Research about the junior companies in Brazilian Federal District higher education institutions: case study focused on University Center IESB

The aim of this paper is to present the characteristics of junior companies from Higher Education Institutions (IES in Portuguese), constituted primarily by students with the help and management of teachers, to meet market needs and assist in the development of the local and regional economy, the students and enabling practical, professional experiences and opportunities to obtain complementary knowledge outside the classrooms, as well as to increase the visibility of the IES courses that adhere to the model. It is a qualitative-quantitative, exploratory and bibliographical research, applied to IES located in the Federal District, Brasilia, Brazil, which have federated junior companies or any other model that resembles them. Interviews were conducted with the junior companies managers and questionnaires were applied to a sample of students from the Business and Management course of a specific IES. The most common mistakes and frequently adopted measures to correct or avoid them have been identified in youth business documents. It is expected that IES and students intending to set up a university junior company will be able to use the results of the study to orient themselves in order to obtain better results in the performance of companies during their first years of operation.