Leonardo Da Vinci Transfer of Innovation Project

Under the Lifelong Learning Programme

Project title Education in Strategic Management for SMEs managers/owners
Project number CZ/12/LLP-LdV/TOI/134004
Acronym ESM for SMEs
Project duration 24 months

Start date 12/2012
Total budget 260 742,50 EUR

Overview

Small and medium sized firms (SMEs) are the backbone of the EU economy, representing over 90 % of all registered companies, creating more than 65 % of jobs in the private sector and over 54 % of the overall value added (see Eurostat). Their sustainable development, competitiveness and growth are therefore one of the EU’s economic priorities (see the Small Business Act of the EC, 2008). Research (Beaver,2002, Laveren at al, 2002 or Mazzarol, 2004) though indicates, that SMEs do have an inborn weakness, that negatively impacts their long-term competitiveness - their managers and/or owners do not manage their firms strategically. One of the key reasons for this is that the SMEs owners and/or managers lack the necessary knowledge to be able to do so.

By transferring know-how from a L. da V. project "Business Transfer Project II; BTP II" of Jonchoping International Business School (Sweden; JIBS), focused onto online education of managers in the business transfer, we would like to create also an educational portal, that would allow the SMEs owners/managers to acquire new, practically focused, knowledge in strategic management of their firms. The transfer of innovation would, apart from other, lie in adopting the so-called online scoring approach (in the BTP II project called online screening tool) that would, apart from other, allow to identify the individual educational needs of the users and offer personalized online courses.

The platform would be available in four languages: ENG, CZE, SK and SW to make it available to the SMEs managers/owners in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Sweden and, thanks to English, also in the UK and elsewhere in the EU.

The consortium would be composed of an applicant - B.I.B.S., a.s., (Czech republic), Jonchoping International Business School (Sweden), that would provide the transferred know-how, School of Management (Slovakia), the Mendel University, the Association of SMEs and the POPAI association (the Czech republic).

Tangible outcomes of the project would be:

• the business transfer screening tool adjusted for the purpose of scoring and benchmarking in the area of strategic management,
• unique benchmarking data on SMEs strategic management from four EU countries,
• e-learning (curricula and teaching materials),
• an on-line scoring/benchmarking and e-learning platform,
• reports on qualitative and quantitative research phase,
• dissemination materials,

The intangible outcome of the proposed project would be improving the availability of vocational education, tailored to the specific needs of SMEs managers and owners (lack of time, need for strongly praxes-driven education etc.)
The envisaged impact is represented by better real knowledge and capabilities of SMEs owners/managers to improve strategic management in their firms, and their higher motivation for further education in strategic management.

Partners

Press Release

Strategic Management in small and medium-sized businesses: yes to systematic managerial approaches, however they cannot entirely replace the flexible and organic nature of management