The COWLECTIVE project promotes social inclusion by providing tools to VET teachers addressing entrepreneurs so that their projects have a positive social impact, encouraging them to become social entrepreneurs.
The first pillar of this project refers to the definition of the competences that entrepreneurs need in a European framework to properly configure and implement their business with a positive social impact and to achieve the desired profile of an efficient and qualified entrepreneur.
For this, European research was conducted among 5 European countries: Denmark, Spain, Italy, Greece and Poland between January and March 2021.
This report is a public document that is aimed at supporting VET trainers in their educational practice, in the first instance. Thanks to the main findings of this report, we expect VET teachers, trainers to engage with potential entrepreneurs or assess already established entrepreneurs and co-workers, to gain a better understanding of the existing training needs in the social entrepreneurship field. We also expect entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs themselves to raise awareness about their training needs. In this report, trainers will be able to get a general overview and detailed information, country per country and skill by skill, about the different competences that entrepreneurs and teachers themselves consider as key to successful entrepreneurship, and the main needs related to social entrepreneurship education. Rather than being a static tool, this innovative report allows you not only to view the graphs but also to interact with the data by filtering it. This makes it easier to discuss in the VET sector, while also having the possibility to compare cultural differences.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Information on the educator profile
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Questions about skills and attitudes needed to be a successful (social) entrepreneur
- Do you consider yourself a social entrepreneur?
- How important are the following skills and attitudes to become a successful entrepreneur?
- In your opinion, what are the key elements that a social entrepreneur should focus on?
- Are you familiar with the UN Sustainable Development Goals?
- Which one of the following goals, according to your perception, are the most needed by society?
- Which ones are you more likely to pursue within your business?
- Which ones are you more likely to pursue within your business?
- As a social entrepreneur, how would you identify the societal problems that you would intend to address through your entrepreneurial activity?
- As a social entrepreneur, where and how would you seek for the solutions to these social problems identified?
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Questions on the training needs
- What do you think about your own current level of knowledge, skills, and competences in the following areas
- How did you learn about those skills?
- How do you think that entrepreneurs should learn about the following skills?
- What would be, in your opinion, the best way to upskill in a continuous vocational education context?
Information on the educator profile
While the respondents from Denmark were mostly men, when in all other countries, more female than men answered to the survey. Slightly above the half of respondents were women in Greece and Poland, when about 2/3 of respondents from Spain and Italy were women. While the state of the art showed that most entrepreneurs are males, this result is surprising with regards to the expectations. In total 162 women (62,5%) and 97 men (37,5%) answered the survey.
Ranks from 26-35 and 36-50 were the most represented by the respondents in all countries. In Denmark, over 2/3 of respondents were 26-35, while the rest of countries had about 1/3 of respondents from this age. In Spain, Greece and Italy, about half of the respondents were aged 36 – 50 years.
Most respondents from Denmark and Greece indicated that they are not entrepreneurs yet, but that they want to become entrepreneurs. Italy was the countries with most experienced entrepreneurs, followed by Poland and Spain.
Most of the respondents came from the creative industries, including communication, new technologies and design. An important part of Italian entrepreneurs also cam from the architecture and construction sectors.
In general, the partnership achieved about 30% of respondents working occasionally or most of their time in a coworking time, this number being slightly below the objective marked by the research. In Denmark, the answer that got most votes was in a coworking space, while in the rest of countries, most of respondents were in an office, excepted for Spain were most respondents were working from home (which can also be explained by COVID-19 context).
In all countries except Poland, more than the half of respondents consider themselves as social entrepreneurs. In Italy and Spain, about ¾ of respondents think that they are social entrepreneurs. In Poland, only 44% declared that they are social entrepreneurs.
Questions about skills and attitudes needed to be a successful (social) entrepreneur
In this question, respondents were asked to assess skills and attitudes that are important to become a successful entrepreneur. In general, all skills and attitudes quoted were rated as fundamental and important by a majority of respondents. Higher scores were allocated to fundamental and important in Denmark, Spain, Italy and Greece for all skills, while a majority of respondents considered the proposed skills as important or good to know in Poland. In the details, Motivation, Vision, taking the initiative and coping with ambiguity, uncertainty and risk were the skills considered as most important in the majority of countries. Technical skills and self-awareness are the skills that obtained the lowest scores.
In this question, respondents were asked to assess the importance of elements, that a social entrepreneur should focus on. The three major motivation behind the social entrepreneurship in all countries should be having a cause, the positive social impact on the local environment and the fight for social justice. In most countries, the philanthropic initiative was considered as the most irrelevant.
In this question, respondents were asked to answer a question about their familiarity of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. There is an important disparity between the countries to this question. When in Spain, a large majority (84%) of respondents know the SDG, and about ¾ in Denmark and Italy, these goals are much less known in Poland (54% of positive answers) and Greece (less than 40% of positive answers).
In this question, the list of 17 sustainable goals established by the UN was presented and respondents were asked to assess, according to their perception, which goals are the most needed by society. SDG1 & 2 (No poverty and Zero hunger), SDG 4 (quality Education), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Decent work), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities) and 13 (climate action) were considered as the most important gaols needed by the society surrounding the entrepreneurs participating in this survey.
In this question, the participants were asked to assess, which of the SDG goals they would like to pursue within their business. The answer obtained differed from the previous question, as in this case, entrepreneurs mostly chose goals that can be addressed by their business at their levels. No poverty and zero hunger are no more among the most important. The SDG that they would address would be decent work (SDG8), quality education (SDG4), gender equality (SDG5), sustainable consumption (SDG12) and climate action (SDG13).
In this question, the participants were asked to assess how they would identify the societal problems, that they would intend to address through their entrepreneurial activity. In most countries, most respondents intend to solve social problems in their local environment, by observing local life. Conversations with peers and by opportunity, detecting where you could turn a social problem into a business opportunity come right behind. The less relevant options were reading the news.
The participants were asked to give an answer to the following question: As a social entrepreneur, where and how would you seek for the solutions to these societal problems identified. 3 answers are predominant in all countries: Formal and informal training, with a slight preference for the informal training; and contracting experts in the field.
In this question, the participants were asked to evaluate their current level of knowledge regarding some of the skills and competences already approached in the previous parts of the questionnaire. 1 was the lowest level and 5 the highest. The average level in the competences assessed is between 3 and 4. The general soft skills and into action are the skills with major scores, meaning that entrepreneurs are more confident in their aptitude regarding those elements. (Except for Poland where into action has lower score) On the other side, the lesser known would be the social business models, the circular processes and the sustainable development goals related skills.
Questions on the training needs
In this question, the participants were asked to answer where exactly they learned the skills that they have. The answers given show a clear relevance of personal interests and readings as an important source of learning about the topics mentioned. Except for Italy and Poland, where most respondents choose the informal training option, the rest of countries show a preference for this “autodidactic” way of learning. It is also interesting to notice that only few of these competences are addressed by formal initial or continuous training programmes.
In this question, respondents were asked to assess where entrepreneurs should learn their skills. It is interesting to observe a contrast between the place where entrepreneurs actually learnt their skills (personal interest and self-education), and the place where they think they should learn. Here, the preferred answer was for continuous education and training in formal and informal framework, thus showing that entrepreneurs would appreciate to have access to a framed education rather than “training by readings”.
About the best way of upskilling in a C-VET context, an important part of the respondents recognises the value of peer learning and learning by doing, through the experience, which were the main options chosen by most countries. In Poland, participants preferred the on-line learning platform. Books are the less popular.