Abstract
A stronger focus on entrepreneurship could be a smart strategy for countries that wish to successfully compete in a global market based on knowledge, innovation, and creativity. Higher education institutions are expected to be closer to society as well as to their stakeholders, which means not only that they are able to fulfil their traditional teaching and research mission, but also to trigger tactics and actions that promote solutions with high added value. In fact, new challenges arise, new responses are needed, and innovative approaches are required. This study presents a case study, an innovative co-creation model (students, facilitators, and companies) carried out by the Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, in Portugal, with its teachers and students, from all study cycles. The results point to the creation of a transformative mindset, based on knowledge and attitudes towards a holistic and sustainability-oriented style.
Top1. Introduction
The future is unsure, and entrepreneurship is a way of transitioning from living to succeeding (Devece, et al., 2016; Obschonka, 2016), requiring skills, knowledge and attitudes oriented towards a holistic and a sustainability-driven style (Tassabehji & Isherwood, 2014; Nickols, 2016). Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are important players in the dynamics of the knowledge economy (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000; Hadad, 2017), delivering qualified human capital to society, significantly developing efforts to research, and transferring knowledge while creating economical value.
The HEIs’ role has been evolving and it is expected that nowadays their activities involve not only education, research, development, and innovation, but also social engagement with the surrounding society (Laredo, 2007; Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020). HEIs thus assume a more active role in regional and national economic development, while facing competition from other HEIs and from public and private research, both at national and international levels (Ribeiro et al., 2018). In the future, HEIs are expected to evolve and become engines of societal change. They will deliver an open, transformative platform for shared knowledge production through research, education, innovation, and culture. Jointly with other societal stakeholders, they will shape the future of a knowledge-driven society (European University Association, 2021).
Students seem to be interested in playing a more active role in their educational experience as partners (Bovill & Felten, 2016), as they need to find value in their degrees for present and future needs, regarding employment concerns and growing tuition fees (Tomlinson, 2014). More than ever, it is crucial to develop innovative methodologies able to encourage students and teachers to bring Higher Education closer to the labour market and increase the consciousness of tomorrow's leaders to the prerequisite of building a sustainable future (Dieguez, 2021). However, HEIs are responsible for developing employability attributes that enable lifelong learning and foster it, as well as provide a full variety of possible developments connected with entrepreneurship education (Barnett, 2017), even if the main goal of most entrepreneurship education rests on the development of entrepreneurial skills (Dieguez, 2017).
This chapter presents a co-creation model driven in the 1st Batch of the DEMOLA Project in the Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave (IPCA), in Portugal, where Higher Education students, supervised by teachers/ facilitators, from all the study cycles, work together with the public, private and third sector organizations to solve their problems in a multidisciplinary and multicultural environment. The co-creation model was developed by DEMOLA Global, a Finnish company whose goal is pedagogical innovation and strengthening the community's bond.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Co-Creation: A new paradigm of management research, which allows organizations and consumers to create value through interaction, as interaction in co-creation allows consumers to obtain better service quality, customization, and control.
Innovation: Is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational approach in business practices, workplace organization or external relations.
Sustainable Development: Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Sustainable entrepreneurship is a business strategy focused on increasing value for society, the environment and the company or business.
Social Responsibility: Social responsibility is an ethical theory in which individuals are accountable for fulfilling their civic duty, and the actions of an individual must benefit the whole of society. In this way, there must be a balance between economic growth and the welfare of society and the environment. If this equilibrium is maintained, then social responsibility is accomplished.
HEIs Third Mission: To actively contribute to economic, technological, and social advancements by producing human, social and entrepreneurial capital.
DEMOLA Project: Innovative platform that allows an HEI-Industry collaboration for the co-creation of new products and services, using multidisciplinary teams of students, supervised by professors (facilitators), working together with private, public or third sector organisations on their challenges.
Entrepreneurship: It is a way of thinking, reasoning, and acting that is obsessed in opportunity, all-inclusive in method and where leadership is connected to create and retain value.
Social Entrepreneurship: a novel activity that intends to create producer surplus by reducing negative externalities and/or creating positive externalities via the incorporation of the core of social as well as entrepreneurship constructs.
Entrepreneurial Mindset: A set of skills that enable people to identify and make the most of opportunities, overcome and learn from setbacks, and succeed in a variety of settings.