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Drawing on current development practice and literature on Entrepreneurial support organizations (ESO), such as accelerators, incubators, and labs, this chapter explores how refugees in Uganda are supported through entrepreneurial approaches. Following an exploratory method, interviews were conducted with proprietors and managers of ESO in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. The findings show that while the majority of these organizations purport to follow an innovation discourse, in reality, they support refugees through a mixture of inclusion, resilience, and innovation-led approaches. Inclusion-led approaches focus on basic language skills, establishing peer relationships, and access to survival essentials. Resilience-led approaches nurture livelihood skills, building community ties, and access to seed-corn grants. Innovation-led approaches develop entrepreneurial skills, establishing extra-local connectivity and access to micro-finance. This chapter highlights the critical importance of inclusion and resilience-led approaches in developing supportive ESO for refugees.

Emerging technologies embody innovation; acquisition of flexible skills (technology-agnostic) makes new graduates more employable. Social media is one such technology. Although emerged as a leisure communication medium, it has reached business and entrepreneurial spaces. Yet, few business schools maintain an innovation-led approach to teaching their graduates (particularly destined for leadership roles such as MBAs) social networking skills. In addition to career management opportunities reflected through social capital formation, social network has the potential to serve as knowledge accumulation platform and enable lifelong learning. This chapter proposes such framework and opens further questions for researchers for investigation.

This paper proposes the concept of sustainability as a forward looking strategic intent of the organizations, which requires financing capabilities and investment. We structure the relationship between financial capabilities, product-led and process-led innovation approaches and corporate financial performance, in particular, we attempt to answer an important question: is sustainability-corporate performance relationship contingent upon the access and use of the financial resources?

We used a sample of Top 100 Sustainable global companies and tested several hypotheses regarding the likely financing policies of sustainable firms underlying their product-led and process-led sustainability approaches and financial performance.

Our results show that investment in R&D and capital expenditures provide a reasonable prediction of financing strategy chosen by the sample companies. Furthermore, our findings show that surplus (deficit) in financial capabilities influence the financing trajectory of the companies. Our results show that financial capabilities of companies, that is, financing choice (conservative vs. aggressive) matter for sustainable development, and sustainability-corporate performance relationship is contingent upon the use of financial resources.

These findings imply that organizations should rethink themselves and be encouraged to evaluate their own progress on the path of sustainability in terms of protection of the environment and the advancement of those communities in which they operate.

This paper develops a classification of global companies’ sustainable development approaches using their investment in R&D and capital expenditures. Furthermore, we also develop classification of companies using their financing capabilities, that is, surplus (deficit) to highlight their impact on the sustainable-corporate performance link.

Despite the economic downturn, the Northern Ireland agri-food sector has remained resilient experiencing export growth, particularly in emerging economies. The sector recognises that to maintain its competitive advantage in both existing and new markets it will require a business strategy focused on product, service and process innovation. The purpose of this paper is to explore how firms within the sector consider how this will impact upon future skills and training needs and identifies where the industry considers the appropriate policy interventions are required.

A survey was undertaken to explore how innovation and technology adoption within the agri-food and drinks sector is impacting on educational and skills requirements. In total, 30 companies were interviewed, providing representation from all the food and drinks sub-sectors and covering at least 50 per cent of employee numbers in each sub-sector. The survey focuses on current and future skills requirements for specific cohorts of employees in the sector; specifically those who have undertaken further full-time training beyond minimum school leaving age. In addition, it aimed to seek employer feedback on those entering the labour market for the first time.

The results support the need for strong intermediate levels of educational attainment. In addition, the acquisition of work-related generic skills is essential for creating a more “flexible” and multi-skilled workforce. Up-skilling programmes, particularly for lower to mid-level management roles, will become increasingly important in the future. Experience gained through work placement and vacation and weekend work is viewed very positively. Companies expressed a greater need for engagement between the further and higher education sectors and industry in relation to the content, design and delivery of educational programmes to adequately meet the needs of the sector.

At a time when government is looking to growth in the private sector to stimulate economic growth in the wider economy, this paper highlights the skills and training challenges which have emerged within the Northern Ireland agri-food sector, in response to business strategies which are more focused on product, service and process innovation.

Higher productivity in the potato value chain in Rwanda requires good quality seed potatoes. The article analyzes how innovations were introduced in the framework of a development project resulting in a partnership between a firm and two educational institutions to produce better seed potatoes, using the Triple Helix approach.

In the Triple Helix model government, academia and the private sector work together to develop and introduce innovations. This led to producing and introducing improved seed potatoes at an affordable price through a public private partnership (PPP). Interviews with experts and a survey of local producers were carried out to identify factors influencing the success of the partnership.

A Service, Training and Innovation Center (STIC) has been created to produce the first clean potato seeds in Africa on a commercial scale, based on cultivation of in vitro potato plantlets and aeroponics to produce mini-tubers. It is called Seed Potato Advancement Centre, an education–enterprise partnership, using these plantlets to produce mini-tubers through aeroponics. Seed multipliers are responsible for the next three stages of seed multiplication. The final product is the certified potato, sold to ware potato farmers. The availability of disease-free seed potatoes in Rwanda gives a boost to the potato value chains and contributes to food security. The partnership was successful because of the support from the government and donors, with the private sector and the extension services helping to implement the innovations effectively.

The limitation is that the number of experts interviewed is limited and the survey did not only deal with potato-related activities. The focus is on one region only, but the most important potato growing area in Rwanda.

STICs function as a tool for cooperation between government, private sector and the knowledge sector to achieve commercial and development goals. They function as a channel for technology transfer. They allow applied research, including agronomic research; information collection; and dissemination, networking, training, organization of outreach activities. The model can be repeated in other sectors and countries.

The paper looks at a PPP in agriculture with educational institutions. Second, the Triple Helix and value chain literature is used to study the introduction and implementation of appropriate innovations, while factors determining the success of the partnership were identified. This concerns the first production of clean seed potatoes in Africa on a commercial scale.

This chapter aims to investigate how a range of emerging trends within the international community can be used to build a connective educational ecosystem based on an inclusive and universal process (Biggeri et al., 2017; Ziegler, 2017). The starting question is: how multidisciplinary teams in Italy could take action toward inclusive education?

Partnering is becoming a central system organization strategy for schools to adopt for successful innovative teams with creative educational ideas (Kelly et al., 2002), and here it is declined in the Italian context in which inclusive education was officially embraced in 1977 as a national policy (D'Alessio, 2011). National legislation (104/92 Law) made explicit the mandate that students with disabilities receive their education (to the maximum extent possible) with nondisabled peers in the general education classroom using appropriate supplemental aids and services in the least-restrictive environment (Anastasiou et al., 2015; Canevaro & de Anna, 2010).

It is crucial to encourage new forms of practice which require collaboration capabilities (Hattie, 2015; Vangrieken et al., 2015) between multidisciplinary teams that comprised general teachers, special education teachers, health professionals, school psychologists, school leaders, and the students' family (Meirink et al., 2010). These resources could be distributed across inclusive ecosystems to support all students by enabling them to prosper in an increasingly diversified and complex environment in which creativity, ability to innovate, entrepreneurship, and a commitment to continuous learning are joint and connective (EU, 2008). This creates a state of positive multiagency collaboration that promotes the well-being of students and the system.

Business excellence relies heavily upon sustainable innovation. Still, sustainable innovation is an emerging concept in business practices and has yet to reach a common perception among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study aims to address sustainable innovation in SMEs and the factors driving sustainable innovation development.

An exploratory study was conducted to gain insight into the emerging concept of sustainable innovation in the SMEs’ context. Empirical evidence was collected from five case studies. Twenty-five interviews were conducted.

This study findings show that SMEs have different ways of understanding sustainable innovation, resulting in different approaches to integrate sustainable innovation into their business. In SMEs, sustainable innovation may not be a fixed concept due to its ambiguous boundaries and various ways of understanding. External and internal factors are driving SMEs’ sustainable innovation. It depends mainly on organizational culture and the capabilities of SMEs and their members in terms of cooperation and integration in work teams, conditions to achieve consensus, articulation of activities, coherence and commitment to the firms’ objectives. These factors collide and enhance each other and positively impact SMEs’ sustainable innovation.

The scientific relevance of this study lies in the integration of sustainable innovation research in the context of SMEs. There has been limited exploration of how SMEs perceive and engage in sustainable innovation and the factors that drive sustainable innovation development outside of large firms. This study empirically explored the concept of sustainable innovation in the context of SMEs to understand underlying factors related to sustainable innovation.