| GVL Process |
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GVL is a university based platform. However, it is more a “method”, than a place or organisation. A the heart of the GVL process is the integration of research, learning, and practice. In doing so, we bring business closer to students and research closer to practitioners. The momentum generated from this active side-by-side engagement of the key actors will lead to the creation of great, responsible, sustainable enterprises. This main goal stretches across all cultures and continents, disciplines of science, and sectors of economy. Admittedly, GVL subscribes to open innovation thinking but – with creation of business and launch of ventures at core – GVL is markedly centred on the concepts of (sweat) equity, compensation, and incentive. Therein, the linkage between the source and ownership of an idea and the split of eventual proceeds is to be acknowledged, respected and attended at all times.The fact that people increasingly understand that building business requires co-creation by a changing body of owners, rather than a single principal or a small team, does not make ownership unimportant. It makes it all the more important, and all the more complicated to handle. The Silicon Valley is perhaps the world’s most advanced growth venturing environment. Wealthy individuals, self-made-men, serial entrepreneurs, business angels and venture capitalists call the shots on new ideas and novice entrepreneurs, and create ventures and financial arrangements, incentives, etc. around them. Finland is, in the rankings of many, a highly innovative country. On relative scale, R&D investments are almost second to none. Since the re-creation and rise of Nokia, in the mid-1990s, not many truly global stars have been created, however. As a big difference to Silicon Valley, the investment decisions and arrangements around ownership are made by hired managers following strict corporate or institutional policies – often in the role of civil servants. Taloustieto Oy (2009) provides a recent account of the Finnish Innovation system. Viewed from the “Finnish lessons” perspective, growth venturing requires “dynamically distributed ownership”. Hence, in Finland, the GVL process is quite heavily centred on organising for ownership in most exploratory ways, via action based practices: To learn and study by doing, to discover new forms and ways, and to teach the art. There are four central inputs and four outputs, in the GVL process. Inputs:
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