Entrepreneurship has traditionally been taught about entrepreneurship. However, teaching entrepreneurship requires practice and learning by doing. Entrepreneurship education requires education through entrepreneurship where the students feel the real life of being an entrepreneur. The process of Design Thinking offers a method for teaching through entrepreneurship. This paper studies the didactic experiences from a course at Örebro University School of Business where entrepreneurship was taught using Design Thinking as a method, enabling the through dimension. Results from a survey show that Design thinking as a method benefits entrepreneurship education. Some of the key elements contributing to the understanding of entrepreneurship and the iterative approach was a study visit and interaction with stakeholders, a target group of elderly people.

This study aims to investigate the demand for business advisory services by owners of start-ups and young companies by taking a gender perspecitve. The study also examines whether risk-taking is more characteristic of masculine than feminine behaviour in this context. Design/methodA literature review examines business advisory services and risk aversion from a gender perspective. The empirical data are derived from interviews with owners of more than 2700 start-ups and young companies in Sweden. A number of key variables compare how the company owners (women and men) view business advisory services as a way to overcome risk and to gain access to information in networks. Several statistical tests are used to analyse these data. FindingsWomen owners of start-ups and young companies use more and different business advisory services than men owners. There are differences among the men owners and women owners as far as the amount of start-up capital, company size, and industry sector. Given the risks associated with start-up, business advisory services are important to women in helping them reduce their risk in the start-up and early stages of their companies. Research limitationCompanies in Sweden's largest city, Stockholm, were not included in the sample. Financial data were not used as variables. ImplicationsPolicy makers should address women owners' greater demand for business advisory services in their companies' early stages. Value/originalityThis study's originality is its gender perspective on the demand for business advisory services by startups and young companies, and its challenge to previous findings about entrepreneurial behaviour and risk taking.

Purpose Taking the entrepreneur’s perspective and a broad view of business advisory services, the purpose of this paper is to examine to what degree the need of business advisory services among Swedish start-ups, first-generation immigrants compared to non-immigrants, is fulfilled. Design/methodology/approach The sample data consist of a unique and comprehensive firm-level database and contain telephone interviews with 2,800 Swedish start-up entrepreneurs. The study examines 20 different kinds of business advice services, in terms of both need and use. Statistical methods such as Mann-Whitney test and regression analysis are used while controlling for entrepreneurial characteristics. Findings The findings suggest that immigrants’ compared to non-immigrants’ need for business advisory service was not fulfilled. Of the 20 different business advices, ten were fulfilled and ten were not fulfilled. Both strategic advice and operational advice were fulfilled as well as unfulfilled. Apart from ethnicity, other variables did influence the need of business advisory services. Research limitations/implications The author was not able to make comparisons between different immigrant groups. Practical implications This study offers an explorative approach that contributes on how business advisory services are differentially tailored between start-ups by immigrants and those by non-immigrants. It illustrates to what extent public- and/or private-funded organizations contribute to fulfilment of the needs of immigrant and non-immigrant start-ups. Originality/value Few studies take the entrepreneur’s perspective and from such a perspective examine the fulfilment of needs of advice regarding both private and public organizations role in the area. Both the need and the use of business advisory services are studied as well as the kind of business advice that is needed.

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The food sector has been targeted as a potential site for the implementation of circular economy strategies. Food packaging, in particular, has caused concern due to its high production volume, short usage time, and problems related to waste management and littering. Circular economy strategies could potentially address these concerns if there is consumer acceptance and participation in circular systems. The present review seeks to inform future studies of the need for further research in this area by reviewing current knowledge of consumer behavior in relation to circular food packaging. When doing so, the study finds that studies have primarily focused on recycling, foremost in the European and American setting. However, less is known about consumers and circular packaging in developing countries. While reuse strategies were more prevalent in studies from the 1970–1980s, the review finds that such initiatives are yet again researched, which is promising given their generally favorable environmental footprint.