Birmingham City Business School, UK and ITB have been working together since 2015 on an exciting research project investigating Growth for SMEs and then looks at how we can translate this into interventions to help the SMEs grow. The Principal Researcher from Birmingham City Business School CEIG is Prof. Mark Gilman, along with research fellow Mr. Aineias Gkikas. The principal researcher from CK4BC-SBM ITB is Hary Febriansyah, Ph.D. Both researchers of CK4BC and CEIG are undertaking this research by special funding from British Academy-UK, Birmingham City Business School and SBM-ITB.
The purpose of this programme is to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to seize business opportunities in the global economy. In particular, this study focuses on how universities can support SMEs by developing their entrepreneurial and strategic competencies, creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem that will improve the growth of the existing SMEs and develop new ones supporting the economic and social welfare. SMEs and family businesses play an important role in any economy. SMEs are particularly important for Indonesia’s economy because there are around 50 million SMEs across the country. While this may sound a large number, this is relative small compared to other Asian economies such as China and India. Of utmost importance though is the growth and development of these firms so that they experience strong performance that in turn translates into strong benefits to the economy and social fabric that they operate.
Currently, the researchers have already collected a total number of almost 600 respondents from various regional economies in Indonesia (Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Bali, Jogjakarta, Malang dan Solo). Moreover, from this research, three MBA-ITB graduations in 2018 were made, and this will boost other Master and Bachelor graduations in 2020.
In the early of 2020, we will publish a joint book chapter; entitled ‘The Entrepreneurial Role of Indonesian Universities in the Economic Development of Rural Communities: In Search of Empowerment’ (Hary Febriansyah, C. W. Watson and Aineias Gkikas), published by Edward Elgar Publishing, United Kingdom.