CROSS-ANALYSIS: INVOLVEMENT OF TWO-YEAR TECHNICAL COLLEGES IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

• Involvement of Technical Colleges in Community Economic Development
• Guide for Users Analysis: Discussion Questions

The focus of the cross-analysis was to determine the extent of the involvement of two-year technical colleges in economic development through business incubation and entrepreneurship programs. Further, a shared understanding of entrepreneurship emerged from this analysis given the differences and similarities across participant sites in terms of (1) approach to business incubation, (2) education and training opportunities to foster entrepreneurship in business incubation or through college coursework, and (3) opportunities and limitations affecting entrepreneurial development.

According to the cross-analysis design, only the involvement of community colleges and postsecondary technical-education institutions will be discussed here. The analysis on the elements of entrepreneurship and opportunities for participation in community economic development is left open for the users. To assist and guide users in this process, a set of five discussion questions is presented for each category of analysis relevant to participation in fostering economic and entrepreneurship development in the community.

Involvement of Technical Colleges in Community Economic Development

Four major goals seem to be the source of the involvement of two-year technical colleges in community economic development:

1. Job creation to support the local economy
2. Diversification of business opportunities to expand economies relying on few sources of economic support
3. Revitalization of neighborhoods through support of new small business ventures
4. Provision of education and training opportunities for dislocated workers, retraining of employees, and entrepreneurial development

The driving force behind these efforts in each case was the commitment of key individuals within the college (e.g., president, program director) or from the community when there was no connection with the college. However, the leadership provided by these individuals appeared to be channeled to envision and set up the participation of the local college in community economic development in one or more of the forms mentioned above. Once a business incubator or a small business development assistance center begins to operate, a new form of operational leadership is required to provide services efficiently and in line with the stated goals. It is at this stage that the involvement of the technical college seemed to be rather weak. Once a program is established (e.g., a business incubator), the operation may become a satellite entity and, in many instances, there may be no linkages with the college other than funding. For example, across sites, it was common to find little participation of college faculty in educational and training opportunities offered at the business incubator or at the SBDC, nor for the purpose of providing consulting services. Further, with one or two exceptions, there were practically no connecting activities with both the sponsoring college and local high schools to expose students to entrepreneurial ventures.

The lack of strong operational linkages between the two-year colleges and these economic and entrepreneurial development programs was reflected in the variety of managerial forms of these programs. In some cases, the program directors or managers spend their time in fundraising activities to come up with additional funding to support the operation (Case Studies 2, 4, and 9). This, in turn, reduces the time managers spend in counseling services aimed at fostering entrepreneurship in the community. Even in cases where a comprehensive approach is taken (including business incubation, business-related services, and entrepreneurship courses), the operation may create a quasi-autonomous organization where survival depends upon the best use of the resources available (see Case Studies 1, 3, and 5). Hence, the program director may be forced to turn to the professional community rather than the sponsoring college for assistance in various areas to manage the program efficiently.

Indeed, even though two-year colleges sponsor business incubators and provide business-related services through assistance centers, and/or courses with focus on entrepreneurship, there is usually a strong manager or director at the operational level who makes up for the weak involvement of the sponsoring institution once the operation is running. Based on these findings, the question that remains is, what can we do to improve the involvement of two-year colleges on the efforts described above?

What follows is a series of questions on key areas of this involvement which may guide administrators in their efforts to establish a business incubator, a series of courses on entrepreneurship, or business-related services to the general public to foster entrepreneurship in the community. These sets of questions may also be useful for instructors and students engaged in business or entrepreneurship courses for learning and instructional consideration.

Guide for Users Analysis: Discussion Questions

The purpose of these discussion questions is to guide users in their own cross-analysis of the case studies to identify key issues, opportunities, and limitations for involvement in efforts to foster economic and entrepreneurship in the community. Further, these questions can serve as a discussion guide for instructional and learning purposes for those users interested in the educational aspect of these case studies. To provide a point of reference for the users' cross analysis, these sets of questions are followed by an outline of the implications for postsecondary technical education derived from our analysis of the material presented here. A complementary guidebook (see Report 3, Hernández-Gantes, Sorensen, & Nieri, 1996b) was developed to provide specific examples for various levels of involvement identified across the case studies.

1. Approach to Business Incubation
   1. Thinking in terms of your own case scenario, what would be the reasons to establish a business incubator supported by the local technical/community college?
   2. What would be the strategies to fund a business incubator in the community? Should the business incubator be fully funded by the local technical college? Are there any other alternatives?
   3. If you were to design the working strategies for the business incubator, what would be your criteria for selection of potential in-house clients?
   4. What kinds of services would you emphasize at the business incubator--commercial space, clerical support, business services, education and training, counseling--and why?
   5. Based on the philosophy of economic development found in the community, what would be your exit criteria for in-house clients--that is, how long will they be allowed to stay in the business incubator? Please justify your answer.
2. Education and Training Services in Business Incubation
   1. If you were to focus on education and training services at the business incubator, how would you develop the content of your program, and what topics would be included?
   2. How would you use the concept of a business plan in your education and training program in business incubation?
   3. What would you do to involve college faculty to deliver education and training sessions at the incubator?
   4. What would be your strategies to encourage attendance of in-house clients and the general public to education and training opportunities offered by the business incubator?
   5. When and how would you use psychological assessment as a component of your education and training activities?
3. College-Based Education and Training Services
   1. The administrators of your college want to foster economic development in the community by offering a series of courses with a focus on entrepreneurship. Your program is already offering a series of business courses, so what would you say to these administrators? Are these business courses addressing entrepreneurship? If so, how? If not, how would you structure your coursework to address entrepreneurship?
   2. Based on the structure of the courses outlined in question 1, what would be the major topics covered in each of the core components of the series of courses on entrepreneurship?
   3. What instructional strategies would you suggest instructors use to ensure practical relevance to regular students, individuals interested in starting up a business, and entrepreneurs in early stages of business development?
   4. Anticipating different needs of the general public, what kinds of education and training options--certificate, diploma, advanced credit--would you offer at the college level?
   5. How would you make sure participants understand the business and entrepreneurial opportunities and limitations derived from global economic competition?
4. Entrepreneurial Development
   1. Initial funding to support business ventures appears to be the biggest limitation to start up a business. What would you do at the business incubator level to provide for seed money to assist entrepreneurs in developing an idea or product, or helping them get started?
   2. What strategies would you implement as part of your business incubation approach to facilitate networking and synergistic exchange among in-house and external clients?
   3. Usually, entrepreneurs in business incubation enroll because business space at low rates is the primary motivation for them. If you were the manager of the incubator, what would you do to get them interested in counseling and business services, and in other activities aimed at fostering entrepreneurship?
   4. Once entrepreneurs stay at the business incubator for about two or two and a half years, they are ready to move out. What things would you do to facilitate a smooth transition from business incubation to the business world outside incubation?
   5. Based on the case studies, what kinds of business-related services would you find feasible to establish in your community and be supported by your local technical/community college?
5. Serving Minority- and Female-Owned Enterprises
   1. Do minority and female entrepreneurs share special limitations at earlier stages of business development? Would they require special assistance to survive during their first few years of operation?
   2. What are the pros and cons of operating solely under a setaside approach to contracts for minority- and female-owned enterprises? What would you do to prevent failures of businesses relying on setaside contracts?
   3. What are the perspectives of minority and female entrepreneurs about competing in the business world? What kinds of things can they do to improve their chances to succeed in their line of business?
   4. In only a couple of cases was an emphasis on serving minority and female entrepreneurs found. However, in each case, efforts to target these special groups were practically non-existent, as the business incubators attracted them by word of mouth, or by the visible proportion of these groups in the incubator. If you were to start a business incubator with a focus on minority and/or female clients, what would you do to recruit or target these special groups in the community?
   5. Male and female entrepreneurs appear to have different perspectives about being an entrepreneur. Can you outline what these perspectives are, and what can you do to address these differences through practical services?