Knowledge about Competences Increasing Resilience to Crises in the Modern Business Sector: Results of the Polish University Project

Abstract

The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused an unprecedented disturbance in higher education and the business services sector. In the 2014–2020 financial perspective, the Operational Programme Knowledge Education Development has constituted a response to challenges and an instrument to execute the Europe 2020 Strategy. However, the Programme was not designed to prevent crises, and neither did it foresee the pandemic which surprised the whole world. Despite this, higher education institutions that implemented projects co-financed with the EU funds had to face the “black swan” and ensure the continuity of their activities while improving their resilience to crises. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how important knowledge management and resilience-building skills are for students to adapt and grow stronger in the face of a crisis. Does higher education teach crisis-resistant competences? As we know from practice and literature, the knowledge gap as regards crisis-resistant competencies is enormous, and the relevant university programmes require strengthening. Therefore, we conducted a literature review about knowledge management in complex crises and conducted research to identify competences that increase resilience to crises. The aim of the article was to examine to what extent the support implemented in the Polish university project contributed to the increase in indicators (output, direct result) and to what extent the level of competences of the project participants increased, including those competences that allowed the participants to adapt to the labour market during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the needs of the study, we used the competence balance method and the measurement of a degree of ratio implementation according to the criteria applied. The results of the study proved that the ratios rose and the project contributed to increasing competences in the project’s participants, improving their crisis resilience. The conclusions of the study allowed us to make recommendations regarding the emergent knowledge strategies about the European Union’s future agenda as well as about knowledge management and university training programs for resilient skills.