Marketing Communication Innovativeness of European Entrepreneurs

Website: http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb07/institute/ibwl/personen-fachgebiete/wagner-prof-dr/marciee.html

UNIPV structure involved: Department of Economics and Management

UNIPV Team: Prof. Birgit Hagen

Project Duration: 36 months

Start Date: 01 Sep 2014                                           End Date: 31 Aug 2017

Coordinator: Universität Kassel

Partners: Universita Degli Studi Di Pavia; Budapest Business School; Haskoli Island; Universidad de Leon; Vaasan Yliopisto; Universita Degli Studi Di Trento; IAE Savoie Mont-Blanc; tichting Hogeschool Utrecht

Budget: € 404.090,00
 

The importance of entrepreneurs is significant for the economic development the European economies and it has been documented in many cases. The development of particular competences are crucial in the preparation and the process of creation. Nevertheless, the existing education of universities provides a limited preparation for these challenges. Entrepreneurs have the chance to differentiate themselves from established competitors in the market with the help of a conversational communication. The new digital communication services in the field of social media provide the entrepreneurs with excellent possibilities to address their clients regardless of limited resources and cultural boundaries. The already existing support services for entrepreneurs are not enough because of the innovativeness of modern communication services. Besides, entrepreneurs often are innovators in their domain, trained insufficiently with regard to the address of new clients and customer relationship management and they are not familiar with the use of modern technologies in support of these processes. Moreover, the work of an increasing number of start-ups is not limited to national markets, but is working internationally (so-called born globals). On the one hand, the situation of entrepreneurs becomes more difficult, because divergent cultural contexts make high demands on the creation of their activities. On the other hand, several possibilities might open up for entrepreneurs, especially from the transition economies of the new member states and entrepreneurs stemming from economically difficult environments such as some south European economies. The aim of the strategic partnership is to strengthen the innovativeness of European entrepreneurs and to professionalize their intercultural communication and marketing activities in order to establish competitive advantages in opposite to non-European entrepreneurs. All of the participating universities offer consultant and support services for entrepreneurs in which they point out possibilities of funding and offer assistance for the creation of business plans for instance. Hence, an excellent supervision and mentoring by the lecturers can be ensured. Within the preparing seminars and intensive programs, the participating students will be prepared for challenges connected with a possible self-employment and they have the opportunity to get to know the expert dialogue in an intercultural context. This process is accompanied by a complementary research seminar for doctoral students. The international cooperation of doctoral students, post-docs and other interested researchers in this seminar makes it not only possible for them to have access to data from different European nations, but also to learn how to cope with intercultural challenges. These are referring to the contents of research activities (e.g. equivalence of scales in the intercultural comparison) and to the different research traditions, processes and theoretical explanations which are used in the particular culture. The development of a common European doctoral program could be a possible outcome of the developing network of researchers within the activity. Therefore more advantages of the international cooperation could be created. The knowledge which will be prepared and compiled in this project will be made useful by creating reports for entrepreneurs for example or by publishing the results for entrepreneur centers, politicians and decision-makers in administrations. On the one hand, students can improve their professional qualification; on the other hand they can act as multipliers for the development of the educational and economic market. Participating doctoral students, post-docs as well as other attending researchers benefit as well from the close collaboration with other researchers in a strong network across cultural restrictions.