Guest editorial

Citation

Caiazza, R., Shane, S. and Ferrara, G. (2017), "Guest editorial", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 142-145. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-12-2016-0304

Entrepreneurial university: geographical and strategic differences around the world

Entrepreneurial university emerges where universities have to perform teaching, research and contributing to the regional economy simultaneously. One of the most important mechanisms that universities have to generate and transfer value to society is the creation of new enterprises by research faculty. Specifically, the creation of academic spin-offs is the most visible form of innovation and technology transfer aimed at the commercialization of research. Academic spin-offs have relevant importance to reach a region high level of innovation and economic growth. However, one of the main challenges for researchers is to identify factors that affect universities’ ability to generate spin-offs and their effects on the whole region’s development. Scholars are increasingly interested in factors affecting academic spin-offs around the world positioning entrepreneurial university at the intersection between several research domains such as management, geography and economy. Thus, recent debates have widened the scope from purely business development to broader issues of sustaining innovation ecosystems, governance, geography, citizens’ involvement and strategic planning. Moreover, the role of the university is debated in view of the tension between the global ranking focus of university management and the time and resources required for local engagement.

The article on “How the Circle Model can purpose-orient entrepreneurial universities and business-schools to truly serve society” offers a timely argument for entrepreneurial universities to embrace their purpose as custodians of society and find ways to hardwire it institutionally. The article starts by setting the big picture, outlining why it is of such essential importance for institutions of higher learning to become purpose oriented serving society. It introduces the idea of a common space of sustainability and responsibility as a foundation to reorient education and research of an entrepreneurial business school and hardwire its organizational structure truly around purpose. The Inner – Outer World model conceptualizes this larger contextual framework into a useful development perspective connecting individual and organizational development in service of society. When reviewing development theories in these three areas, the opportunities in the area of educating responsible leaders, in the area of consulting business organizations to serve the common good, and walking the talk by hard-wiring a purpose-driven organization become apparent and are developed with concrete examples and insights. The bottom line is an expansion of the current understanding of an entrepreneurial university beyond organizationally effective to become a true custodian of society in the way it educates, researches and lives this purpose. The article and proposed model builds on years of research in the fields of business sustainability, responsible leadership and entrepreneurial business education. It is conceptual in nature and draws a transdisciplinary arch of the described fields, building on significant existing thinking and practice. More research is required to understand how not only the educational and research strategies but also the organizational structure can be transformed to serve a given purpose.

Based on the empirical and theoretical foundations of entrepreneurial education ecosystem “Expanding Entrepreneurship Education Ecosystems” argues that practices and applications where vicarious learning occurs may evolve as the hub of regional economic development and entrepreneurialism facilitating stronger and faster commercialization of knowledge. It also provides a roadmap of action to follow in order to expand entrepreneurial education in universities with a greater degree of knowledge and innovation-based market entry. It proposes a framework for the creation of an entrepreneurship education ecosystem that will require many different approaches to teaching, research and business outreach, some of which have not yet been discovered or yet need to be created. The toolbox does not depend on the location or size of a school or university but goes beyond identifying entrepreneurial opportunities and research discoveries, applying, engaging, creating and discussing entrepreneurship education with all stakeholders and leaders. Most importantly the approach requires contribution to four dimensions of the ecosystem: stakeholders, culture, resources and formal and informal infrastructure. It introduces this toolbox in light of other current increase in demand for entrepreneurial education across departments in a university and knowledge commercialization.

“How entrepreneurship, culture and universities influence the geographical distribution of UK talent and city growth” takes the work of Florida as its theoretical and empirical point of departure to investigate the economic geography of talent in the 100 largest cities (measured by population) in UK. As far as empirically possible, it replicates the Florida US paper by focusing on identifying city level factors in UK that attract talent (human capital). The general starting hypothesis is that talent is attracted by human and economic diversity and that subsequent geographic concentrations of talent impact on innovation and wealth (or incomes) at the city level.

The purpose of “The entrepreneurial university: an exploration of 'value-creation' in a non-management department” is to highlight the strategies being undertaken by higher education institutions to leverage their bottom line especially in situations where public funding is no longer readily available leaving higher education institutions reliance on self-funding. Strategies have ranged from internationalization, i.e. setting up overseas branch campuses; aggressive recruitment drive for international students; and the launch of new programmes to attract a wider market. Based on a documentary analysis of the debate on the future of curriculum development in higher education institutions in general, and using the exemplar of an unconventional course launch as a case illustration, the study is extensively reliant on a qualitative approach. The study provides fresh insights into the entrepreneurial potential of higher education institutions in co-branded/marketing activities with the hip-hop industry.

The aim of “Researchers as enablers of commercialization at an entrepreneurial university” is to explore and visualize alternative ways that academic research can come into commercial use. The study in the Swedish context investigates one entrepreneurial university, Chalmers University of Technology. In total, 18 interviews were conducted about researchers’ views on commercialization and how research had come into commercial use. The findings show researchers’ priority to science and their reluctance towards a career change. With a strong tradition that research should come to use in society, commercialization is regarded as one possible way to utilize. Five propositions related to researchers’ crucial role in commercialization of academic research are advocated, which terminate in their role as enablers of commercialization by others. The concept of need for utilization is introduced as a critical explanation for researchers’ readiness to transfer knowledge to established companies. Also the role of alumni as main receivers is shown. The current focus on researchers’ creation of university spin-off companies at the expense of diversity is discussed. Which role models to emphasize is a delicate matter, risking reproduction and reinforcement or deterioration and discouragement. When only a few visible stars are accounted for alternatives that embrace involvement of prepared entrepreneurs will be neglected, and the belief in an academic paradox can be conserved. Bearing in mind that in Sweden Professor’s Privilege is in force, with subsequent ownership and responsibility to commercialize relying on the individual researchers, their dedication to commercial engagement becomes even more decisive.

The purpose of “The effect of parent university on firm growth: an analysis of the Spanish and Italian USOs” is to explore the hypothesis that the university context may partially determine the University spin-offs growth, with a cross-national analysis and using an “interactionist” approach. Two sample Spanish and Italian University spin-offs (531 and 952 firms, respectively) over the period 2005-2013 have been used. It has been applied multilevel modelling to empirically test the hypotheses. The results confirm that the university context is a critical and effective element for explaining the university spin-offs’ growth. University context affects university spin-offs’ growth only for the Spanish firms, while for the Italian spin-offs the evidences do not remark a significant determining influence of the university context. This finding may be interpreted as if the localization externalities, emanated by the Spanish universities, have a more effective impact at firm-level compared with those generated by the Italian universities. The paper provides evidence that the university context has a significant role in supporting university spin-offs growth in Spain, but not in Italy. This finding, together with the fact of that the Italian university spin-offs showed lower growth rates over the period of analysis, may be suggesting that a higher engagement of the Italian parent universities is needed to foster university spin-offs growth. The main vibrant memorandum to decision-makers is that policies aimed at fostering university spin-offs need the active involvement of the parent university in the whole growth process of the nascent firm, rather than just in the university spin-offs’ creation A multilevel approach provides both methodological and theoretical contributions to the study of university spin-offs growth, since that an “interactionist” approach is recommended by literature. In addition, a cross-national approach allows exploring the actual effect of the university on university spin-offs growth, taking into account the country differences.

“To Manage or to Govern? Researching the legitimacy of NPM-based institutional reforms in Russian universities” aims to identify the legitimacy of organizational innovations in Russian universities. At this aim, first, the study detects how members of academia perceive institutional changes. Second, the social factors which provoke the biggest resistance or antagonism are revealed, ultimately resulting in a crisis of legitimacy. Finally, with the help of quantitative analysis, key factors affecting legitimacy of institutional reforms in universities are defined. To explore the research questions, the study first introduce the concepts of legitimacy and legitimization and discuss the context of research. Then the results are discussed such as the main factors influencing legitimization and employees’ perceptions of institutional reforms. The study finds that NPM-based university institutional reforms are going through a legitimization crisis and that legitimacy cannot be achieved within the framework of NPM because there is substantial lack of agreement, positive perceptions of reforms and engagement by the faculty.

The purpose of “Factors affecting universities’ ability to foster students’ entrepreneurial behaviour: an empirical investigation” is to empirically investigate behavioural and contextual factors affecting entrepreneurial universities’ ability to influence students’ entrepreneurial attitude and intention. Structural equation modelling has been used to assess both micro and macro factors impacting on students’ entrepreneurial attitude and intention on a sample of 272 students of the Master of Business Administration at the University of Florence. The study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial universities by assessing the main factors affecting students’ entrepreneurial behaviour. The results stresses how students’ entrepreneurial intent is mainly affected by their entrepreneurial attitude, which is in turn influenced by some of the personality traits analysed, in particular risk-taking propensity and locus of control. The value of the research relates to integrating psychological factors, geographical elements, and the contextual role of universities within entrepreneurship education in a scarcely investigated area.

“Entrepreneurial university: a case study at Stony Brook University” proposes a case analysis of the Innovation Centre in the College of Business at Stony Brook University and shows the mutual benefits to students in learning about startups and to helping startups grow. The mutual benefit comes from the student understanding and the startup managing the complementary roles of inventor, entrepreneur and investor. These roles need support and coordination by science and business faculties and students in the university. This process, described in specific courses and programmes for MBAs and BBAs, includes the contribution of the business academic faculty, serial entrepreneur mentors and the scientists in partner organizations that also support startups inside and outside the university. This case can be useful to research universities and business schools that want to improve the startup process and success.