What Can SMEs Learn from Universities?: Transferring Entrepreneurship Education Knowledge from the University to the Corporate World

Isabella Fitzky (), Christina Lang () and Guido H. Baltes ()
Additional contact information
Isabella Fitzky: Konstanz University of Applied Sciences
Christina Lang: Konstanz University of Applied Sciences
Guido H. Baltes: Konstanz University of Applied Sciences

A chapter in Progress in Entrepreneurship Education and Training, 2023, pp 199-221 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Times of high dynamic and growing new knowledge demand for entrepreneurial education and university engagement. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have established intensive knowledge and resources about entrepreneurial education and relating activities and formats over the last years. As smaller companies (SMEs) are increasingly experimenting with entrepreneurship, they seem to struggle with setting up entrepreneurial activities within their established corporate strategy and innovation structures. It is beneficial for them to collaborate with higher education institutions to minimize the risk and uncertainty associated with implementing entrepreneurship education (EE) and catch up with larger corporates. Further, research lacks a systematic characterization of EE activities in those companies and classification of collaboration formats. Therefore, this study uses qualitative research methods to analyze data from interviews conducted with two German SMEs. Our study contributes to a better understanding of EE in SME and respective HEI collaborations by (1) characterizing EE in SME and SME-HEI collaboration based on attributes and collaboration types defined by their locus of collaboration and intensity of knowledge inflow and (2) identifying differences among EE in SME and HEI. We provide implications to practice—corporate and university EE initiatives—for a more effective design and implementation of EE in SMEs and the SME-HEI collaborations themselves.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship education; Knowledge transfer; Collaboration; Small and medium-sized enterprises; Higher education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:fgfchp:978-3-031-28559-2_14

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031285592

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-28559-2_14

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in FGF Studies in Small Business and Entrepreneurship from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().