Guest editorial

Too much of a good thing: special edition Part 2

The special edition on innovation and entrepreneurship in the higher education institutions sector was so popular that we found we had far too many quality papers and too little space in a single edition to accommodate them. Accordingly, I have selected ten papers on this very popular topic. As anyone who has ever worked with an academic journal can tell you, when you have too many high-quality papers, you are doing all the right things.

“Determinants of entrepreneurial intentions: an international cross-border study” by Fernandes, Ferreira, Raposo, Sanchez and Hernandez-Sanchez is a compelling comparison of college students from two countries in a model that evaluates self-efficacy, risk-taking propensity and proactive personality as psychological determinants of entrepreneurial intentions. The literature review is interesting to read, and the results offer guidelines for additional research that should be done by other researchers.

“Academic consulting – income stream, impact, and brand building” by Kinnunen, Holm, Nordman and Roschier is an interesting perspective on academic consulting and the benefits that can be realized by both academics and their institution. The paper discusses the formal and informal arrangements universities have with their faculty as outside consultants. It appears that in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) category, there are much more rigid policies in place for outside consulting; but, in the SSHA (Social Studies, Humanities and Arts) sector, there is a longer and less rigid consultancy history. As a paper, it is fascinating to see how the universities (these are limited to Finland) and the academics approach outside consulting. Being an American Professor, it appears to me that the challenges of outside consulting are universal and poorly organized to support academic consultants in anything other than their research and teaching activities. The authors suggest that there is a real and significant opportunity for academic organizations to participate more intimately with the business community in innovation while improving the lives of their most innovative faculty members.

“The entrepreneurial profile of Brazilian business administration students” by Amaral, Hernandez and Bastos is a fascinating study of three Brazilian universities and the changes that occur in the entrepreneurial indicators of self-realization, leadership, planning, innovativeness, risk-taking and sociability between the freshman and senior-year students. The study, though limited to a small sample of institutions, demonstrates that in this population of Brazilian students, the educational process, including courses in entrepreneurship, does not improve the student’s indicators of becoming a successful entrepreneur. In fact in most cases, student leadership scores, innovativeness scores and risk-taking scores drop over the course of a university education. While this is an interesting finding, it is also disturbing because if these universities are representative of the global population of institutes of higher learning, it reinforces the perception that education does more to reduce innovation and entrepreneurship than develop it.

“Impact of the EIT in the creation of an open educational ecosystem: UPM experience” by Tejero, León and Leceta is dedicated to a description of the ERASMUS program in the Greater EU to encourage and develop collaboration in the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, with an emphasis placed on the experience of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. For countries and regions attempting to develop programs to enhance and/or develop coordinated, collaborative educational opportunities aimed at developing the college age population, the paper explains what does and doesn’t work with the program.

“An entrepreneurial venture’s growth with Thai University” by Sooampon is a case study of the operations of Thai University’s program to encourage the development of low-cost pharmaceutical supplies as a start-up opportunity for both the students and the university. Given the changes in how entrepreneurship is developing at the university level, this creates a particularly challenging situation, whereby some of the traditional approaches to development and commercialization are in opposition to some of the newer models of development. The value of the paper lies in its review of options for these organizations, with possible suggestions on how to improve the viability of the said projects.

“Academy – industry linking capabilities as a determinant of innovation” by Garcia-Montijo and Perez-Soltero outlines and discusses a program to address the perceived lack of a linkage between industry and academia in research and education and the needs of the Mexican industry and the allocation of national monies toward R&D. The paper specifically discusses a program in the northwest region of Mexico in the postgraduate program at the University of Senora. The objective of the program is to seed graduate students into the business community to specifically assist businesses in solving their most difficult problems. This helps the businesses, as they receive help from not only the students but also the community of the university. The results indicate that the majority of the business owners received benefits and were satisfied with the program, with many students continuing on to a job with the company.

“A conceptual model of knowledge sharing” by Farooq explores the link to knowledge sharing and how that sharing is linked to business performance. The author has taken indexed journals to identify those that discuss knowledge sharing, business performance and industry type. Key to this paper is the link established between the development of trust and a culture, whereby employees feel that it is safe, and the amount of knowledge that is shared in organizations that appear to have a high degree of trust. Obviously, the implications to an organization that wishes to be innovative are especially important here. Without the trusting culture necessary to encourage knowledge sharing (e.g. new ideas and innovations), it is difficult to establish a trusting environment where people feel free to share ideas. The author points out that knowledge sharing effects business performance, and while they fail to mention improved innovation initiatives, I believe that the facts speak about improved innovation performance as well.

“Innovative start-ups: challenges and development opportunities in Latvia” by Lusena-Ezera, Bikse and Rivza is a revealing paper about the current state of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country of Latvia, one of the lower ranking countries in terms of start-up activity in the EU. The paper discusses the attitudes toward the start-up community of students from high school to master level in an economy that appears to be doing a number of things that enable individuals in the country to improve their ability to have a successful start-up.

“How data analytics is changing entrepreneurial opportunities” by Sedkaoui outlines the current and prospective uses and needs for data science in both academia and business, with discussions of why analytics is so important to entrepreneurs. This broad review of the current state of data science, from academia to industry through the educational process, highlights the connection of innovation and entrepreneurship to analytics education.

Essentially, the opportunities for universities and governments to help young entrepreneurs develop are carried from country to country, but being recognized more widely as critical for institutions of higher education to become a part of the efforts to develop innovation. Previously, this has been seen as primarily the responsibility of the individual first, then the government. Finally, we are recognizing that the university has a role more important than just teaching students. The university needs to become an active member of the innovation community, and it is likely that at some point in the future, this may be a prime reason for some students to choose a certain university.

Sincerely,