Entrepreneurial management education needs in the Republic of Croatia, Poland and the United Kingdom
Authors: Dabic Marina , Vlajcic Davor , Novak Ivan 
Published: August 2016

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to take the emergence of the knowledge mobilization as an opportunity to develop an understanding of needs for catching up appropriate knowledge application in SMEs in the Republic of Croatia, Poland and the UK. It draws upon the “frame mobilization” literature, which illuminates the role that acts as interpretation play in instigating, promoting and legitimating collective action with aim to provide “quality entrepreneurial education”.

Design/methodology/approach

– A questionnaire survey based on a literature review built by Stimulating Learning for Ideas to Market (SLIM) project partner was employed to test the given perspective. A total of 380 businesses completed the survey from 12 to 20, November 2013. Participants have different profiles, act in diverse roles and industrial sectors. Identification of appropriate types of support, education, training and advice was made to recognize what small businesses need and can use to improve their operations.

Findings

– Empirical research evidence conducted among entrepreneurs, 213 were from Croatia, 100 were from Poland and 67 were from the UK, respectively. Results identified the nature of management education according SMEs’ needs to increase innovative activities and intellectual property adapting a more business-like approach, scanning the horizon and identifying new markets and opportunities for growth. It discussed the impacts of formal and informal ways of intellectual property protection in sales and exports market (SLIM) project partner was employed to test the given perspective.

Research limitations/implications

– Main limitation lay in unequal sample response among countries. However, results proofed very similar response in all questions among three countries even size, entrepreneurial development, GDP or historical background are highly different.

Practical implications

– Therefore, the original contribution of the paper lies in the authors’ empirical investigations into the current thinking and practice of existing entrepreneurs by suggesting some implications of this point, which should be of interest to all stakeholders who design courses in IP and who engage in social mobilization.

Social implications

– There are important organizational culture barriers with this target group, such as the emphasis on the need to publish and an unstable/unavailable IP budget. The integration of IP tools into curricula is an important step to improving the use of IP tools by future researchers. There is an indisputable case for integrating IP as an R
&
D output and increasing the valuation of IP for academic promotion.

Originality/value

– This paper illustrates the current challenges on SMEs’ educational needs and intellectual property rights carried out in among 380 entrepreneurs across the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of Poland and the UK. Most intriguing suggestion, perhaps, is that the role knowledge cooperation with universities may play as a breaking point to fully exploit SMEs’ innovative potential. Surprisingly, needs for establishing a classification of diverse IP-management and collaboration-management tools useful in university-enterprise collaborations, within a general context of IP and open innovation has not been recognized.