SeAMK improving the Resilience of Regions and SMEs by boosting Entrepreneurship and Growth

SeAMK considers entrepreneurship as a key factor in regional resilience. Entrepreneurship is a force for innovation, resilient growth, and positive social and economic change. SeAMK develops entrepreneurship competence of students, staff and entrepreneurs in the region, as it is ‘a competence for life, relevant to personal development and fulfilment, finding and progressing in employment, as well as initiating new ventures’ as stated in the EntreComp Framework.

Students with strong entrepreneurial intentions are identified at SeAMK with the help of the Entre Intention -tool. The entrepreneurship intentions are further supported by Y-Zone Business Hub and SeAMK Cooperative, where business ideas and operations can be developed and tested. Under development is the SeAMK Digital Business Lab, which brings together SMEs, teachers and students over digitalization projects. For small firms, the Lab is a low-threshold entry into digitalization.

Renewal and dynamics are boosted through business transfers. Business transfers are essential to the vitality and performance of entrepreneurship ecosystem and national economies. In addition to transfers of aging entrepreneurs’ businesses, sales of business increasingly occur among younger buyers and sellers as well. This shows that business transfers are becoming a more important and more natural part of SMEs strategic development and growth. SeAMK’s RDI is focusing on building the best ecosystem for business transfers.

SeAMK plays an important role in the regional entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ecosystems. SeAMK acts as a catalyst in these ecosystems and has three mainstreams in growth entrepreneurship research – antecedents of growth, growth process and growth outcome. Digitalization of SMEs is also at the core of SeAMK’s RDI as it creates new opportunities for start-ups, scale-ups and existing SMEs for growth. The importance of green and inclusive growth is continuously growing and therefore SeAMK supports SMEs in transitioning to a resource-efficient, low-carbon economy and preserving environmental resources while seizing the economic opportunities that this transition generates. In summary, SME growth has been strongly facilitated in South Ostrobothnia during recent years by developing growth ecosystem in the region. Based on the SME-barometer in South Ostrobothnia in 2019 around 34 per cent of the firms are growth oriented.

More detailed information about SeAMK supporting Resilience of Regions and SMEs can be found here.

Written by:

Anmari Viljanmaa
Principal Lecturer

Sanna Joensuu-Salo
Principal Lecturer

Anne-Maria Mäkelä
Senior Advisor, International R&D

Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, SeAMK