Academic entrepreneurship in the context of education:The role of the networking behaviour of academics

Purpose: This study aims to extend literature on academic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial networking by examining how academics, in their role of entrepreneurial educators, network for the creation and execution of novel teaching practices in cooperation with external actors. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical investigation is based on qualitative inquiry, using a case study approach. Specifically, eight cases originating at three universities in Germany, The Netherlands and Mexico were examined. The cases which constituted innovative teaching practices were selected following a replication logic. Each involved extensive participation of societal actors in course development or delivery and aimed to stimulate students to work on real life challenges and disseminate novel knowledge back to the world of practice. All courses were either introduced or taught by educators who possessed different levels and types of academic and industrial or entrepreneurial experience. Findings: Based on eight cases the authors found that the networking behaviour of entrepreneurial educators is crucial for the generation of proximity with external actors and for the acquisition of key resources, such as an external actor to participate in teaching practice and for the generation of legitimacy for their innovations in teaching. The entrepreneurial and industrial experience of entrepreneurial educators emerges as an affordance to network with external actors, helping them to achieve a common understanding of the opportunity and to generate trust among them. Practical implications: This study equips managers of higher education institutions with critical insights into innovating the teaching mission of the university and developing closer and stronger relationships with external actors of the university. Originality/value: This study seeks to advance the literature on academic entrepreneurship by shifting the attention away from academic entrepreneurs as merely founders of spin-offs and collaborators with business on research and development towards entrepreneurial educators who see opportunities in establishing collaborations with external actors as part of their teaching activities. Further, it introduces the “social networking perspective” to this field. Vissa (2012) and Stam (2015) introduced this perspective as a logical extension to the study of the generation of social capital to reach entrepreneurial goals

Facilitating Academic Engagement with Society: A Bonding Social Capital Approach to Self-Determination

This study examines how academic engagement with society can be facilitated by higher education institution (HEI) managers by studying academics' needs and their managers' support for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (i.e., the determinants of self-determination). Interviews were conducted with managers (n=6) and academics (n=16) affiliated with HEIs from the Hochschulallianz für den Mittelstand in Germany. The findings indicate alignment and gaps between managers and academics. First, the need and support for autonomy were present. Second, managers suggested that academics had relevant competencies, but academics indicated they had a lack of such competencies. Third, managers perceived that there was a strong collaboration between academics; however, academics reported that they experience negative peer effects when collaborating with society. Aiming to bridge the gap using a bonding social capital approach, HEI managers are recommended to strengthen academics' sense of belonging to an HEI and to promote access to capital and competencies that are within the HEI's internal network

Innovating digitally: enabling new avenues for entrepreneurship and innovation teaching resources between academia and industry

Due to changes in technology and customer behaviour, entrepreneurial firms have to constantly innovate. Here, service innovation has appeared as a successful way to overcome the dead-end road of competition (Bouwman & Fielt, 2008). Thus, entrepreneurial firms are increasingly asked to develop competences to engage in digitally-enabled innovation processes for services as reflected in recent competence frameworks (European Commission, 2019). Consequently, universities need to update entrepreneurship education to these new demands through a multi-perspective research approach to co-research and co-design future entrepreneurship education. First, we aim at developing an up-to-date digital innovation process to enhance the limited scientific knowledge on the use of digital tools for innovation processes (Akaka & Vargo, 2014; Helmer et al., 2021). Second, we aim at developing digital platforms to enhance the engagement of industry in education and vice versa. Third, we aim at gaining insights to develop modern entrepreneurship course curricula in this context