Projects
International Opportunities and Business Models in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (2020-)
This research project focuses on the entrepreneurial ecosystems and their influence towards firm development. Specifically, we look at growth entrepreneurship, in which conditions entrepreneurs seize and sense international opportunities, and subsequently develop appropriate business models to sustain their growth.
The main research questions we seek answer to are:
How should the Finnish entrepreneurial ecosystem be supported in order to encourage growth entrepreneurship and successful seizing of international opportunities by growth enterprises?
How should Finnish SMEs develop their business models to successfully leverage the entrepreneurial ecosystem to achieve international growth?
More info here.
Boosting the Internationalization of Cleantech SMEs (2015-2018)
Funded by the Green Growth programme within the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES), the main goal of the BICS project iwa to accelerate the internationalization and growth of Cleantech SMEs by developing new capabilities, business models, networks and value propositions to innovate, commercialize and profit from Cleantech innovations in global markets.
More info here.
Go East: Sustainable Internationalization of Finnish SMEs to Russia (2016-2018)
This research project sought to find best practices for Finnish small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to internationalize successfully and sustainably to Russia. The main questions we sought to find answers to were:
- What factors facilitate international growth of Finnish SMEs in Russian markets today?
- How can Finnish SMEs operate sustainably in Russian markets?
Russia is still one of the most important trading partners of Finland and, as a large proximate developing market offers major market potential for Finnish enterprises. However, the global political developments over the past few years have led to decrease in Finnish-Russian trade. Simultaneously, some Finnish SMEs have still managed to not only continue business in Russia as usual, but also grow their operations in the country. In the "Go East" project funded by the Liikesivistysrahato foundation, the project sought to explain the reasons behind that success.
More info here.
DigiPro: Internationally Scalable Business from Digitality (2016-2019)
The aim of the DigiPro project was to study and develop the expertise of Finnish SMEs for the international commercialisation of digital solutions by strengthening their ability to create scalable business models. The project was a parallel project between the University of Turku and LUT University. Tekes was the main funder of the project.
More info here.
Developing Social Entrepreneurial Skills in Higher Education (2021-2022)
SEinHE-project is an Erasmus+ strategic partnership project for developing social entrepreneurship education in five countries. SEinHE-project aims to raise awareness about social entrepreneurship and its benefits around higher education institutions’ community.
More info here.
LAB UX Center (2021-2023)
The project, funded by European Regional Development Fund, builds an e-applications usability laboratory that improves SMEs ability to take advantage ofdigitalisation and competitiveness in the e-commerce market. The idea of LAB UX Center is that SMEs can test their different user interface configurations and their usability (mobile application, e-commerce, physical device, etc.) with a low threshold.
More info here.
