Themes of Entrepreneurship Research

Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences has specialized in Growth entrepreneurship and Business Transfers. This profile area focuses on growth entrepreneurship, business transfers, strategic business development, entrepreneurial intentions, and entrepreneurial ecosystems. In addition, SeAMK has competence in developing tourism and Green Care. An experienced and multidisciplinary research group of growth entrepreneurship and business transfers has about 15 members of whom 8 are post doc researchers.

Growth entrepreneurship and business transfer research team is focused on the explanation and understanding of the preconditions of growth entrepreneurship and on the creation of research-based practical tools and models especially for use by SMEs. Regarding business transfers, the aim of the group is to contribute, through research, to the creation of the world’s best business transition ecosystem in Finland. The research has been focused on and tools have been built for all the actors of the business transfer ecosystem, i.e., sellers, buyers, financiers, and experts. SeAMK’s research group has reached the leading role in business transfer research in Finland among all the universities.

Two members of the group has been nominated as national Business Transfer Expert (2013 and 2016). The group is also actively involved in the activities of the entire innovation chain and works to support it by building tools to help growth companies and companies undergoing business transfers, by training entrepreneurs in the region, experts, and SeAMK degree students based on the most recent research knowledge, and by participating in regional, national, and international expert work in entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurial intentions of higher education students have been researched over 10 years in Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences. SeAMK has developed a measurement tool Entre Intention for measuring entrepreneurial intentions, attitudes towards entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial skills and characteristics, and participation in different kinds of entrepreneurial courses. The main idea is to evaluate different factors affecting the development of entrepreneurial intentions during studies and after graduation. The Entre Intention –measurement tool offers a way to measure the impact of entrepreneurial education and capture the current state of entrepreneurial education practices. The instrument has been used for longitudinal follow-up of individual students.

SeAMK has gathered longitudinal data from the year 2008 nationally and internationally. The results of this longitudinal research has been published in many international conferences and journal articles (i.e. Education + Training, Journal of Industry & Higher Education,  Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, International Journal of Information systems in the Service Sector).

SeAMK is an active developer of companies and organizations in the region .

SeAMK provides expert services in the form of development projects and customised services related to the business management and the development of strategic capabilities of companies and public organizations.

Expert services and projects can be targeted at the development of business  processes and personnel. Examples of these include development projects of service business as well as process and competence development services.

The research focuses on the productisation of industrial services, the development of data analytics and the value co-creation.

Methods of action research are mainly used. Research results have been presented in several conferences and published in scientific journals

The growth entrepreneurship has studied in Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences for a long time. The most recent research and development objective has been to evaluate and measure the performance of the growth entrepreneurship ecosystem. To measure the performance of the ecosystem, a comprehensive toolkit has been developed. In addition, a tool to identify potential growth entrepreneurs has developed. This is important to target scarce resources effectively.

Business growth has long been at the heart of business policy. Various subsidies have been used to support growth business, but they have been shown to have limited efficacy. The ecosystem approach has been developed specifically to respond to the challenge of identify and evaluate the effects of subsides and grants.

Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences plays an important role in the regional Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. The objective of the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem is to support new start-ups so that they would develop into growth companies over time. The aim of the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem is to support the development and growth of companies in particular. The first is about entrepreneurship, while the latter is about entrepreneurs.

The role of the University of Applied Sciences is to act as a catalyst in these ecosystems. In addition to research and development activities, the main contribution of the university are the students who bring new ideas and thus increase regional expertise.

SeAMK has a strong role in supporting the growth and development of the business in small and medium-sized tourism and service branch enterprises in South Ostrobothnia as well as in supporting the building of co-operation networks. SeAMK works in close co-operation with both regional and national stakeholders in tourism sector. SeAMK responds to the needs of tourism companies by producing different tools and reports. In the development operations the newest research information of the field and the national definitions of policy of the tourism are utilised. Tourism education is offered as studies of the Open University of Applied Sciences and supplementary education.

The Green Care theme connects from many different branches actors who are interested in the welfare effects of the nature. Green Care encompasses activities that maintain and improve human well-being and quality of life. SeAMK has a role in developing entrepreneurship and promoting the use of nature and animal assisted methods based on the regional Green Care strategy.