Academic entrepreneurship (re)defined: significance and implications for the scholarship of higher education

Abstract

Over the past several decades higher education scholars have conducted a significant amount of research aimed at understanding the implications of enhanced interactions between the academy and the private marketplace. Accordingly, a voluminous literature that includes conceptualizations and discussions of academic entrepreneurship has emerged. This paper used content analysis to examine how researchers have conceptualized entrepreneurship in five leading higher education journals. The analysis revealed notable patterns in the application of theoretical and conceptual frameworks of entrepreneurship to higher education phenomena, as well as observable distinctions in how entrepreneurial models are applied in specific organizational, institutional, and geographical contexts. Results suggest that there is a paucity of attention paid to the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of entrepreneurship within higher education scholarship. We introduce a framework for strengthening the application of entrepreneurial models to higher education research that is grounded in the theoretical constructs of entrepreneurship as articulated in the economic and management literatures.

Does context matter in academic entrepreneurship? The role of barriers and drivers in the regional and national context

“…With the increased significance of the knowledge transfer activities performed by academics, a large body of research has begun to use entrepreneurship frameworks to study the engagement of academics in entrepreneurial endeavour (Mars and Rios-Aguilar 2010), which has been conceptualized as 'academic entrepreneurship'. Notwithstanding the growing engagement of universities in academic entrepreneurial activities and the popularity of the term, (Rothaermel et al 2007), 'entrepreneurialism' in the academy has been ill defined causing controversy on the acceptance among the academic community and defying on what actually constitutes 'an entrepreneurial activity' (Audretsch 2002).…”

Entrepreneurial practices in research-intensive and teaching-led universities

“…In relation to this aspect, the literature discusses the influence of predispositions towards entrepreneurial behaviour (Karataş-Ö zkan 2011; Klapper and Refai 2015). These predispositions are influenced by beliefs about personal gains and losses, which may result from entrepreneurial behaviour, and the impacts may not be entirely about economic profits (Mars and Rios-Aguilar 2010), with other considerations such as reputation, prestige, recognition, ownership and prizes being in place, and often referred to as symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1974;Hagstrom 1966;van Rijnsover et al 2008). Human capital is commonly associated with career status , and is considered relevant in configuring cognitive controls .…”

The entrepreneurial university and academic discourses: The meta‐synthesis of Higher Education articles

“…Mars and Rios‐Aguilar () combined the broad‐range principles and concepts of entrepreneurship—‘economic (dis)equilibrium, creativity, innovation, economic and/or social value creation, risk‐taking and mitigation and opportunity identification and utilisation’ (p. 449)—and, based on the studies in Higher Education journals, defined academic entrepreneurship as ‘creating economic and/or social transformation beyond the boundaries of the academy’ (p. 455). Several studies published in Higher Education journals also provided different examples related to major entrepreneurial activities in universities from various countries (Bernasconi, ; De Zilwa, ; Mazdeh, Razavi, Hesamamiri, Zahedi, & Elahi, ; Mok, Yu, & Ku, ; Sam & van der Sijde, ; Sharma, ; Yokoyama, ).…”