Entrepreneurship training for new ventures

Abstract

Several studies in the field of international entrepreneurship have indicated the inadequacy of public policy support for new ventures and called for more tailored training programs. This paper introduces a training program created for new ventures in Central Finland and analyzes its benefits and shortcomings using a qualitative case study.The findings reveal that the training program provided useful knowledge on how to develop a business further and how to make it understandable and attractive to a funder.However, the findings also indicate that there is a need for cultural adaptation: the training program developed originally for U.S. new ventures was not fully adapted for the needs of Finnish entrepreneurs. The program mainly focused on risk taking, raising funds from capital markets in the U.S., and entering into the U.S market soon after the establishment. This was in contrast to the Finnish entrepreneurs' strategies: they preferred to grow their business in a more controlled and profitable manner. Thus, although knowledge-intensive new ventures operate in global environments, the training provided for them should take into account the cultural differences and the local way of doing business. Keywords: Entrepreneurship training, new ventures, international entrepreneurship, small firms, Finland 2 IntroductionResearch related to rapidly internationalizing, knowledge-intensive SMEs has been of increasing interest since 1990s. These firms, known as "international new ventures" (INVs) or "born globals" seek for growth opportunities and resources in international markets very early on in their life-cycle (Bell et al. 2003;Oviatt and McDougall 1994).This phenomenon has also been boosted by the rapid expansion of global venture capital funding in the millennium shift (see e.g., Green 2004).As it is commonly known, these kinds of firms are very beneficial to the local economy as they create most of new jobs, open new market sectors, and develop new products and services. For instance, in the OECD countries, over 95 percent of all firms are SMEs and they employ 60 -70 percent of workforce (OECD 2000). These SMEs are increasingly becoming involved in technology-intensive industries to reach for global markets with their innovative products. However, there are also many constraints that might hinder or even prevent small firms in their attempts to reach the opportunities available for them in foreign markets. These include, for instance, the lack of financial and human resources and skills needed in their local services. For these reasons, researchers have called for more tailored institutional support and training to facilitate the growth of small and innovative new ventures (Bell 1997;Bell et al. 2003Bell et al. , 2004Crick and Spence 2005;Dimitratos and Jones 2003;Rialp et al. 2005;Spence 2003). In Central Finland, we answered to this request by implementing a training program for our local growth- Internationalization of new venturesIn the late 1980s, researchers (e.g., Ganitsky 1989;McDougall 1989) Howe...

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