Abstract:

Resource constraints, perceived overburdening, and lack of orientation pose significant obstacles for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a crucial economic factor in the rural region of South Westphalia, in dealing with digitization and digital transformation (Bollweg et al., 2019). Against this background, the Virtual Institute for Digital Business (VIDB) was established as part of the overarching project Digitalise_SWF. Its purpose is to accompany and support the digitization and transformation process in the region through knowledge transfer. The VIDB is a collaborative effort involving multiple educators and researchers from two Higher Education Institutions. Throughout the five-year project, the partners will develop and implement transfer offerings in a recursive process together with regional SMEs and support institutions.

In the first project phase, alongside organizational challenges, the collaboration is particularly focused on delineating relevant content areas as well as developing suitable transfer activities and formats.

This article thus presents the defined:
1) content areas (structured along the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) Framework (Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990)),
2) transfer activities and objectives,
3) and transfer formats,and outlines how they were derived in a combined qualitative approach comprised of a literature analysis and focus group discussions with educators and multipliers (Webster and Watson, 2002; Bell et al., 2022). In doing so the paper answers the question: "How can Higher Education Institutions support SMEs in the process of digitization and digital transformation as knowledge partners?"

References:
[1] Bell, E.; Harley, B.; Bryman, A. (2022). Business Research Methods. ISBN: 9780198869443
[2] Bollweg, Lars; Lackes, Richard; Siepermann, Markus; Weber, Peter (2019). Drivers and barri-ers of the digitalization of local owner operated retail outlets, Journal of SmallBusiness & Entre-preneurship, DOI: 10.1080/08276331.2019.1616256.
[3] Kemper, F. J. (2011). Demographic Change and Challenges From A Regional Perspective: The Case Of Germany. International Comparative Social Studies, Band: 25, p. 397–420
[4] Tornatzky, L.G. and Fleischer, M. (1990). The Processes of Technological Innovation. Lexing-ton Books, Lexington
[5] Webster, J and Watson, R. T. (2002). Analyzing the Past to Prepare the Future. Writing a Lit-erature Review. MIS Quarterly Vol. 26, No. 2

Keywords:

Knowledge Transfer, Digital Transformation.