To Örebro University

The food sector is a potential site for the implementation of circular economy strategies. Food packaging cause concern due to high production volume, short usage, problems of waste management and littering. Circular economy strategies could address these concerns if there is consumer acceptance and participation in systems with food packaging. We seek to review current knowledge of consumer behavior in relation to circular food packaging. The study finds that circular economy in terms of the recycling strategy, are found foremost in European and American setting. While reuse strategies were more prevalent in studies from 1970-80s, such initiatives have been renewed.  

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.

Purpose: The paper uses the construct of the liability of newness to identify how entrepreneurs of new and young companies use business advisory service in the start-up process of their micro-companies.

Design/methodology/approach:

Various statistical techniques were used to analyze aA sample of 2832 new and young companies were analysed. The empirical data derive from a survey of micro-companies in Sweden and their use of 20 kinds of business advisory services.

 Findings: Despite some similarities in the use of business service areas, the paper finds that new companies use more and different business advisory service areas than young companies. The paper examines these similarities and differences in detail.

Practical implications: This research adds to our knowledge on how business service providers (public and private) can tailor their offerings to new and young companies. In particular, these findings may be of interest to government policy makers and other relevant stakeholders as they allocate funds to publicly funded organizations that provide business advisory service.

Originality/value: The paper analyzes a broad range of business service areas used by new and young companies. This paper, which takes a user-perspective, contributes to the rather sparse research in this field because it examines business advisory service from the demand side rather than the supply side.

This study contributes to the understanding of how values promote and hinder circular consumer behaviour by examining and learning from the Swedish deposit-refund system for beverage cans and PET bottles. We have used the consumption value theory in our analysis, building on the concepts of circular economy, sustainable consumption and recycling. Data was collected from focus group interviews with young adults in order to identify and explore the ways that values promote and hinder participation. Functional values were found to be at the core of sustainable consumption as a result of financial incentives and the fact that consumers value convenience. The study also highlights the importance that young adults place on emotional values, in particular embarrassment, which hinders them from recycling. When it comes to sustainable consumption, young adults are driven by selfish behaviour, prioritising personal comfort. Social settings were also found to promote and hinder participation in the deposit-refund system. The study finds that an understanding of the reasons why different social groups and age groups approve or disapprove of participation in circular solutions may help design solutions to increase participation in circular solutions and circular economies. The results show that it is important to study the combinations of value dimensions to understand consumer behaviour in a circular system fully.

Under projektets gång har det funnits ett behov av att studera hur samverkan i forskning fungerar och hur forskare vid Örebro universitet ser på samverkan i forskningen. I uppdraget har därför jag intresserat mig för forskningssamverkan eftersom detta var särskilt prioriterat i projektet. Forskare på Örebro universitet har intervjuats liksom samverkanspartner till projektet för att förstå deras syn på samverkan i relation till universitet. Projektet har haft som mål att identifiera en ”Örebromodell” och avsikten var därför att bistå projektet och initiera en diskussion kring utvecklingen av sådan modell. 

Några av resultaten är att det finns ett behov av att skapa en gemensam förståelse för varandra och förväntningar som parterna kan ha på varandra. Samverkan kräver tid och engagemang och för att lyckas behövs resurser. Liknande projekt som detta är betydelsefullt för forskare, lärare och annan personal på Örebro universitet liksom för aktörer i regionen.  

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.

In the start-up entrepreneurs face the Liability of Newness when problems and challenges often threaten business survival. Business advisory service, provided by public and private supplier contacts, can offer important knowledge and information, accompanied by various forms of assistance, and thereby decrease the entrepreneurs’ risk of failure and reduce their Liability of Newness. However, it is difficult to match the entrepreneurs’ need for such advice with the available advice. The support must meet the need. Most nations in the European Union have programs and projects that provide such support for entrepreneurs and SMEs. Special programs often support female entrepreneurs and/or immigrant entrepreneurs.

This thesis examines the level and handling of the Liability of Newness with special focus on female entrepreneurs and immigrant entrepreneurs in Sweden. The four papers of this thesis take the perspective of these entrepreneurs. The research is based on a sample of 2 832 entrepreneurs who were interviewed (in a telephone survey) on their impressions and recollections on their need for and use of business advisory service in the start-up processes of their companies. Fulfilment of need is achieved when the need for business advisory service is matched with the right use of business advisory service.

Heterogeneities as far as the level and handling of the Liability of Newness exist related to female entrepreneurs (vs. male entrepreneurs) and immigrant entrepreneurs (vs. non-immigrant entrepreneurs). Female entrepreneurs have a higher need for business advisory service than male entrepreneurs and also use more business advisory service than male entrepreneurs. As a result, female entrepreneurs can decrease the hazard rate for their companies and also reduce the Liability of Newness as their companies move toward the standard risk in their industry. Immigrant entrepreneurs also have a higher need for business advisory service than non-immigrant entrepreneurs. However, because immigrant entrepreneurs use business advisory service to the same extent that non-immigrant entrepreneurs do, immigrant entrepreneurs are unable to decrease the hazard rate for their companies or to reduce the Liability of Newness.The thesis makes both theoretical, methodological and practical contributions.

The thesis may be of interest to government policy makers with its attention to the need and use of business advisory service by female entrepreneurs and immigrant entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship has traditionally been taught about entrepreneurship. However, teaching entrepreneurship requires practice and learning by doing. In entrepreneurship education students practice entrepreneurship by feeling the real life of being an entrepreneur. The process of Design Thinking offers a method for teaching through entrepreneurship (Kremel & Wetter-Edman, 2019).

Teaching Design Thinking requires interaction and in our entrepreneurship class we have used classroom workshops to attain interaction. With the pandemic we were faced with the challenge to interact using online teaching. 

A quick adaptation with the transition to distance education was an equality argument for me where I wanted to give all students the same opportunity to participate in education, regardless of whether you were in a risk group or not. It should not be decisive for the students to be able to assimilate the teaching, I thought. I absorbed learning in various online forums and lectures from Harvard education to be able to handle the new classroom that zoom then became. Something I learned in these forums was the importance of planning a lesson with more short steps to increase student engagement. Participating in zoom is particularly tiring and therefore working with shorter intervals of different nature, such as reviews, work in break-out rooms and reunions, I have understood contributes to commitment and thus students' learning (Roberto, 2021).

It was a challenge to plan for the interactions and workshops that we were expected to deliver to the students in the entrepreneurship course. I took plenty of time to plan all the steps in the smallest detail. Part of the work consisted of preparing the teaching and using the so-called flipped classroom, where I recorded a series of short lectures that the students watched before the lessons. It is important to keep the films short with a specific focus to create engagement (Roberto, 2021). We could then use the time efficiently when we were seen in zoom and the students had great opportunities to be well prepared. The zoom format also facilitated collaboration in teaching such as guest lectures. I was therefore able to invite guest lecturers who deepened the material for the students. During the course, we also found a new program that worked well for interacting online, Miro. Miro is specially created to make it easier for creative teams who want to interact on a common White board and where members can work remotely to each other. The result of our efforts was good. The students were committed and showed interest in their projects and education. It was especially fun to see pretty much all the students on the course participated regularly in our workshops and that we received good reviews in the course evaluation. 

The experiences from moving the interaction from the classroom to online teaching are multiple and we don’t want to go back. Online teaching opens new ways of teaching and engaging students and we like develop and refine our pedagogical tools for interaction online.   

References: 

Kremel, A., Wetter-Edman, K. (2019). Implementing design thinking as didactic method in entrepreneurship education, the importance of through. The Design Journal, 22 (Suppl. 1), 163-175. doi:10.1080/14606925.2019.1595855.

Roberto, M. (2021), Getting - and Then Keeping - Students Engaged, Webinar recording, Harvard Business Publishing Education. 

Projektet MISTEL har byggt upp en väl fungerande struktur och metod för hur tester kan genomföras. Nu när projektet överförs till Västerås stad som en del i Sociala nämndernas förvaltning tar staden ett betydelsefullt utökat steg i utvecklingen för att profilera sig inom området innovationer, vård och omsorg och för att underlätta för äldre och personer med funktionsnedsättning möjlighet till ett självständigt liv.

The study seeks to understand how small firms manage innovation and business development during the Covid-19 pandemic. The empirical data consists of telephone interview with 1 200 SMEs and nine in-depth interviews with firms from the high technology and restaurant/hotel industry. The analysis revealed that the basic conditions for firms are strikingly different in the service sector compared to the manufacturing industry. The restaurant and hotel actors were instantly and severely affected by Covid-19 and the negative effects of the pandemic applied for a longer time despite intensive innovation work. The situation in high-technology firms were radically different.

Drivna av det starka engagemanget för individen pågår inom studieförbund initiativ för att ta ett ökat samhällsansvar genom att pröva nya roller och skapa nya lösningar. I denna rapport beskriver och analyserar vi hur Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan Örebro län (SV Örebro län) genom projektet Matchning mot jobb prövar att utveckla och bredda rollen som välfärdsaktör. Projektet drevs under perioden oktober 2018 t om september 2020 inom ramen för Tillväxtverkets utlysning Enklare vägar till jobb och kompetens 2.0 och gav SV Örebro län möjligheten att pröva rollen som arbetsförmedlare och som komplement till kommuners SFI- undervisning i syfte att stödja nyanländas integration i samhället. Frågeställningen i vår rapport är Om och hur SV Örebro län kan utvecklas som välfärdsaktör?

En viktig lärdom av projektet är språkets betydelse för att nyanlända ska komma i jobb och de stora utmaningar som nyanlända har att erövra såväl det skriftliga som det talade svenska språket. Den lärdomen är tätt kopplad till insikten att SV Örebro län, genom den relationskapande studiecirkel pedagogiken, kan utgöra ett värdefullt komplement till SFI för just den gruppen som står längst från arbetsmarknaden att aktivt kunna delta i det svenska samhället. Denna roll ligger inom ramen för bildningsuppdraget och SV Örebro län har omfattande kompetens inom området tack vare den långa erfarenheten av att arbeta med målgruppen. Vi rekommenderar SV Örebro län att anta den rollen.

Rörande rollen som arbetsförmedlare rekommenderar vi organisation att ansvara för en dellänk i kedjan och samarbeta med andra aktörer för att lösa de komplexa utmaningar som matchning mot jobb innebär med grupper av individer som står långt ifrån arbetsmarknaden. Med den flexibilitet, det starka engagemanget för individens utveckling, och den snabba rörlighet att mobilisera initiativ för att lösa problem, utgör SV Örebro län inte bara en aktör som kan koppla samman och mobilisera processer inom den privata och offentliga sektorn, utan också mobilisera processer och aktörer inom den ideella sektorn.

With this study we synthesize academic knowledge about training methods in SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises). Training in SMEs have long been argued as important for business performance and growth. These efforts have been supported by governments and EU programs. Even though different training initiatives have been evaluated and studied during the years, there are no knowledge overview of the effects of training in SMEs. With this study we try to remedy this. The study also discusses how to conduct a literature review with the use of Zotero and Nvivo tools.

Objectives: This study seeks to synthesize academic knowledge about training in SMEs. 

Prior Work: Within the area of training and SMEs research has taken an interest in the effects of training, employee and or management training and implications for policy to foster growth. Literature reviews have taken different focus. A systematic literature review of this comprehensive area is still missing.  

Approach: This study uses a systematic literature review model to synthesize this area of research. 

Results: The study finds that the debate about training outcomes has interested research over the years and continues to interest scholars and policy. The field has been dominated by research from Europe and the UK. During the last few years, the research field has grown as researchers have taken an interest in empirics from countries in Asia. There are few studies using empirical data from the US or Canada. Studying training, researchers have taken an interest in government policy measures and initiatives. The study finds that EU funds have had a great influence on the research field of training and SMEs.  

Implications and value: With this study we will contribute to research by making visible what has been studied, to paint the big picture of training in SMEs, so to speak. The study outlines how the field has developed over the years and finds research gaps in literature which are valuable for future research, practitioners and policy. 

Much have been published about students cheating in higher education. Studies presented cover different theoretical areas, from psychology and criminology to philosophy and pedagogy. Some of these studies suggest that cheating students tend to develop into workforce with various kinds of unethical behaviour. For a sustainable working life, it is important that managers and workforce have a compass that leads them to behave ethically. This study, therefore, takes a deeper look into the area of ethics to find different aspects of ethics related to students cheating, working life and organisations. The contribution aims at creating academic knowledge about (un)ethical management in working life. We do this by conducting a systematic literature review about what cheating in higher education entails for working life and management. We use literature that has been initiated covering academic research published in peer-reviewed journals.

First the material was collected. This was done by conducting a search in Scopus which resulted in a total of 673 articles. For this search we used the search string; ethic* AND (work* OR student*) AND (dishonest* OR cheat*). In a first sorting out, these articles were narrowed down to 352 articles about ethics and cheating from the perspective of the student or workforce. A second reading of the articles resulted in a reduced sample of articles studying cheating in higher education and working life, management, workforce, and co-worker including. Including words were student, professional, organization, company, authority, and leader. To sort the articles from the search we used Zotero as a tool. 

In the study we present descriptive data about the selected literature and categorize different perspectives used in the review literature. The article concludes with suggestions on policy recommendations and suggestions for future research. 

This study explores the pressures leading students to academic dishonesty, presenting cheating as a survival strategy rather than an easy way out. Interviews were conducted with nine students convicted of academic misconduct. Through semi-structured interviews, the study identified three main pressure categories: Health & Self-esteem, Study Environment & Social Life, and Family & Culture.

Significant health issues, including chronic illnesses and mental health struggles, compounded by academic demands, created overwhelming stress for students. Family expectations, particularly in certain cultural contexts, added further pressure, with students feeling obligated to meet high academic standards set by their parents.

The findings suggest that cheating provides temporary relief from these pressures but often leads to additional stress and guilt. Some students reported feeling better after discussing their experiences during the interviews, indicating a lack of prior opportunities to process their actions.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these pressures by isolating students and disrupting their support systems, possibly explaining the increase in academic dishonesty during this period. The study calls for further research on students who habitually cheat but avoid detection, as they may have different support needs.

Overall, the study highlights the need for educational institutions to address the multifaceted pressures students face and develop strategies to reduce academic dishonesty.

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 Orebro 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.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the demand for business advisory services by owners of start-ups and young companies by taking a gender perspective. The study also examines whether risk-taking is more characteristic of masculine than feminine behaviour in this context.

Design/methodology/approach: A 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 2,700 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.

Findings: Women 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 with regard to 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 limitations/implications: Companies in Sweden’s largest city, Stockholm, were not included in the sample. Financial data were not used as variables.

Practical implications: Policymakers should address women owners’ greater demand for business advisory services in their companies’ early stages.

Originality/value: This study’s originality is its gender perspective on the demand for business advisory services by start-ups and young companies and its challenge to previous findings about entrepreneurial behaviour and risk-taking. 

The aim of this study is to examine the differences between native Swedish and immigrant entrepreneurs’ business networks at start-up  stage. The study is based on a database consisting of 261 immigrant- and  2,463 native-owned companies, applying several univariate and multivariate statistical methods. Immigrant entrepreneurs’ business networks are less likely to include mainstream contacts at the start-up stage than native born entrepreneurs. Thus, ethnicity is an important variable explaining differences in such networks at the start-up stage. A combination of both mainstream and immigrant networks has the potential to give rise to more growth for immigrant-owned businesses. As a result, these businesses may have potential to create new jobs for unemployed immigrants. This study provides a deeper understanding of how ethnicity may influence the entrepreneurs’ use of business networks. It may lead to policy makers considering access to mainstreaming networks as an important issue in the social and economic integration.