Business Leaders’ Mindset and Firms’ Capabilities Change Towards the Adoption of Technology and Innovation Through Government Sponsored Entrepreneurial Training Programs: The Case of Hertfordshire, UK

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-150-0_21How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Leader’s mindset; firm’s capabilities; management practice; technology; innovation; UK

Abstract

The UK Government and many of the key sectors are increasingly focusing on growth, sustainability, and diversity. The paper explores the impact of a national programme to help the small business community (including micro and SMEs) to grow their businesses, with particular focus on the entrepreneurial mindset and businesses’ capabilities to adopt technology and innovation.The paper aims to: (1) Understand SMEs’ current mindset and capabilities, and their future expectations towards the adoption of technology and innovation and; (2) Explore the relative influence and impact of the “Help to Grow: Management programme” on the leaders’ mindset and business capabilities of Hertfordshire businesses. Two surveys were conducted with different sizes to supplement information and make the analysis more accurate. The first survey was taken in 2019 and 2020 with 425 SMEs in Hertfordshire and in 2022, the second survey (and interviewed) were typically selected from the group of enterprises that were initially surveyed (n = 20) to see more insight into the research issue. The initial analysis (Hertfordshire-wide business community) and follow-on analysis (attendees of the Help-to-Grow: Management programme) highlight the value of these short-intensive business leader skills programmes focused on developing the leadership and management skills of these business entrepreneurs and their small businesses capabilities. The research results have important implications for SMEs in identifying, evaluating and changing their mindsets as well as capabilities towards technological improvement and innovation. In addition, the research also provides more evidence and practical basis for the government and related agencies to improve such programs to better support SMEs.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Christopher Brown
AU  - Thuy Nguyen Thi Thu
AU  - Giang Nguyen Thuc Huong
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/05/23
TI  - Business Leaders’ Mindset and Firms’ Capabilities Change Towards the Adoption of Technology and Innovation Through Government Sponsored Entrepreneurial Training Programs: The Case of Hertfordshire, UK
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Emerging Challenges: Strategic Adaptation in The World of Uncertainties (ICECH 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 304
EP  - 319
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-150-0_21
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-150-0_21
ID  - Brown2023
ER  -