Understanding the structure, development, and growth of entrepreneurship societies in Finnish higher education institutions

Abstract

Entrepreneurship societies, albeit belonging to an emerging field of entrepreneurship, rather remains an unexplored but highly interesting phenomenon. Among thousands of entrepreneurial clubs and societies supported by higher education institutions worldwide, the country coverage of this thesis research is Finland. Out of 13 universities in Finland, this thesis brings empirical evidence from 10 entrepreneurship societies, aiming at providing answers to the three research questions: 1) How are entrepreneurship societies within Finnish universities built?; 2) How should entrepreneurship societies be developed to ensure sustainability?; and 3) How do entrepreneurship societies stimulate their community members to create community value (initial engagement in ESs value) and sustain towards a final value (grown value after being an ES member) to ensure system cohesiveness and stability?. To answer the research questions, a qualitative and inductive methodology, followed by empirical data from multiple case studies has been undertaken, from primary (survey and semi-structured interviews) and secondary data collection sources. Qualitative data analysis Software NVivo was utilized to sort and organize the data while thematic analysis has been used for the data analysis. This research’s findings portray entrepreneurship societies as serving and exampling organizations for prosperous initiatives that are brought up and led by students, for aspiring young entrepreneurs around the world.