2.1 Entrepreneurial universities
Current research has reframed the role of universities for the economy and society (see Gunasekara,
2006; Carl & Menter,
2021) and has redefined the three main tasks of universities, namely, academic teaching, research, and the transmission towards society (see Etzkowitz et al.,
2000; Graf & Menter,
2021). While universities, like almost all other institutions, are generally defined by their boundaries, they are also open social systems. Entrepreneurial universities are catalysts for economic and societal change (Markuerkiaga et al.,
2014), whereby the creation of an entrepreneurial university takes time and requires less of a top down approach (see Bratianu & Stanciu,
2010). Hierarchical structures coupled with control, corporate culture, and rewards are some of the barriers that prevent universities from becoming an entrepreneurial university (Kirby,
2006). To encourage universities to transform to become entrepreneurial universities, national governments have created policies and incentives for institutions to accelerate this transformation. Some examples include the Excellence Initiative in Germany (see Menter et al.,
2018; Civera et al.,
2020; Kuratko & Menter,
2017), the Higher Education Fund in the UK (see Washer,
2007; Siegel et al.,
2003b), and the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions in Ireland (see Cunningham & Golden,
2015).
Transforming to become an entrepreneurial university is thereby more than just putting in place funding and infrastructure but requires universities to become entrepreneurial in their culture and entrepreneurial behavior (Kirby,
2006). To achieve this, entrepreneurial universities must make changes to their organizational structures and culture that are aligned to their institutional values and national contexts (Kalar & Antoncic,
2015). Like any organization, they must ensure the “strategy-environment-structure” fit (Bleiklie et al.,
2017). Achieving sustained high performance in universities, like in business general, results from establishing and maintaining a fit among three core elements: (1) the strategy, (2) the environment, and (3) the organizational architecture (Roberts,
2004). Entrepreneurial universities support the transformation of knowledge and are involved in undertaking and realizing transfer activities (Guerrero & Urbano,
2012). To realize this effectively on a sustainable basis, entrepreneurial universities need to have in place the optimal formal organizational architecture and structure that supports entrepreneurship across the stages of entrepreneurship.
2.2 The organizational structure of entrepreneurial universities
The issue of organizational structure in entrepreneurial universities has received limited research attention yet is critical in establishing and sustaining a university organizational culture that supports and fosters entrepreneurship (see Lazzeretti & Tavoletti,
2005). Gibb and Hannon (
2005) argue that the organizational structures of universities might stimulate or constrain entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behavior within university communities. In essence, the organizational structures are created to enable individual actors within the university environment to pursue and realize entrepreneurial opportunities. The entrepreneurial spirit of entrepreneurial universities thereby comes from universities’ central structures and where, as Bratianu and Stanciu (
2010:125) describe it, “people innovate on the education and research level in order to exist and develop.” Clark (
2001) describes this as “a steering core” that attempts to combine in a more effective way individual departments and the centralization of universities. Organizational governance, transfer, and infrastructure have thereby been identified as the different elements of entrepreneurial university structures (see Bronstein & Reihlen,
2014).
Moreover, Etzkowitz (
2003) compares the elements of an entrepreneurial university to that of a start-up whereby the expansion of the university mission focus has changed the primary organization mode of “professor-student dyads.” One of the challenges he identified is having in place appropriate organizational mechanisms and guidelines that can mitigate against conflicts of interest. Kirby (
2006) argues that for universities to become entrepreneurial, they must put in place a more permanent infrastructure rather than just relying on incentives to support the transition. Preparing future entrepreneurs and being entrepreneurial itself are the two main tasks of entrepreneurial universities (Schulte,
2004). Formica (
2002:174) goes further and suggests that “entrepreneurial universities are intellectual infrastructures that lead to the formation of new ventures which do not remain small businesses for long. They offer innovative learning settings and hands-on experience inside operating businesses, thereby encouraging more people to become literate in entrepreneurship.” Guerrero et al. (
2014), in their comparative study of Spanish and Irish universities, find two distinct organizational structures — collegial and streamlined — as one of the conditioning factors of an entrepreneurial university.
Drawing on the corporate entrepreneurship literature, Nelles and Vorley (
2010) take an entrepreneurial university architecture perspective and identify five internal factors with one being structure, which they classify as “formal” units, that are tasked with supporting third mission activities such as technology transfer offices and incubators. Other factors they identify include systems, leadership, strategies, and culture arguing that these internal factors all overlap (see Vorley & Nelles,
2009). Using a case study of the University of Oxford, Nelles and Vorley (
2008) argue that the entrepreneurial architecture is built on institutional strengths and that there is mission integration of third stream activities that are conflated with teaching and research. Furthermore, Martin et al.’s (
2019) study of UK universities highlights that an entrepreneurial architecture needs to embed a social architecture. Middle managers at the meso level (such as deans and heads of department) are critical actors in influencing and supporting entrepreneurship and innovation activities within an entrepreneurial architecture, particularly given the top down and unidirectional approaches adopted by entrepreneurial universities (Beresford & Michels,
2014).
2.3 The organizational units of entrepreneurial universities
While literature on the organizational architecture of entrepreneurial universities is still in its infancy, there have been numerous studies that have examined different organizational units that support entrepreneurs and contribute to regional growth and competitiveness (see Audretsch et al.,
2005). Universities have thereby been seen as focal institutions within an innovation ecosystem, with a strategic focus towards university-industry relationships (see Lehmann & Menter,
2016). The architectural design that has attempted to respond effectively to ensuring the “strategy-environment-structure” fit has led to the creation and development of a variety of organizational units within entrepreneurial universities to support the stages of entrepreneurship. Such organizational units include the establishment of technology transfer offices (Siegel et al.,
2003a), entrepreneurship centers (Maas & Jones,
2017), entrepreneurship research centers (Cassia et al.,
2014), cooperative research centers (Boardman & Gray,
2010), proof-of-concept centers (Hayter & Link,
2015), incubators (Mian,
1996,
1997), accelerators (Pauwels et al.,
2016), science parks (Link & Scott,
2015), and new faculties and departments with a strong focus on technology transfer and innovation.
In tandem with the growth of organizational units to support the stages of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial universities have responded by expanding their entrepreneurial education through new programs and modules across the university (Nicotra et al.,
2021). Integrating entrepreneurship and the concepts of entrepreneurship are seen as the raison d’etre and a main purpose of universities in revisiting their strategy and designing the university architecture (Swaen et al.,
2011). Hence, fostering entrepreneurial orientation and behavior, establishing an entrepreneurial attitude, and acting as collective entrepreneurs moved on the agenda of universities.
2.4 The stages of entrepreneurship
Within the entrepreneurship field, there is a renewed interest in the stages of entrepreneurship (see Khurana & Dutta,
2021; Cunningham & Link,
2021). Within this literature, there are different interpretations of the stages of entrepreneurship (see Gaibraith,
1982; Levie & Lichtenstein,
2010; Littunen & Niittykangas,
2010; Santos et al.,
2010). For example, from a firm level perspective, Lewis and Churchill (
1983) identified five stages of firm development — existence, survival, success, take-off, and resource maturity. From an individual perspective, these stages of entrepreneurship can be categorized into four phases — latent, emergent, launch, and growth (Caiazza et al.,
2020). Latent and emergent stages are focused on the exploration of entrepreneurial opportunities whereas the launch and growth phases are focused on the exploitation thereof.
Whereas latent forms of entrepreneurship describe the conditions that entrepreneurial potential and opportunities are existent but not perceived as such and consequently not exploited, emergent forms of entrepreneurship refer to the actual recognition and willingness to commercialize new knowledge (see Blanchflower et al.,
2001; Caiazza et al.,
2020; Masuda,
2006; Belitski et al.,
2021). In essence, Freytag and Thurik (
2007:124) best describe latent entrepreneurship as individuals who “
want to be an entrepreneur.” This stage of entrepreneurship has been measured using an individually declared preference of being self-employment over being employment (see Grilo & Thurik,
2005).
Emergent entrepreneurs can be defined as individuals who are actively involved in attempting to start a venture (see Wennekers et al.,
2005).
1 Emergent entrepreneurs build on what Lichtenstein et al. (
2007) term “momentum” in undertaking different tasks and activities that will enable the establishment of a new venture. These activities and tasks are action orientated towards exploring entrepreneurial opportunities, building the breeding ground for the subsequent exploitation thereof (Audretsch,
2012; Hechavarria et al.,
2012). The activities could include among others structured or unstructured market research, financial planning, and business model development. According to Davidsson and Honig (
2003), these are gestation activities.
The next two stages of entrepreneurship move from the exploration of an entrepreneurial opportunity to its exploitation. During the launch phase, the entrepreneurs combine their resource base and their team to launch their venture (Brush et al.,
2001; Herron & Sapienza,
1992) to exploit the identified entrepreneurial opportunity. This involves entrepreneurial risk and the individual entrepreneur making decisions about the effective deployment of resources to ensure that the new venture survives (see Norton & Moore,
2002; Walsh & Cunningham,
2016). During this phase, entrepreneurs have to cope with capital and experience constraints (see Van Auken,
1999) as well as have to cope with competitor responses to their entry and presence at the market place.
The final stage is growth where the new venture has established its financial and market viability in the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. The entrepreneurs’ efforts thereby focus on continuing to exploit the original entrepreneurial opportunity and can also shift to exploiting new ones that may have been identified through their market place presence and operations. Entrepreneurs at this stage have different growth aspirations that are influenced by environmental and institutional factors, such as government regulation or intellectual property protection (see Autio & Acs,
2010; Basu & Goswami,
1999; Estrin et al.,
2013).
In summary, entrepreneurial universities have to cope with and manage a variety of drivers of change (see Miller et al.,
2021) while also ensuring that they effectively support university-based entrepreneurs across the different stages of entrepreneurship, thereby fulfilling their third mission. Some of the activities will have spillovers into the regional and national environments (Acs et al.,
2013; Audretsch et al.,
2014,
2015). The challenge for the entrepreneurial university then is to design an organizational architecture to achieve the best performance that matches and meets the identified needs of university-based entrepreneurs across the stages of entrepreneurship while also supporting and contributing to entrepreneurship and innovation outside of the formal organizational structures of an entrepreneurial university.
So the question relates to what the appropriate formal organizational architecture might be that entrepreneurial universities need to adapt that addresses strategy and the environment fit as well as effectively supports the stages of entrepreneurship (see Roberts,
2004). Consideration has to be given to the informal consequences — intended and unintended — of formal organizational unit configurations in contributing to and supporting the stages of entrepreneurship within an entrepreneurial university. Therefore, entrepreneurial universities need to formulate their strategies, with a focus on the design perspective, to create an organizational architecture in the light of the wider entrepreneurial environment they inhabit (see Belitski & Heron,
2017).