Internationalization of Education from Finland to Sub-Saharan Africa: Sustainable SME Export Strategies, Challenges and Future Prospects

Abstract

Objectives

The main objectives of this study were to research Finnish companies and organizations engaged in education, the strategies they use and the challenges faces. The research also assesses the sustainability of the industry, as well as offers some future prospects.

Summary

During the past ten years, Finnish companies and organizations have started to understand the potential education export has for Finland. However, the full potential is not utilized and as the industry is new, it does not function the same way more traditional industries do. With the literature review, a conceptual framework was constructed to identify the main factors affecting sustainable SME Internationalization to sub-Saharan Africa with educational products: benefits, challenges, sustainability, and impact. The primary data collected with semi-structured interviews explains the phenomenon from the Finnish perspective and identifies the strategies, challenges, and sustainability of Finnish companies and organizations as well as how to improve the success on education export.

Conclusions

It was identified that education export is fundamentally a sustainable business, and Finnish companies and organizations seem to take it well into consideration. Finnish companies and organizations often offer non-traditional educational products that often match the market needs better, which creates new markets for them. The biggest issues were different problems related to funding. Due to that, companies required the help from governmental organizations and from big international organizations and the most used entry mode was export. Education export is still a developing industry, but there is tremendous potential, and supporting sustainable development will benefit everyone on a global scale.