Socially Conscious Ventures and Experiential Learning: Perceptions of Student Engagement

Abstract

This qualitative study explored stakeholder perceptions of the outcomes of semester-long experiential learning projects in five selected business courses at a small, private college. Students worked with the owners of socially conscious startup firms to develop and present strategic marketing and business plans. The work draws upon interviews with the business owners and faculty, as well as firsthand observations, to assist in identifying factors that promote or hinder student engagement in experiential learning initiatives.

The Influence of Student-Community Partner Working Relationships on Satisfaction: A South African University Service Learning Programme

“…Participating community partner client organizations specify a number of characteristics of the working relationship between themselves and the student agencies, including that the students were punctual, respected their time, did not make a nuisance of themselves, were polite and neatly dressed, communicated effectively, used appropriate language, and acted professionally. These findings are echoed by a number of SL authors who assert that in general, students participating in SL are reliable, professional, interested, and involved (Jacobs, 2020;Mitchell, 2018;Vasbinder & Koehler, 2015); students communicate effectively with participating organizations (Balfour, 2020;Gazley, Bennett, & Littlepage, 2013;McNatt, 2020); students are honest, creative, innovative, organized, serious, and well prepared (Balfour, 2020;Mitchell, 2018); students are engaged, excellent, dedicated, attentive, competent, extremely professional, enthusiastic, intelligent, flexible, well-organized, and sensitive to the uniqueness of the organization (García-Rico, Martínez-Muñoz, Santos-Pastor, & Chiva-Bartoll, 2021;Rodríguez-Izquierdo, 2021;Schachter & Schwartz, 2009). Simola ( 2009) also confirms that students did not make a nuisance of themselves and used the organization's time well during SL.…”

“…Small businesses that work with student agencies which exhibit high levels of professionalism, skill, creativity, and enthusiasm register greater levels of usefulness and satisfaction in their working relationships with students (Vasbinder & Koehler, 2015;Mitchell, 2018). In order to ensure that student agencies function at high levels of professionalism and skill, student agencies need to be well trained before small business organizations are included in SLPs.…”

Exploring the impact of student developed marketing communication tools and resources on SMEs performance and satisfaction

“…The staff members of the SMEs need to collaborate with academic staff members, put time aside to work with students, oversee students on site, and assist in solving problems as and when they arise during the service learning service period. There are a number of international studies that make mention service learning run in conjunction with SMEs (Niehm et al, 2015;Vasbinder & Koehler, 2015;Miller et al, 2017; 4 Dylan Cromhout, Rodney Duffett Mitchell, 2018), but few of them focus on the experiences of SMEs or the value and nature of the outcomes of service learning for SMEs (refer to Table 1). Findings regarding the experiences of SME participants generally form only a small part of studies geared towards evaluating the success of service learning, which accordingly requires further inquiry.…”

“…Maben (2010) also proposes additional student-run agency research in other nations. Furthermore, a number of international service learning programmes (Niehm et al, 2015;Vasbinder & Koehler, 2015;Miller et al, 2017;Mitchell, 2018) and a South African service learning programme (Mokoena & Spencer, 2017) used SMEs as their community partners, which revealed another gap in research since few consider the influence of MC tools and resources, SME performance factors and SME satisfaction. Several SME and/or service learningrelated studies have investigated one or several of the MC tools and resources (Schachter & Schwartz, 2009;Furlow, 2010;Wiese & Sherman, 2011;Goertzen et al, 2016;Rosenberg et al, 2016;Hardin-Ramanan et al, 2018) and SME performance factors (Hopkins, 2012;Rajhans, 2009;Hove & Masocha, 2014;Rosenberg et al, 2016;Rambe, 2017;, but none have investigated the broad range that was included in this study, nor in terms of community partner/SME client satisfaction, so this an additional gap in research from both a local and international perspective.…”

How to Instill Cultural Values in the New Generation through Cultural Promenades and Ancient Drama: A Field Research

“…The teachers' social identity should also be highly valued and esteemed, since they constitute indispensable parts of a community and their intellectual involvement in it is an eminent need even in terms of their professional development [32,33]. As for students, Vasbinder and Koehler, whose research focused on the student engagement in experiential learning practices, claimed that they would be more willing and eager to participate in experiential management projects which concentrated on socially conscious firms [34]. Moreno -the father of Sociodrama from which Psychodrama later emerged-explains the therapeutic concept of the Aristotelian "catharsis" that occurs in the theatre out in the open, indicating through the dramaturgical approach the sociological importance of the group and the interrelations found between the participants [35].…”