Marco Romano, James A. Cunningham, Giacomo Cuttone, Alessia Munnia and Melita Nicotra
Entrepreneurial universities, through their intellectual capital (IC), can promote the development of a third mission, which involves collaborating with business and societal…
Abstract
Purpose
Entrepreneurial universities, through their intellectual capital (IC), can promote the development of a third mission, which involves collaborating with business and societal organizations to create value. Joint research projects are undertaken within entrepreneurial universities leveraging their IC. These generate value for both the academic community and the territory as they generate impact, in terms of regional IC. At the micro level, scientists in the principal investigator (PI) role are influential actors in generating impact and IC that is beneficial for all joint project stakeholders. The purpose of the paper is to address the existing gap in entrepreneurial university literature concerning the impact generation process.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper represents a theoretical contribution adopting a deductive approach.
Findings
This paper proposes a novel approach to support PIs in entrepreneurial universities in the process of managing innovative initiatives toward IC impact generation. First, we present the IC-based Research Impact Tool (ICRIT) to guide PIs acting as explorative entrepreneurs; then we propose an IC-based Research Impact Report (ICRIR) including some key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate impact and IC.
Research limitations/implications
The theoretical approach proposed could be developed further. This could be furthered through more empirical studies using initially, for example, comparative cross-country case study research.
Originality/value
The paper sheds new light on the importance of the final impact generated by research initiatives, focusing on the crucial role played by PIs and promoting the adoption of an IC-based strategic approach, to maximize the final impact of projects, in terms of regional IC.
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Brendan Dolan, James A. Cunningham, Matthias Menter and Caroline McGregor
The purpose of this paper is a micro-level examination of the role and function of cooperative research centers (CRCs) in entrepreneurial universities from a principal…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is a micro-level examination of the role and function of cooperative research centers (CRCs) in entrepreneurial universities from a principal investigator (PI) perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a qualitative research design and is based on 38 semi-structured interviews with PIs who are publicly funded at the Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CÚRAM) based in Ireland. CÚRAM has a multiple mission focus of supporting scientific excellence, industry engagement, educational and public engagement that supports the Irish medical device sector.
Findings
The findings reveal that CRCs’ role and function at the micro level constitute a necessary and functional organization architecture that supports PIs who are required to meet multiple scientific, commercialization, educational and public engagement objectives. Specifically, from the micro-level PI perspective, the role and function of CRCs focus on research quality enhancement, brokerage, networks and collaborations, addressing research impact and resource enhancement and appropriation.
Practical implications
This research emphasizes the importance and necessity for the creation of CRCs as part of the entrepreneurial architecture of entrepreneurial universities that provides the necessary appropriate local environmental conditions and enhanced supports to enable micro-level actors to fulfill multiple mission objectives with respect to research excellence, industry, educational and public engagement and impact.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the limited literature on new institutional configurations that support entrepreneurship and addresses recent calls for further research. In taking a micro-level focus, the authors identify the role and function of CRCs from a PI perspective in an entrepreneurial university setting.
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James A. Cunningham and Matthias Menter
This paper examines and discusses the need for micro-level analyses of academic entrepreneurship and outlines a micro-level research agenda for the study of academic…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines and discusses the need for micro-level analyses of academic entrepreneurship and outlines a micro-level research agenda for the study of academic entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a review of academic literature on academic entrepreneurship, this study focuses on individual actors and suggests some future research agendas.
Findings
The authors highlight that more studies dealing with academic entrepreneurship need to take a micro-level perspective, thereby outline several fruitful avenues of research: (1) star scientists and principal investigators, (2) TTO professionals, (3) graduate entrepreneurs, (4) university administrators, (5) policy makers and funders as well as (6) micro-level organisational routines.
Practical implications
This paper derives three main implications for management practice and policy. First, there is a real need to develop the managerial skills, competencies and capabilities of scientists and individuals. Second, policy makers need to ensure the necessary resources to pursue a paradigm shift towards more entrepreneurial thinking and action and create adequate incentives. Third, firms need to offer support and guidance on how to best commercialise and transfer scientific knowledge and ideally complement support structures of universities and research institutes.
Originality/value
This paper provides an organising framework for the study of micro-level academic entrepreneurship and emphasises the need to focus further on individual actors and how their actions, behaviours and approaches contribute to academic entrepreneurship in different institutional, environmental and cultural contexts.
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Kayleigh Watson, Pauric McGowan and James A. Cunningham
Business Plan Competitions (BPCs) are readily prescribed and promoted as a valuable entrepreneurial learning activity on university campuses worldwide. There is an acceptance of…
Abstract
Purpose
Business Plan Competitions (BPCs) are readily prescribed and promoted as a valuable entrepreneurial learning activity on university campuses worldwide. There is an acceptance of their value despite the clear lack of empirical attention on the learning experience of nascent entrepreneurs during and post-participation in university-based BPCs. To address this deficit, the purpose of this paper is to explore how participation in a university-based BPC affords entrepreneurial learning outcomes, through the development of competencies, amongst nascent entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
Underpinned by a constructivist paradigm, a longitudinal qualitative methodological approach was adopted. In-depth interviews with nascent entrepreneur participants of a UK university-based BPC were undertaken at the start and end of the competition but also six months after participation. This method enabled access to the participant’s experiences of the competition and appreciation of the meanings they attached to this experience as a source of entrepreneurial learning. Data were analysed according to the wave of data collection and a thematic analytical approach was taken to identify patterns across participant accounts.
Findings
At the start of the competition, participation was viewed as a valuable experiential learning opportunity in pursuit of the competencies needed, but not yet held, to progress implementation of the nascent venture. At the end of the competition, participants considered their participation experience had afforded the development of pitching, public speaking, networking and business plan production competencies and also self-confidence. Six months post-competition, participants still recognised that competencies had been developed; however, application of these were deemed as being confined to participation in other competitions rather than the routine day-to-day aspects of venture implementation. Developed competencies and learning remained useful given a prevailing view that further competition participation represented an important activity which would enable value to be leveraged in terms of finance, marketing and networking opportunities for new venture creation.
Research limitations/implications
The findings challenge the common understanding that the BPC represents an effective methodology for highly authentic, relevant and broadly applicable entrepreneurial learning. Moreover the idea that the competencies needed for routine venture implementation and competencies developed through competition are synonymous is challenged. By extension the study suggests competition activities may not be as closely tied to the realities of new venture creation as commonly portrayed or understood and that the learning afforded is situated within a competition context. Competitions could therefore be preventing the opportunities for entrepreneurial learning that they purport they offer. Given the practical importance of competition participation as a resource acquisition activity for nascent entrepreneurs, further critical examination of the competition agenda is necessary as too is additional consideration about the design of such competitions and how such competitions should feature within university policy to support new venture creation.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the limited literature and studies on BPCs by focussing on its effectiveness as a means of providing entrepreneurial learning for participants. The key contribution taking it from an individual nascent entrepreneur participant perspective is that the competencies afforded through competition participation are more limited in scope and application than traditionally promoted and largely orientated towards future BPC participation. Learning is mainly situated for competition sake only and about participants securing further resources and higher levels of visibility. As the nascent entrepreneurs intended learning outcomes from competition participation are subsequently not realised, the study highlights a gap between the intended and actual outcomes of competition participation.
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Grace S. Walsh and James A. Cunningham
The purpose of this paper is to focus on the processes that occur between entrepreneurs’ primary attribution for failure and the emergent learning dimensions from failure, in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on the processes that occur between entrepreneurs’ primary attribution for failure and the emergent learning dimensions from failure, in the context of regenerative failures.
Design/methodology/approach
The study focusses on 21 entrepreneurs operating in the producing services sector, a major subsector of the Irish Information and Communication Technology industry. All the entrepreneurs experienced business failure and subsequently re-entered the entrepreneurial sphere at a later date. A qualitative approach examines their attributions for failure, responses to failure, and learning dimensions from failure.
Findings
Regenerative entrepreneurs’ primary attributions for business failure are examined in detail; four types of failure attributions are uncovered – internal individual level; external firm level; external market level; and hybrid attributions. Entrepreneurs’ attributions impact their responses to the failure; this in turn affects entrepreneurial learning. When failure is primarily attributed to internal factors, the entrepreneur’s response is affective, leading to deep, personal learning about oneself. External attributions (both firm level and market level) result in a primarily behavioural response, with learning focussed on the venture, and networks and relationships. Those primarily attributing failure to hybrid factors have a largely cognitive response and they learn about venture management.
Research limitations/implications
This study is a retrospective analysis of business failure.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the growing literature on entrepreneurs’ attributions for business failure by focussing on regenerative failure; it links attributions to – responses to, and learning from, failure. The key contribution to knowledge emerges from the development of a model of the underlying processes affecting learning from failure for regenerative entrepreneurs. The research also establishes and identifies clear links between attributions, responses, and lessons learned in the context of regenerative failure.
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Joseph Amankwah-Amoah, Richard B. Nyuur, Robert Hinson, John Paul Kosiba, Omar Al-Tabbaa and James A. Cunningham
Although start-ups have gained increasing scholarly attention, we lack sufficient understanding of their entrepreneurial strategic posture (ESP) in emerging economies. The purpose…
Abstract
Purpose
Although start-ups have gained increasing scholarly attention, we lack sufficient understanding of their entrepreneurial strategic posture (ESP) in emerging economies. The purpose of this study is to examine the processes of ESP of new technology venture start-ups (NTVs) in an emerging market context.
Design/methodology/approach
In line with grounded theory guidelines and the inductive research traditions, the authors adopted a qualitative approach involving 42 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Ghanaian NTV entrepreneurs to gain a comprehensive analysis at the micro-level on the entrepreneurs' strategic posturing. A systematic procedure for data analysis was adopted.
Findings
From the authors' analysis of Ghanaian NTVs, the authors derived a three-stage model to elucidate the nature and process of ESP Phase 1 spotting and exploiting market opportunities, Phase II identifying initial advantages and Phase III ascertaining and responding to change.
Originality/value
The study contributes to advancing research on ESP by explicating the process through which informal ties and networks are utilised by NTVs and NTVs' founders to overcome extreme resource constraints and information vacuums in contexts of institutional voids. The authors depart from past studies in demonstrating how such ties can be harnessed in spotting and exploiting market opportunities by NTVs. On this basis, the paper makes original contributions to ESP theory and practice.
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There are increasing expectations and demands being placed on the universities to become more entrepreneurial. This entails universities becoming more entrepreneurial in their…
Abstract
There are increasing expectations and demands being placed on the universities to become more entrepreneurial. This entails universities becoming more entrepreneurial in their culture and processes as well as supporting entrepreneurship within and beyond the university setting. Entrepreneurial universities are key institutional actors in supporting entrepreneurship and economic growth.
For poorer regions, like the North east of England, entrepreneurial universities have an even more vital institutional role in supporting entrepreneurial ecosystems and taking a lead in supporting entrepreneurship and innovation. The growth of public sector entrepreneurship through government policies and programmes targeted at increasing the levels of entrepreneurship and innovation at national and regional levels provides new opportunities for entrepreneurial universities. The focus of this chapter is to explore some of the challenges and opportunities faced by entrepreneurial universities as they engage more with public sector entrepreneurship programmes, designed to increase the collaboration intensity between universities, industry and society. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of Brexit for entrepreneurial universities in the North East and their regions.
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Usha Rani Jayanna, Senthil Kumar Jaya Prakash, Ravi Aluvala and B. Venkata Rao
Through bibliometric analysis, the study intends to reveal the evolution of the trends in the Scopus database, the scope of research and the connection between technology and…
Abstract
Purpose
Through bibliometric analysis, the study intends to reveal the evolution of the trends in the Scopus database, the scope of research and the connection between technology and entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a comprehensive science mapping approach, integrating network visualisation to map research groups, bibliometric analysis to measure publication trends and thematic analysis to identify overarching themes. This study uses a thorough technique to examine the complex interaction between technology and entrepreneurship from 2000 to 2023. The collection includes information from various sources, creating a corpus of 2,207 documents. These sources include 698 scholarly journals, books and other publications.
Findings
According to the report, the interest in technology and entrepreneurship is expanding. The three nations conducting the most study on this subject is the USA, the UK and Italy. Some of the top writers in this area include James A. Cunningham, Alison N. Link and David B. Audretsch.
Research limitations/implications
The study found possibilities and problems associated with the interaction between technology and entrepreneurship. Additionally, the study found several research holes in this area. The study also noted some research gaps in this field, including those related to the sustainability of society and the environment, the effects of entrepreneurship on inequality and the difficulties faced by entrepreneurs in underdeveloped nations.
Practical implications
This study thoroughly overviews the business and technology sectors. It outlines some of the difficulties that must be overcome whilst identifying the main research trends in this field. Researchers, decision-makers and businesspeople interested in using technology for entrepreneurial endeavours can all benefit from the study’s findings.
Social implications
This study’s dataset’s scope, which might not include all pertinent publications, is one of its limitations. Nevertheless, the results add to a thorough picture of the state of the profession and recent developments. This study’s insights are valuable for researchers, policymakers and entrepreneurs interested in leveraging technology for entrepreneurial pursuits.
Originality/value
The research points to a number of directions that need more inquiry, such as in-depth studies into the social and environmental implications of technology-driven entrepreneurship and methods to combat inequality.
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Barbara Tocco, James A. Cunningham, Amelia Magistrali, Jeremy Phillipson and Matthew Gorton