Management of multicultural teams. Practical lessons learned from university students

Joanna Szydło, Danuta Szpilko, Claudia Rus, Codruta Osoian

This book features the competences and skills that university students as future leaders should acquire in order to work in multicultural teams. Multicultural teams have become the basic unit for many organizations. Combined work using different technology, places, time zones, persons of different cultures require knowledge and skills to lead this team. Unreflective teaching methods can cause a lower level of efficiency and effectiveness. The gap knowledge in the current students’ skills of multicultural work may be interesting for university lecturers to improve quality of a university leadership program, and also for HR practitioners to develop managerial competences. This book focuses on leading and developing multicultural teams in the process of shaping their competence for the new (prospects) organizational requirements. Effective strategies and clever techniques to improve leadership and management skills are needed in the multicultural environment. The premise of this book is to pay attention on how to lead and develop multicultural teams by providing more directed tips to improve the quality of a university program and thereby develop effective leaders within their organization. The better the leadership, the better the multicultural teams.

Theoretical and practical aspects of business activity. Business planing

Danuta Szpilko, Joanna Szydło, Ewa Glińska, Urszula Kobylińska, ...

This publication consists of four chapters. The first chapter refers to generating business ideas, the second to creating a product tailored to market needs, and the third is focused on creating a business plan. The fourth chapter is dedicated to the description of pre-acceleration and acceleration programmes. The publication concludes with a case study on activities supporting entrepreneurial initiatives. The book is dedicated to people seeking a good business solution and aiming to bring it to the market in a timely manner. It should be noted that this does not only apply to new businesses, but also those already existing on the market since they constantly have to generate ideas and adapt them to changing market conditions.

Theoretical and practical aspects of business activity. Starting a business

Joanna Szydło, Danuta Szpilko, Ewa Glińska, Urszula Kobylińska, ...

Entrepreneurship is a key factor for economic growth, improving the competitiveness of countries’ economies and increasing social prosperity. Young entrepreneurs face a number of challenges as a result of the rapidly changing socio-economic environment. In their activities aimed at launching a business, young entrepreneurs need knowledge and skills on a wide range of topics related to finance, law, marketing, product management, etc. This is why more and more projects aiming at comprehensive assistance in launching a business are being developed. One of them is the project “Acceleration of Business Support Ecosystem” (ACCESS), which was co-financed under the programme Interreg V-A Lithuania-Poland 2014-2020. ACCESS strengthens entrepreneurial initiatives by improving business support services in Kaunas and Marijampole region on the Lithuanian side, as well as Suwalki and Bialystok sub-regions in Poland. One of the many results of the project is the creation of two publications on theoretical and practical aspects of setting up and running a business. These publications aim to popularise entrepreneurial attitudes and provide knowledge necessary to achieve success in business. Young entrepreneurs, before embarking on their brave activities, should check where and what funds they can obtain to start or develop their own enterprise. They should gain knowledge about the target group they intend to reach. In addition, they should focus on ways to communicate with the hypothetical recipient. An equally important aspect is to create a team that will work effectively.