Universities are expected to contribute to regional development through the 'third mission' going beyond traditional academic core functions. Hitherto, the literature has focused on a rather idealistic 'one-size-fitsall' approach to university engagement, though in reality universities have different ways to carry out thirdstream activities. This has been partly explained by geographical factors. Therefore, this paper focuses on how a particular contextin this case a rural regioncan shape universities' institutional responses towards the third mission. A single case study of the University of Lincoln (UK) demonstrates that a rural context has an impact on the way universities develop their entrepreneurial architectures. A contextual element, namely a rural region, was added to the entrepreneurial architecture framework, originally conceptualized by Vorley and Nelles in 2009 to study how the rural context affects the other dimensions of the entrepreneurial architectures framework. Tentative findings from the case study suggest that in rural regions universities face increased expectations to take leadership outside academia in the lack of other local knowledge institutions. The engagement is largely based on personal linkages with external stakeholders instead of a formal collaboration mechanism, while the structures and strategic choices are oriented towards serving the local job market and regional priority sectors. These results imply that a particular context shapes the university's orientation and institutional responses to third-stream activities, and thus further context-sensitive studies on universities' entrepreneurial architectures would be beneficial for exploring how universities can efficiently contribute to regional development in different environments. ARTICLE HISTORY

Universities have become more entrepreneurial organisations in the past decades. However, the entrepreneurial competences needed for driving societal change have not been largely discussed in research literature. This paper sought to examine entrepreneurial staff competencies in the context of universities of applied sciences. A single case study from Finland, Tampere University of Applied Science, was selected. As the case institution has systematically developed an entrepreneurial strategy, the aim was to examine how entrepreneurial thinking and actions at individual and organisational levels were realised. The quantitative study involved 17 supervisors and 39 employees, and the survey took place in the Spring of 2020. The results indicate that the entrepreneurial strategy has been successfully implemented. Although both supervisors and employees evaluate themselves and the organisation to be entrepreneurial, internal communication should be further developed. Especially the provision of constructive feedback to support self-efficacy and self-esteem should be highlighted. As previous studies have stressed the challenges of integrating entrepreneurial behaviour in a ‘traditional’ academic context, these results provide insights for universities aiming to implement an entrepreneurial strategy, stressing psychological factors in the development of entrepreneurial competencies. Furthermore, we introduce a new theoretical approach to the discussion on the entrepreneurial university based on entrepreneurial competences.

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In the past decades, there has been a growing interest in entrepreneurship education, and many higher education institutions have developed specific programs and courses to support entrepreneurial competencies. However, there have been significant changes in how universities train competences related to business skills and entrepreneurship in practice. Whereas entrepreneurship courses used to focus on the different forms of businesses and drafting business plans, the overall perception of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial competences has shifted this toward a more holistic educational approach to develop students’ entrepreneurial competencies. In this comparative quantitative case study, we investigate the university students’ perception of the development of their entrepreneurial competencies in the case of Proakatemia (Tampere University of Applied Sciences). The aim was to examine how the entrepreneurial competencies are reflected and strengthened in their thinking and everyday functions through the concept of team learning. The survey involved, altogether, 64 students, of which 21 studied in Proakatemia. The results of this study indicate that the team learning concept of Proakatemia facilitates learning entrepreneurial competencies. Therefore, these results provide insights for universities aiming to develop their curricula, programs and pedagogy, thus promoting sustainable societal development. However, we recommend further studies, e.g., from a qualitative point of view, to assess the effective of the concept in other learning environments.