Three stage maturity model in SME's towards Industry 4.0

Purpose: To address the challenges regarding the concept of Industry 4.0 and the diversification methodology and based on the strategic guidance towards Industry 4.0, we propose a process model as a guiding framework for Industry 4.0 collaborative diversification vision, strategy and action building. In this paper we suggest a stage process model to guide and train companies to identify new opportunities for diversification within Industry 4.0. Systematically carrying out the stages will take a company to their individual specific vision and collaborative vision between different companies in the Industry 4.0 scenario. Design/methodology/approach: This new collaborative diversification methodology involves industry within the pilot program; from the diversification and capacity assessment analysis of the company`s profile, skills and technologies that dominates, to identify the diversification opportunity map and its business modeling within the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Findings: The application of maturity models to the Industry 4.0 may help organizations to integrate this methodology into their culture. Results show a real need for guided support in developing a company-specific Industry 4.0 vision and specific project planning. Originality/value: Industry 4.0 promotes a vision where recent developments in information technology are expected to enable entirely new forms of cooperative engineering and manufacturing. The vision of industry 4.0 describes a whole new approach to business operations, and especially the production industries. To address the challenges regarding the concept of Industry 4.0 and the diversification methodology discussed above, and based on the strategic guidance towards Industry 4.0 (Erol, Schumacher & Sihn, 2016), we propose a unique process model as a guiding framework for Industry 4.0 collaborative diversification vision, strategy and action building

A performance-based taxonomy of entrepreneurial universities

The European higher education landscape has experienced dramatic changes in the last decades and the entrepreneurial university has turned into a potential solution to these perceived problems. Therefore, this paper proposes taxonomy of entrepreneurial universities. Based on a cluster analysis, three distinct groups are identified, within different phases of the transformation into an entrepreneurial university: one group of universities is in the first phase of the path, since they are not obtaining high entrepreneurial university results yet; another group is in the second phase of the path, obtaining good results in hard academic entrepreneurship activities; and, finally, the last group is composed of the most entrepreneurial universities. Moreover, universities are not motionless within a specific group, they can improve and move from one stage to the upper one; indeed, this paper shows the main levers for moving from one stage to another

Factors fostering students’ spin-off firm formation

Purpose: – The university is an institution with a long history and, over the course of the centuries, it has gone through several stages in its development. While initially conceived as an institution with a teaching “mission,” the university later adopted a knowledge generation function (research). In recent years, the idea has emerged that the university is assuming a “third mission”: contributing to society and economic development more directly; turning the university into an Entrepreneurial University. What, however, constitutes this Entrepreneurial University? Are all Entrepreneurial Universities composed of the same factors? The purpose of this paper is to answer these significant questions, through an empirical analysis performed on a sample of 59 Northern and Southern European universities. Design/methodology/approach: – Empirical analysis performed on a sample of 59 Northern and Southern European universities. Findings: – The findings show that students’ spin-off firm formation is the only different result for an Entrepreneurial University between Northern and Southern European universities and that the core internal entrepreneurship support factors are different for both geographical locations. Originality/value: – Besides, regarding external entrepreneurship support factors, results show that a supportive institutional context is a core element for promoting internal entrepreneurship support factors and in turn for increasing students’ spin-off firm formation in both Northern and Southern universities