important market creation functionalities. The results suggest that more nuanced terminology around experimentation would be useful to determine what type of experiments serve different goals in the development process.

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Experimentation Throughout the Product Development Process - Lessons from Food and Beverage Ventures

While the construction of knowledge hubs has gained recent traction, little is known on how networked actors perceive their collective culture. Authors looked at the topic through a single case study, the Design Factory Global Network, a network of 24 autonomous yet connected hubs for passion-based co-creation in an educational setting. Data was collected via questionnaires, asking 1) to describe their Design Factory in three distinct, words, 2) explicate these with exemplary stories, and 3) express future development wishes. 98 stories and future wishes were shared by representatives from 15 Design Factories. Excerpts reflecting cultural levels (attitudes, norms, manifestations) were identified and made sense of by looking at which level of stakeholder relationship (internal, host, network, wider environment) they targeted. 78 attitudes, 114 norms and 95 manifestations were mentioned, mostly targeting the internal community and the host levels. Authors draw some practical implications for each of the identified level or relationship, contributing to the knowledge of the creation and development of such innovation hubs. In addition, further research directions are proposed.

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Maria Mikkonen

Papers

Expanding entrepreneurial solution spaces in times of crisis: Business model experimentation amongst packaged food and beverage ventures

Perceived long term value of industry project-based design courses: Alumni reflections from two decades of the Product Development Project

Experimentation Throughout the Product Development Process - Lessons from Food and Beverage Ventures

Perceived Culture of Networked Knowledge Hubs