Rethinking Academic Entrepreneurship: University Governance and the Emergence of the Academic Enterprise

Abstract

The theory and practice of academic entrepreneurship, like many domains of public management, requires active recognition that context affects individual behavior. In this Viewpoint essay, the authors contend that the operational logic of a university affects the values and activities of actors within that university in ways that shape the broader entrepreneurial activities of the university. The authors describe a new entrepreneurial organizational logic, termed the "academic enterprise," and situate it in relation to the more established academy, bureaucratic, and market logics. The academic enterprise is inherently entrepreneurial in terms of the management of the university and its reliance on faculty and student entrepreneurship as a tool for broad-scale social and economic transformation.

Creating Value in the Entrepreneurial University: Marketization and Merchandising Strategies

“…The practical implication of this work tries, first of all, to individuate the correlation between the entrepreneurial university model and the development of marketing and merchandising strategies in higher education institutions, then to prove the relevance that marketing and merchandising strategies could aid in attracting and connecting more students. In this sense, if the concept of "academic entrepreneurship", introduced by Crow et al (2019), indicates formal and informal transactions carried out by universities to improve their visibility and to approach and engage more students, merchandising can be seen in line with the entrepreneurial university paradigm. Then, if, according to Clark (2015), a university becomes entrepreneurial by operating in a new strategic manner and diversifying their financial resources sources, marketing and merchandising can help in it, at least for what concerns the Italian context.…”

“…It describes a new university, seen as the response to the increasing relevance of knowledge in fostering innovation in national and regional contexts. Crow et al (2019) introduce the term "academic entrepreneurship", to summarize the new universities' involvement in commercialization and technology transfer, by including formal intellectual property transactions, such as patenting and licensing, but also informal ones, such as different types of entrepreneurial ventures, aimed to make students and universities closer (Siegel and Wright 2015), to generate different forms of social engagement (Vorley and Nelles 2008).…”

“…What is more, by pursuing this objective, higher education institutions started to implement marketing and merchandising activities (Angulo-Ruiz et al 2010; Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2006) by looking for an edge over competitors. If, according to the academic entrepreneurship view, universities tend to apply many aspects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem (Crow et al 2019), the development of marketing and merchandising in higher education could be seen as a manifestation of its specific market logic. These activities would be performed by universities with the aim to generate revenue streams, that will be used to improve education and research methods and to better cope with social and economic issues.…”

“…First of all, marketing and merchandising can be seen as specific entrepreneurial ventures carried out by universities to reposition their reputation around the world, a way to expand connections with external stakeholders, to approach new market demands and, in terms of future perspectives, to become students' first choice; in other words, to distinguish themselves from competitors, just like enterprises do (Crow et al 2019).…”

Entrepreneurship in the Public and Nonprofit Sectors

“…“Rethinking academic entrepreneurship: University governance and the emergence of the academic enterprise” by Crow, Whitman, and Anderson () fills this gap. The authors explore the “academic enterprise” in relationship to dominant academic oligarchy, bureaucracy, and market logics.…”