Enterprising Together -project

A kind of breakthrough in the promotion of co-operative entrepreneurship in Finland occurred early year 2009, when the Ministry of Employment and the Economy decided that Finland will embark on a nationwide project of enhancing co-operative entrepreneurship. In a public acquisition process in early 2009, the Tampere Region Co-operative Centre was chosen to implement this project in partnership with the Ministry.

The project – Enterprising Together! – is a part of the ESF Operational Programme for Continental Finland titled “Entrepreneurship as a way to use workforce and as labour market motor”. The Tampere Region Co-operative Centre is implementing the project together with the Ministry of Employment and the Economy. The project started on 1 June 2009 and will continue to the end of the present programme period (through 2013). The Employment and Entrepreneurship Department of the Ministry is in charge of the project administration, and the Ministry has a strong role in the marketing and information and in the integration of the project into other nationwide projects aiming to enhance entrepreneurship.

The project was designed not only to promote co-operative entrepreneurship but also to improve public awareness of the entire field of social economy and to identify its potential.

Co-operative entrepreneurship as an integral part of the services of business and career development organizations

The promotion of co-operative entrepreneurship seeks to integrate it into the range of services provided by all business and career development organizations. The related training needs of all consultation organizations will be charted this autumn for the implementation of regional training programmes. The training will start at the basic level and advance into Coop Expert training, which is a course developed by the Tampere Region Co-operative Centre.

The modules dealing with co-operative entrepreneurship and social economy will be included into the national training programme for business consultants and will form a part of their vocational qualification requirements. The telephone consultants of Enterprise Finland will also be trained through this module. Enterprise Finland is an internet-based nationwide business service comprising all the issues of entrepreneurship. In future, the portal will be supported by telephone consultants, who will be increasingly responsible for the service to beginning entrepreneurs. This will help the Enterprising Together! -project ensure competent consultation in co-operative matters. The project will also produce supporting material on the consultation process and on the marketing of co-operative entrepreneurship in general. The portal can be used as a practical tool by the telephone and business consultants, offering them access to all material that has to do with co-operative entrepreneurship.

In addition to training and material, the Enterprising Together! -project will serve as a nationwide information provider in matters of co-operative entrepreneurship. This is a service that has been designed for business consultants all over the country, not to end users. When a client contacts a regional business consultant, the latter can rely on the project in matters unclear to him or her. If necessary, the client’s problem can be solved in tripartite discussions. The project aims to ensure that co-operative entrepreneurship and, if possible, a more extensive presentation of social economy will be included in all entrepreneurial guides. This is a goal that can be achieved by good collaboration with the Ministry’s national support initiative for regional business services, with Employment and Economic Development Centres, with employment offices, economic development functions and with the network of new enterprise service units.

A further goal of the project is to advance the choice of co-operatives as a form of enterprise and to improve their image and recognition. Co-operatives are excluded from business consultation, because for many consultants they are an unknown form of enterprise which they are prejudiced against. Yet another goal is to promote innovative applications of co-operative entrepreneurship, such as worker leasing co-operatives and the deployment of co-operatives in areas suffering from structural change, for example where major companies are closing down. It is also important to enhance the use of co-operative entrepreneurship as a tool of entrepreneurship education and, in general, increase its role in entrepreneurship education. This can be done by teaming up effectively with the National Board of Education.

Overall, Enterprising Together! is a programme working towards building a dense network of business and career service consultants, who are interested in co-operative entrepreneurship, willing to learn more and to maintain their knowledge of the subject. The project will be linked will all other related national projects, whether in the sector of caring, creative, rural or any other type of entrepreneurship.

The promotion of the social economy in a wider sense

Enterprising Together! is a way of introducing the entire field of social economy. It was designed to improve public awareness of social economy and to provide a framework for the clarification of the concept and for the general development of social economy. We shall organize teams to discuss the various areas of social economy and to consider the prospects of promoting and developing social economy more extensively. Towards the end of the project, we shall bring up such features of social economy actors as might beneficially be adopted by other types of business as well. The recognition of social economy actors will be enhanced through various campaigns. An example is a business idea competition to find new forms and procedures of social economy.

During the project we shall also debate the contents of the concept “social economy” in Finland and to link co-operative entrepreneurship with the development of social enterprising and, more widely, with social economy. (Cf. the idea of social entrepreneurship). We shall work with researchers, for example by communicating ideas of topical research themes of co-operative entrepreneurship and social economy in a wider sense. The project will include a nationwide study and a political analysis on small co-operatives as businesses and as a form of social economy, and possibly some further studies on social economy.

The project can bring a significant amount of added value when it comes to utilizing co-operative entrepreneurship as an instrument of employment policy and entrepreneurship policy. The added value will come from the following circumstances:

• the model enables long-term and focused development;
• the project is based on good practices and development needs identified in earlier ESF periods;
• the project creates a national network of co-operative entrepreneurship embracing all key interest groups;
• the project serves as a collecting cluster comprising co-operative initiatives in various parts of the country and offering support (in training, development, marketing, etc.);
• the studies and joint work done in the past programme period will help tailor the services;
• the project will improve the quality and impact of related initiatives (rolling out tried and tested benchmarks and procedures);
• the concept tried and tested in Tampere can be rolled out anywhere else;
• social innovations can be disseminated and new innovations can be encouraged elsewhere in Finland.

Contact information

Tampere Region Co-operative Centre / Enterprising together! -project

Niina Immonen
Doctor of administrative science
email: niina.immonen@osuustoimintakeskus.net
tel. +358 50 3950 111