The outcomes of the entrepreneurial university manifest themselves through diverse entrepreneurial practices of its individual members (Ding and Choi
2001; D’Este and Patel
2007; Kirby et al.
2011; Urbano and Guerrero
2013; Abreu and Grinevich
2013). The literature suggests that different configurations of entrepreneurial practices may be path dependent and reflective of the organisational heritage of the university (Clark
1998). For instance, Bronstein and Reihlen (
2014) distinguish between four entrepreneurial university archetypes: research-driven, industry-driven, service-oriented and commercialisation-focussed, each capturing the deep institutional embeddedness of entrepreneurial activities. Separately, Guerrero et al. (
2014) adopt an institutional economics approach (North
1990,
2005) to develop a model of entrepreneurial university activities shaped by formal and informal university environments and structures. Urbano and Guerrero (
2013) combine this approach with a resource-based perspective to include into the model “internal” factors of entrepreneurial activities such as human, financial and physical capital, status and prestige, and networking capabilities.
Indeed, institutional theory represents a powerful theoretical perspective, which has been increasingly used for examining entrepreneurial practices in different contexts (Manolova et al.
2008; Busenitz et al.
2000; Hwang and Powell
2005). It is traditionally concerned with the mechanisms by which structures and rules provide authoritative guidelines and meaning for social behaviour (Scott
2005, 2014). It argues that the actions of various individual actors and organisations, such as entrepreneurs and start-ups, are constrained in the sense that they have to comply with the institutional environment in order to gain legitimacy and gain support (Scott and Meyer
1991; Scott
2005; Manolova et al.
2008; Ahlstrom and Bruton
2002). Scott’s (
1995, 2014) typology of institutional pillars has become the dominant conceptual framework for analysing the impact of institutions on organisations and organisational players (Yamakawa et al.
2008; Bruton et al.
2005; Manolova et al.
2008). It distinguishes between the regulative, normative and cognitive pillars as the vital ingredients of institutions. The regulative dimension is related to codified rule settings and enforcement at organisational and societal levels. In this conception, regulatory processes involve the capacity to establish rules, monitor conformity and develop sanctions if necessary (Scott
2014). The normative dimension refers to professional values, commitments, roles and conventions, which are often tacit and informal. The emphasis here is on normative rules that introduce prescriptive, evaluative and obligatory dimension into institutional and social life (Scott
2014). As well as imposing constraints on human behaviour, they empower and enable social action. The cognitive dimension has to do with shared interpretation of certain situations and shared logics of action. These refer to internal interpretative processes that are shaped by external cultural frameworks. Translating institutional theory to the domain of entrepreneurial universities entails us a multi-level conceptualisation and in-depth examination of mandated specifications, including laws, governance and monitoring systems at the regulative pillar level (see Foss and Gibson
2015). These relate to how or to what extent university rules on intellectual property, governance, business models of technology transfer offices and related regulations encourage or discourage academic entrepreneurship. The normative pillar pertains to university cultures, departmental cultures (differences between STEM and non-STEM departments for example), and their surrounding contexts, which may facilitate or inhibit entrepreneurship. This pillar underscores importance of understanding motivation for, or resistance to, behavioural and institutional change (Foss and Gibson
2015) towards academic entrepreneurship. Finally, cognitive pillar encompasses academic predispositions and symbolic value as models for individual behaviour regarding the individual academic acceptance of, and engagement in, entrepreneurship (ibid). Disciplinary backgrounds, seniority, prior experience and knowledge as cultural capital in amalgamated form (Karataş-Özkan and Chell
2015) influence academic entrepreneurship.
Academics are subject to multiple and often conflicting institutional influences arising from the different roles and identities they may assume at the level of the university, academic discipline, professional status and generational cohort. The actions of academics as individual-level actors are crucial to understand as they manage competing and often conflicting logics by developing structures and systems to enable their academic practice. Conflicting institutional logics co-exist and are sustained by policy discourse and practices in the field of higher education. We adopt an institutional theory approach and propose an analytical framework where differences in patterns of the entrepreneurial activities are explained by regulative, normative and cognitive elements of academic institutions. According to the institutional logics perspective (Thornton et al.
2013), individual actors, when facing conflicting institutional pressures, are not only constrained and regulated by institutional rules and norms, but also they are empowered to innovate, transform, combine and make strategic use of different institutional demands. Essentially, individual actors avoid the complexity of conflicting institutional expectations by compartmentalising and integrating norms from different institutional orders. This allows the actors to achieve legitimacy and simultaneously protect strategic goals, while avoiding a cognitive conflict. Most of the studies in this area are performed at the organisational level, with the institutional logics scholars calling for more research on the individual level of analysis (Thornton et al.
2013; Lounsbury and Beckman
2015).
3.1 Hypotheses
In relation to the
regulative dimension, the literature on research commercialisation highlights the positive effects of having in place formal mechanisms and structures such as technology transfer offices (TTOs), intellectual property rights protection (IP) and incentive measures (O’Shea et al.
2005; Kirby
2005; Grimaldi and Grandi
2005). However, in some instances, rigid administrative rules enforced by TTOs and inflexibility of university units can stifle commercialisation activities (Siegel et al.
2004; Thursby et al.
2001). Overall, organisational and governance structures and codes aimed at reducing bureaucracy and improving coordination are strongly linked to increased levels of technology commercialisation (Bercovitz et al.
2001). Research-intensive universities tend to have, for historical reasons, dedicated knowledge transfer structures, with particular emphasis being placed on licensing, spin-outs and joint research projects with industry (Bronstein and Reihlen
2014). As the complexity of these structures increases over time and with the growing size of the university, they may exhibit a weakened capacity to manage knowledge transfer and lose their connections with the changing scientific and entrepreneurial developments. The impact of this constraint can, however, be lessened in institutions with a strong reputation for research excellence (Clark
1998). In contrast, peripheral or less well-known research institutions, with a smaller size may have an advantage when it comes to making and enforcing administrative decisions efficiently, due to a younger TTO organisation that is recently built to address the most recent needs of the academic and entrepreneurial environments. Overall, UK-specific studies indicate that TTO departments at UK universities often fail to exert a strong positive influence on the entrepreneurial engagements of universities, even though there is little comparison on whether this applies to both teaching-led and research-intensive universities (Chapple et al.
2005; Siegel et al.
2008). Hence, we start with an initial hypothesis that as follows:
In relation to the
normative dimension, importance of network ties, commitments and repertoires of collective action is often emphasised in scholarly debates (see Scott
2014). This involves conceptions of appropriate goals and activities for specified social positions. Two interlocking types of logics are in operation in defining normative constituents of institutions: logic of appropriateness and logic of instrumentality. The interplay between the two leads to societal legitimisation (of an activity or practice). Translating these two entrepreneurial expressions and engagements of academics, we argue that academic values, peer group expectations and pressure, professional roles as well as departmental cultures affect entrepreneurial activities. Shared experiences and associated professional objectives might bring about positive institutional agency (Nillsson 2015), which can be instrumental in fostering entrepreneurial practices. In the university context, these may also be related to normative pressures coming from an academic department, professional network or institution as a whole. Amongst important normative influences can be “role models” (Krueger et al.
2000), represented by academics, who have prior entrepreneurial experiences (Mosey and Wright
2007; O’Shea et al.
2007). Related to this is Clark’s (
1998) argument about the need for the entrepreneurial university to blend academic and managerial points of view, by making individuals and collegial groups have a strong role in central steering groups. The literature indicates that research-intensive universities are better positioned to host and blend star scientists, top industry experts, and flagship entrepreneurs (Zucker and Darby
1996; Bronstein and Reihlen
2014), who tend to collaborate within national and international networks. These networks are crucial in conditioning the social and professional relations of actors through their associated identification or dis-identification (Thompson and Willmott
2016). Thus, we suggest that normative pressures play an important role in the entrepreneurial engagements of universities as follows:
Interplay of ascribed meanings, belief sets and emotions form the core of cognitive dimension (Voronov and Vince
2012; Moisander et al.
2016). In relation to this aspect, the literature discusses the influence of predispositions towards entrepreneurial behaviour (Karataş-Özkan
2011; Klapper and Refai
2015). These predispositions are influenced by beliefs about personal gains and losses, which may result from entrepreneurial behaviour, and the impacts may not be entirely about economic profits (Mars and Rios-Aguilar
2010), with other considerations such as reputation, prestige, recognition, ownership and prizes being in place, and often referred to as symbolic capital (Bourdieu
1974; Hagstrom
1966; van Rijnsover et al.
2008). Human capital is commonly associated with career status (Allen et al.
2007), and is considered relevant in configuring cognitive controls (Guerrero and Urbano
2014). Social capital manifests itself in the ability to access diverse knowledge and finance resources due prior entrepreneurial and industry experiences, and multiple roles performed (Mosey and Wright
2007; Dietz and Bozeman
2005). A large body of the literature indicates that individual characteristics, attitudes and controls are amongst the most important predictors of entrepreneurial activities of academics (Louis et al.
1989; Klofsten and Jones-Evans
2000; Ding et al.
2006; Azoulay et al.
2007; Veciana and Urbano
2008). The role of the cognitive dimension is further highlighted by the institutional logics approach, which notes that seemingly identical institutional structures populated with different actors can result in different meanings and institutional effects (Thornton et al.
2013). Therefore, different meanings attached to similar rules, routines and resources may lead to different behavioural responses and strategies. Our point is that cognitive scripts, schemas and behaviours of individuals, whose evaluation and acceptance of entrepreneurship based on knowledge and skill (Karataş-Özkan et al.
2014), influence their entrepreneurial engagement. Central role played by the socially mediated construction of a common framework of meanings (Scott
2014) should be taken into account for understanding entrepreneurial activity. Some of the decision processes involved in creating a new venture, designing the structure of the organisation and managing relationships with a range of stakeholders (particularly with funders) (Tolbert et al.
2011) involve cognitive (as well as relational) processes of sense-making. By applying this reasoning in the entrepreneurial university context, we suggest:
Finally, it is important to consider the role of UK higher education policy as a factor that shapes the entrepreneurial engagement patterns for the two types of universities. One of the strongest trends in the UK higher education policies is a growing emphasis on the national and international-rather than local and regional-scope of universities (Witty Review
2013; Cochrane and Williams
2013). Even though some funding has been allocated for the local and regional activities of UK universities, the strongest policy emphasis in the last decade has been on national and international excellence and reputation (captured by national and international university league tables as well as the Research Excellence Framework) rather than the local/regional roles and contributions of universities (Russell Group
2015). These policy directions are likely to lead to significant disparities in the geographical focus of entrepreneurial engagement amongst research-intensive and teaching-led universities. The larger size and resources of research-intensive universities along with their longer history of existence within the UK’s socio-economic system provides them a significant advantage for aligning their entrepreneurial engagement activities more effectively with national and international opportunities. Teaching-led universities, on the other hand, may find it more manageable to engage with the local and regional entrepreneurial opportunities as these tend to be less resource-intensive than national and international ones. In particular, the growing marketization of the UK universities and the competition between them could enhance the geographical specialisation of UK universities where research-intensive and teaching-led universities focus on the international/national and regional/local entrepreneurial engagement activities respectively (Boucher et al.
2003; Lebeau and Cochrane
2015). Hence, we suggest: