Understanding entrepreneurial academics ‐ how they perceive their environment differently
Journal of Management Development
ISSN: 0262-1711
Article publication date: 6 June 2020
Issue publication date: 18 November 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Academic entrepreneurship is seen as a pathway for universities to create value from their knowledge. However, there has been a lack of clarity about what activities constitute academic entrepreneurship, the different type of entrepreneurial academics and how their perceptions of their environment relate to their engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on a large data set of 10,836 responses across 33 countries, the empirical study investigates European academics who undertake four academic entrepreneurship activities (spin-out creation, commercialisation of R&D results, joint R&D and consulting) to determine if they perceive the environment for academic entrepreneurship differently than those who undertake only some of the activities and those undertaking none at all.
Findings
The findings show that less than 1% of academics undertake exclusively spin-offs creation or R&D commercialisation; however, the majority also engage in other entrepreneurial activities such as joint R&D and consulting and even other education and management engagement activities with industry. In addition, entrepreneurial academics in Europe perceive significantly higher motivators and more developed supporting mechanisms for academic entrepreneurship. However, their perceptions of barriers are similar.
Practical implications
At a managerial and policy level, the study results call into question universities prioritising a narrow view of academic entrepreneurship which focusses only on spin-offs creation and R&D commercialisation. Instead, a broader view of academic entrepreneurship is recommended and appropriate mechanisms in place to enable academics to achieve research outcomes from their entrepreneurial activity.
Originality/value
This paper offers an important contribution on how the perception of the environment contributes to the development of entrepreneurial behaviour in individual academics.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express appreciation to Pablo D'Este for his timely and valuable advice for this paper as well as to Adisa Ejubovic for her support. The survey was carried out as part of the project “The State of University-Business Cooperation in Europe” conducted from 2016 to 2018 by a consortium led by the Science-to-Business Marketing Research Centre, Germany for the DG Education and Culture, European Commission (EAC/10/2015).Corrigendum: The authors of the article Davey, T. and Galan-Muros, V. (2020), “Understanding entrepreneurial academics - how they perceive their environment differently”, published in Journal of Management Development, have identified and self-reported that information in Table 5 of the article contained errors. The errors were in the table alone and do not affect the interpretation of results. The online version has since been updated and the correct data for Table 5 is present. The authors sincerely apologise for this.
Citation
Davey, T. and Galan-Muros, V. (2020), "Understanding entrepreneurial academics ‐ how they perceive their environment differently", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 39 No. 5, pp. 599-617. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-09-2019-0392
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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