Mid Sweden University

Europe is undergoing a green transition, while large industrial parks are simultaneously being established. Large industry parks are important contributions to regional development, especially in rural regions. In Asia, large industrial parks have emerged quickly during the past 20 years, but it is only now that a similar development is occurring in rural Europe. Many of the industrial parks are placed in rural areas, where there is access to cheap land and green energy. It is often about the rural region needing economic growth and jobs. The aim is to explore what challenges and opportunities that industrial parks in rural Europe have experienced concerning competence supply. The study was designed as a casestudy where five rural areas in Europe was chosen. Data was collected by semi-structured interviews, secondary data and observations. The results shows that competence supply presents a significant challenge. Many companies highlight that offering a good workplace leads to positive word-of-mouth, attracting more individuals to work for them. This has proven particularly successful for establishments where English has been the primary language used. The municipality must think strategically aboutcompetence building. Not only in terms of acquiring the right skills for the industry but for retaining the local population. In rural municipalities, especially young women, move away from the area, mainly during their university studies. If there are no attractive job opportunities in the municipality, so that the young people who have moved away choose to return, they are usually gone for good.

This is a study of industrial parks in Europe and their impact on the places where they are established. The European Union's strategy, the Green Deal, is pushing the green transition in Europe, and large-scale industrial parks are being established in territorial regions in the name of this transition. The aim of this chapter is to explore the challenges and opportunities with industrial parks from the perspective of sustainable territorial development. The study was conducted as a case study where five territorial areas in Europe (located in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia and Italy) were studied. Data collection was conducted with semi-structured interviews, internet sources, and on-site observations. The results show the importance of communication and interaction between the stakeholders. Another result is that culture and language play a significant role in this process. Moreover, when building sustainable communities, well-functioning infrastructure and good services are essential. This study contributes to knowledge about challenges and opportunities when establishing industrial parks. Both managers and officials from municipalities can benefit from this study.

In this study, we explore the role of women’s entrepreneurship in revitalizing the historic market district of Nazareth (Israel). This is a special context to examine the intersection of women’s entrepreneurship, tourism, and historic revitalization because of the complex geo-political, cross cultural, and community development setting. We examine the role of women through their practice of cultural tourism-oriented entrepreneurship and seek to understand factors motivating women to engage in such entrepreneurship, along with their unique contributions. We utilize a qualitative research approach and conducted semi-structured interviews, augmented by numerous site visits and participant observation. Findings reveal that respondents, along with their individual-level motivations, have a strong desire to act on behalf of all women as well as to contribute to the community at large. This study sheds light on the role that women play as bearers of specific craft traditions as well as their ability to provide a unique calming and stabilizing effect on the socio-economic environment through their venturing. Beyond Nazareth, this study offers insight into the relationship between tourism and the SDGs on gender equality (5), decent work and economic growth (8) and on building peace, justice and strong institutions (16).

Background: Entrepreneurs have the potential to play an especially important role for sustainable development, considering their very foundational character of finding solutions to problems in different creative ways. Thus, we need more entrepreneurs who are willing to address global challenges of today.

Aim: This paper aims to discuss the role of compassion in entrepreneurship education, particularly within experience-based teaching.

Setting: Based on a 3-week course, where students were exposed to poverty and other challenges in the Global South, the focus is on how experience-based teaching affected their compassion and motivation related to sustainability issues.

Methods: This qualitative study is based on longitudinal interview data collected during a 3-week entrepreneurship education course, involving 23 master’s students from various academic disciplines. The course included a field visit to an underprivileged, rural area in India.

Results: Students gained a deeper understanding of social and economic sustainability. After the field visit, they expressed stronger focus on compassion and empathy and deeper interest in working with sustainability issues. Further, they expressed an increased interest for entrepreneurship.

Conclusion: The rich data collected during the process described above, gives in-depth insights on how students can develop compassion, empathy and a deeper understanding for global challenges of today.

Contribution: Findings contribute to entrepreneurship literature, by highlighting the importance of compassion and empathy, and to the topic of entrepreneurship education, by discussing how students can be trained to develop these characteristics.