Within the 10th study trip undertaken by the Graduate Program in Entrepreneurship, which took place from 28 April to 5 May 2010, a group of 25 students and professors visited Finland, cities Turku and Helsinki. As always, the trip was a mixture of study-education-tourist journey. Within the educational part, Turku School of Economics, Turku Science Park, Luovia Ltd – Multichannel marketing concepts, STX Europe shipyard (in which world’s largest cruise ships are built) and the nearby Forum Maritime, which hosts an exhibition about Finland’s maritime past, were visited. In the tourist part of the trip, historic Turku castle was visited. On 1 May, our group visited Naantali, one of the oldest Finnish towns and the nearby Moomin World, theme park based on Moomin children’s books by Tove Jansson. Our students and professors have also witnessed and participated in the traditional May Day parade, one of the most celebrated holidays in Finland, together with their hosts Prof. Antti Passio and Kirsi Peura from the Turku School of Economics. The trip was concluded with a visit to the Finnish capital Helsinki and the Suomenlinna fortress, which is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Entrepreneurship research is a relatively young discipline that has until recently almost exclusively been focused on the recognition and discovery of opportunities. Saras Sarasvathy, Research Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia, through her scientific-research work has introduced a new way of researching entrepreneurship not only as finding but also as “making” new opportunities, firms, markets and institutions. We have a unique opportunity to get to know Saras Sarasvathy, world-renowned expert in the field of Effectual Entrepreneurship by participating at the (DREAM) Doctoral Retreat on Entrepreneurship As „Making“ which will take place on May, 31 – June, 04, 2010, at the Faculty of Economics in Osijek, in duration of 30 hours.

On March 12, 2010, Siniša Košutić, student of the 9th class of Graduate Program in Entrepreneurship joined the ranks of Masters of Science. Siniša successfully defended his Master’s thesis entitled: “Early Warning Systems in the Function of Minimizing the Strategic Surprises in Modern Business”. The thesis was defended before the committee of professors consisting of chairwoman Slavica Singer, Ph.D., Željko Turkalj, Ph.D. and Sanja Pfeifer, Ph.D. (committee members). Our warmest congratulations to Siniša

The recently published third global edition of well-known textbook “Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures” by Barringer and Ireland is enriched with several case studies, one of which has been written by lecturers from the Graduate Program in Entrepreneurship: Mirela Alpeza, Ph.D. and Aleksandar Erceg, M.Sc.: “San Francisco Coffee House: An American Style Franchise in Croatia”. This case study is the result of collaboration with professor Ilan Alon from Rollins College, USA, an expert in international franchising. Case describes start-up of a business venture – San Francisco Coffee House in Osijek, analysis of franchising in Croatia, and doubts which entrepreneurs – protagonists of the case have related to the implementation of the franchise business model as company growth strategy. The case study, together with teaching notes, can be obtained from the Ivey Publishing case database.

During the January 07-15, 2010 a group of graduate students from University of Illinois, USA visited the Faculty of Economics in Osijek at J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek. Collaboration between Osijek University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), began in January of 2008, when the first group of US students visited our university. Collaboration between these two universities has resulted in the establishment of student association – Entrepreneurs Without Borders (EWoB), which operates at both universities. Association’s objective is to promote entrepreneurial behavior and activity among students. In addition to their regular class obligations, American and Croatian students also worked together on solving some of the real-life problems of seven small companies from Osijek, which included Publicus, Plastos, Palčić, Galena, Rukotvorine, Tufna Club & Hostel, and PZ Pčelari Slavonije i Baranje.