To gain additional knowledge about the necessity of these discussion areas the respondents were asked to rate the need on a scale of 1 to 5 in question number 29, with 1 meaning “not at all” and 5 meaning
“very necessary”. The question was answered by 748 respondents.
FIGURE 25. How necessary do you consider that kind of discussion area to be 1 = not at all, 5 = very necessary N=748
The majority of the respondents consider the social media discussion areas necessary, with 53.7 per- cent of the respondents choosing either option 5 or 4. Only 16.6 percent of the respondents chose op- tions 1 or 2, indicating that the use of social media is not that important as a discussion area.
Lastly, it was cross compared how or if the respondent’s age is affecting the chosen rating about the necessity of social media discussion area. It was already discovered that 62.2 percent of the respond- ents were over 30 years of age and 30.4 percent being 25 to 29 years old. The result of the comparison is visible in FIGURE 26.
FIGURE 26. Cross comparison about how respondent’s age affects the necessity of the discussion area N=748
8
43
81
214 223
179
0 50 100 150 200 250
0 1 2 3 4 5
While the differences in this comparison are not that significant, it is still visible, that the younger 25 to 29 aged respondents are slightly more interested to participate in social media discussion areas. This question would be beneficial to cross combine with knowledge about how much the respondents use social media channels daily, for example in hours. As mentioned earlier, it would also be beneficial to compare this information to the platforms of social media the entrepreneurs are using.
This could give beneficial new knowledge about the way younger entrepreneurs are networking with each other and how they want to be connected. Also, this would give more information about how these changes in communicating and networking will affect the services provided by the Federation of Finnish Enterprises and how these processes should be developed.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The hypothesis of this thesis was simplified in the introduction, that the Federation of Finnish Enter- prises should focus more on the needs for providing young entrepreneurs added value of being a mem- ber of the organization. It was assumed that one of these actions could be the development of the pro- cesses of young entrepreneur networking and that required more knowledge. The number of responses gathered with the research questionnaire was pleasant and gave the confirmation that networking is something young entrepreneurs see beneficial and want to participate in developing it.
The research confirmed that entrepreneurs are seeking to network to grow their social network, receive new customers and partners and furthermore, they seek peer support and motivation from fellow entre- preneurs and colleagues. Based on these findings, it could be assumed that entrepreneurs are often un- der heavy pressure in doing everyday decisions alone, and occasionally do require support and ex- change of ideas from fellow entrepreneurs.
The research confirmed that there are different kind of methods in use for networking inside the organ- ization, depending on the region. The research was focused on finding the right tools that are proven to be useful, and which could be generalized in use for the organization. The results received a good number of useful and generalizable methods, especially in the open questions answered by the entre- preneurs.
In my opinion, it would be beneficial for the organization to harmonize the activities provided to the members regionally. Also, as the research data suggest the communication for younger entrepreneurs needs to be enhanced and the methods and means rethought to do it even better. By harmonizing the activities provided by the organization, the members are treated equally, and they get similar services.
That way, it would be assumed that the member satisfaction and recommendations to join the organi- zation should get higher.
In process development point of view, the harmonization of the described processes should proceed through strategic review. That way, the development should include the selection of member proven methods listed in this research and timetable to implement these changes in the organization. The im- plementation requires more communication, involvement of active members of the organization and
critical evaluation of these activities after the implementation. If something does not work, it should be revised based on the feedback received by the entrepreneurs.
For example, based on the final discussions reviewing the results of this thesis with the commissioner, we came up with an idea that the organization could try a new way to enable networking in a continu- ally digitalizing world, and could start developing a mobile application, specially tailored for the use of the members of the organization.
One of the interesting ideas was based on a critical response in an open question. The respondent was criticizing the role of the organization in networking events, as SMEs, mostly small ones, are trading business cards with each other in hopes to sell products and services to each other. Based on this criti- cism, I presented an idea to the commissioner of a concept event that could be organized regionally.
The event would start with a few keynote speeches where larger companies would present their major projects that require new subcontractors. The idea is that the smaller companies could arrange appoint- ments in advance with these larger companies that are usually harder to reach, without the right con- tacts. Along with the possibility to network with larger companies, the entrepreneurs would have time to meet up with each other, and maybe form alliances or similar.
The research also confirmed that social media plays a significant role in young entrepreneur network- ing. This means, that the Federation of Finnish Enterprises should have a more active role in forming discussion groups in various social media platforms and communicate these to the members. Based on the results, the use of social media services is relevant for the target group, so it would be beneficial for the organization to take advantage of it in a harmonized way, using same kind of methods in all re- gions.
One of the shortcomings of this research is associated with social media. It would have been beneficial for the research to include questions about the use of social media overall. This would have given addi- tional information about the methods the entrepreneurs could be contacted and how the networking could be shifting in the future.
In terms of the validity of the study, the metrics used in the study and the method by which the phe- nomenon under study was studied. The questionnaire was reviewed by several individuals before start- ing the actual measurement procedure to ensure it is as effective as possible for the purpose. The struc-
ture of the questionnaire was carefully considered and valuated during the process. The technical func- tionality of the questionnaire stored in the Webropol-system and the layout of the questionnaire was checked before providing a response link to the study target group. The survey was launched only after all the errors and omissions found in the form had been corrected.
When assessing the reliability of research results, the target group of the research can be considered.
The target group was approached with a personal email that included a cover letter on the starting points, confidentiality, and purpose of the results. The purpose of the cover letter was to motivate the respondent to participate in the investigation. However, the questionnaire was available on the Internet, and the researcher is therefore unable to be completely sure about who has answered the questions. It is therefore possible, that the person receiving the e-mail with the link to the survey, could have for- ward the link to another respondent. The e-mail addresses of the respondents invited to the survey are based on the member database of the Federation of Finnish Enterprises.
The response rate of this research was 9.6 percent of the original sampling of 7757 entrepreneurs cho- sen for the target group. Overall, this was a satisfying result. The amount of data received in the open questions was especially satisfying and gave a lot of insight and additional knowledge on the topic.
This research is completely reproducible, and the future results can be compared to this research. How- ever, it would be beneficial for the outcome to revise some of the questions to gain even more useful information, especially regarding the use of social media and platform economy and what the entrepre- neurs are seeking from networking and how that is evolving and affecting the business processes.
One of the interesting further research topics is related to young people’s overall interest in association activities, such as trade union movement or other non-governmental organization (NGO), such as char- ity organizations and similar. The decline in the interest of joining an association, regardless of the topic, may be due to an increase in the use of social media services. This is my own hypothesis, based on the research results, and should be researched more thoroughly.
This thesis was commissioned by the Federation of Finnish Enterprises to gain more knowledge about young entrepreneurs in a networking point of view. This thesis provides information of how these net- working processes should be developed. Based on the results of this research and the theoretical back- ground, these processes are important for the future of the organization, to maintain the sufficient
membership rate and furthermore, for the Federation of Finnish Enterprises to continue in being a credible operator in the Finnish business life also in the future.
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