Creating an Enterprise Culture in a University

Abstract

<jats:p> The ‘entrepreneurial university’ is considered a desirable and achievable goal, but how do universities become entrepreneurial? The role of the enterprising academic in stimulating cultural change is often overlooked. This article presents as a case study the teaching team at the University of Derby, UK, who ‘acted as entrepreneurs’ for five years to stimulate enterprising learning across the university. The analysis provides insights into cultural change in a modern regional university. The authors explore three questions: how can a university develop an entrepreneurial culture, how can entrepreneurial teachers stimulate cultural change, and are there general learning points to be gained from the experience at the University of Derby? The process of developing an enterprising culture in a university is examined by tracing the organizational, pedagogical, systemic and behavioural changes and conflicts that arose. The authors examine the impact on a higher education institution of five years of significant growth in enterprise learning from a zero base, including the development of an enterprise curriculum, innovative learning methods, funded projects for student and community entrepreneurship, practice-based research and the formation of networks of educators, practitioners and influencers. They conclude with an account of the ‘Energizing Enterprise Education’ staff development event for the team and the university. The paper highlights the significance of the values, skills and methods of an entrepreneurial teaching team as crucial factors in the cultural change process and in addressing the inevitable conflict with the ‘base culture’. </jats:p>

Enterprising Versus Traditional Change Management in a For-Profit University

“…Consistent with a number of previous studies in this area [6,7,9,17,18] the present study used a case approach to investigate faculty and administrator perceptions of a structural organizational change. The context was non-traditional: a transnational, for-profit higher education provider in the Middle East.…”

Beyond the entrepreneur: A study of entrepreneurial learning from a social practice perspective working with scientists in West Africa

“…These cognitive processes are related to how knowledge is received, used and processed, which make them highly relevant to entrepreneurial behaviour (Adomako et al, 2016; Garbuio et al, 2018). While the theory of social cognition is increasingly useful to help establish the phenomena associated with entrepreneurship behaviour, in general, and with EL, in particular, two limitations have been highlighted: first, the lack of explanatory features external to the entrepreneur such as context, time and materiality; and second, the restricted focus on studying the cognitive abilities of business-led individuals only, underestimating other kinds of entrepreneurs (Adomako et al, 2016; Garbuio et al, 2018; Rae et al, 2009). These limitations are problematic because more recent debates around the wider role of EE have highlighted a growing need to deliver EL beyond the domain of entrepreneurship (Bissola et al, 2017; González-López et al, 2019).…”

Assessment model of university innovation ecosystems in ASEAN

“…The first role of the educator is in curriculum design and implementation for entrepreneurship. Development and delivery of an entrepreneurial and innovation curriculum that is up-to-date, relevant and designed with insight from specialists and industry participants, is considered a best practice for the entrepreneurial university (Fernández-Nogueira et al, 2018), as it creates a learning team with multiple competencies (Rae et al, 2009). This type of connection can include, for example, university linkages, or connections between universities and industry (as well as other bodies) (Plewa et al, 2013).…”