Nascent academic entrepreneurs and identity work at the boundaries of professional domains

Higher education institutions promote academic entrepreneurship through organizational arrangements such as innovation programs, incubators, and accelerators aimed at implementing the third mission of the university. While research has examined how these multi-professional arrangements support entrepreneurial efforts, less is known about their individual level implications which emerge as researchers are exposed to different professional values and practices. This article draws on a longitudinal qualitative study on an innovation program to investigate through what kinds of identity processes nascent academic entrepreneurs construct their professional identities and how as part of these processes they position themselves in relation to different professional domains. The analysis demonstrates three identity construction processes (hybridization, rejecting hybridization, and transitioning) and their associated identity work tactics (compartmentalizing, protecting, and reframing) at the boundaries of professional domains. Our contribution is in demonstrating how nascent academic entrepreneurs’ identity construction processes are influenced by internally and externally oriented identity work and their interactive dynamics. Moreover, the findings advance our understanding of how individuals can purposefully mould the fluidity of domain boundaries through identity work by making boundaries bridgeable, impermeable, or permeable. These findings have value for those developing organizational arrangements for the promotion of academic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial identities.

The Role of HEIs in Creating Social Academic Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

The possibility of infusing entrepreneurship into higher education has incited much enthusiasm globally. A sub-domain of entrepreneurial education lies within the scope of social development and recognized as social academic entrepreneurship (SAE) education. Analysis of SAE intention at HEIs is scarce in Pakistan, and this pioneer study systematically analyzes key tenants of SAE including institutional factors, role of faculty and leadership, and strategic inclination to sustain SAE ecosystem within the faculties of social sciences and humanities at a liberal art university in Pakistan. The questionnaire is built on Hindle bridge framework and quadruple helix model for innovation. Results indicate that the study sample is at risk of exhibiting effective SAE and outlines strategies for mindfully curating a trajectory towards SAE education.

From Lab to Market: Challenges Faced By Academic Entrepreneur in Technology Transfer Pursuit

The development of academic entrepreneurship is often benchmarked by the rate of patenting, licensing and spin-offs creation. However, these traditional indicators inherently require a long gestation period to materialize, thus creating a challenge to gauge the progress of novice universities. This paper preliminarily assesses the nature of academic entrepreneurship from a developing economy perspective and explore common challenges faced by academic entrepreneurs in bringing research discoveries from lab to market. Survey questionnaires were distributed to academic entrepreneurs of a public university in Malaysia and a series of answers to an open-ended question were analysed through content analysis. Although the results showed the rate of patents, licensing and start-up creations are modest, however, most of the scientists have made significant progress to the pre-commercialization stage by developing prototypes with commercial potential. The content analysis revealed that scientists’ entrepreneurial characteristics and institutional support were among the main factors that affect the commercialization of research discoveries. These findings suggest for the relevant authority to take improvement measures to enhance the efficiency of Technology Transfer Office and for the private funders and government disbursing agencies to provide more transparency in decision criteria and to reduce the period of application process and approval results. Avenues for future research are recommended based on the findings derived from this single case study.

Cultural and International Aspects of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Educational Institutions: Towards a Typology of Learning Universities

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the international and cultural aspects that academic entrepreneurs must take into consideration and propose a conceptual framework dedicated to the analysis of higher educational institutions (HEI) regarding their international settings and the support or hindrance to academic entrepreneurship. We elaborate on the international and cultural aspects to be considered to successfully undertake an academic entrepreneurship journey, such as cultural, administrative, geographical, and economic distances. We deepen our understanding of the cultural distance by summarizing the most used sociological approaches. Then we discuss the personal and institutional factors that can support or hinder entrepreneurship success, such as cultural sensitivity, cultural awareness, and academic learning organization. Finally, we considered the settings allowing entrepreneurs to develop their cultural sensitivity in the academic context and propose a typology of the HEI regarding their settings and management conditions of entrepreneurship regarding their internationalization and cultural awareness. The results allow university managers and professors or students to identify their organization's maturity in terms of international and cultural awareness towards fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Becoming an academic entrepreneur: how scientists develop an entrepreneurial identity

While academic entrepreneurship depends on the entrepreneurial behavior of university scientists, management studies show that identity development precedes behavioral enactment. This paper extends our understanding of why and how individuals who define themselves as a scientist develop or fail to develop a new commercialization-focused entrepreneurial identity. We develop an explanatory process model by drawing from the concept of liminality, a transitional state during which individuals construct or reconstruct an identity, as well as the entrepreneurship literature. The model not only provides a stylized illustration of identity development and its associated behavioral outcomes, but it also includes several factors such as agency and passion, liminal competence, social support, organizational and institutional support, and temporal factors that moderate the process. We contribute to the literature on entrepreneurial identity by providing a dynamic conceptualization of identity construction and incorporation, among other outcomes, as well as to the academic entrepreneurship literature by elucidating the origin and development of entrepreneurial identities among scientists. A conceptual focus on identity-related micro-processes may help explain why some scientists are more successful at commercializing technologies derived from their research than others. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.

Determinants of the Entrepreneurial Influence on Academic Entrepreneurship—Lessons Learned from Higher Education Students in Portugal

Academic entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important to the field of research as well as to policy makers due to its ability to contribute to the economic, technological, and social development of regions and countries. This research aims to evaluate the determinants that influence the interest of Portuguese higher education students (HEI’s) to become entrepreneurs. The methodology used is quantitative and uses structural model equations. The results obtained demonstrate that the student’s perception of business skills, business growth skills, strategy, and successful business are key factors that students take into account in their entrepreneurial orientation. The research contributes to this theory by adding new knowledge to the literature on the perception of the HEI’s students to become entrepreneurs, specifically the students of Portuguese universities. In practical terms, the contributions offered within this research are based on suggestions for the third mission of universities, explicitly knowledge transfer to the community, business groups, and policy makers, as well as the creation of the essentials within university boundaries to promote entrepreneurship amongst its students. The research is original and innovative, as no research on this field with all the aggregated elements under study has been previously performed in Portugal. Furthermore, the obtained results can translate into ideas that potentially create jobs.

Identification of Internal Academic Factors Affecting Academic Entrepreneurship: A Case Study

Academic Entrepreneurship is an entrepreneurial activity conducted by scientists/academics who market their research results commercially to achieve specific economic benefits or rewards. This research focuses on academic entrepreneurship that occurs at Andalas University. There is still a lack of academics whose research products for commercialization are about 22.73%. It is because there are factors that influence academic entrepreneurship activities at Andalas University. One of them is the internal academic factor. The internal factors are Control System, Organizational Culture, Human Resource Management System, Organizational Structure, and Academic Leadership Behavior. The purpose of this study is to analyze the university's internal factors on academic entrepreneurship. This research uses a quantitative approach derived from 106 Andalas University academics with Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) methods with SmartPLS Software. The result obtained in this study is that the control system exerts a positive and negative influence on academic entrepreneurship. In contrast, other factors have a significant positive influence on academic entrepreneurship. The research results show that the university's control system, organizational structure, and human resources had no significant positive effect on academics at Andalas University. Meanwhile, entrepreneurial behavior and organizational culture have a significant positive effect on academic entrepreneurship at Andalas University. Further research should be analyzed for all universities with innovative products and are ready for commercialization throughout Indonesia. This research is still a case study and needs to be developed.

Influencing Factors of Academic Entrepreneurship-Based Knowledge Mapping: A Comparative Analysis of Chinese and International Literature

In order to analyze the hot frontier of academic entrepreneurship and study the influencing factors of academic entrepreneurship, By using citespace V information visualization software and content analysis, 32 papers in CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) database are retrieved which are indexed by CSSCI (Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index), and 66 papers are retrieved in Web of Science database which are indexed by SSCI (Social Sciences Citation Index); the Chinese and international sample papers were compared and analyzed, and a comparative analysis between Chinese and international papers was made. The results show that the influencing factors of academic entrepreneurship are divided into personal, environmental, and organizational factors. There are many researches on personal factors in China and external factors such as environment, organization, and system in international countries. Chinese research tends to the macrolevel, while international research pays more attention to the microlevel. The research frontier at home and abroad is the research of academic entrepreneurial process at microlevel. Finally, some suggestions are given to academic entrepreneurship: academic exchanges should be strengthened, more support platforms should be set up in university institutions, and the state should introduce incentive policies to enhance the strength and level of academic entrepreneurship.