Contemporary universities face new challenges and opportunities in the context of the dynamic environment. Therefore, a modern university must become entrepreneurial, which means that it has to behave according to the following characteristics: autonomy,entreprenorial university, sustainable institution, education for life

Christina-Marta Suciu

Magdalena Platis

English

Research Papers in Economics

591 
 
ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY IN THE NEW ECONOMY 
 
Suciu Christina-Marta  
Academia de Studii Economice Facultatea de Administrarea Afacerilor – cu predare în limbi 
străine  Str.  Mihail  Moxa  nr.  5-7,  Sector  1,  Bucureşti  christina.suciu@googlemail.com 
0213191901 
Platis Magdalena  
Universitatea din Bcureşti Facultatea de Administra ie şi Afaceri Bd. Regina Elisabeta nr. 4-12, 
Bucureşti magdalena.iordache-platis@drept.unibuc.ro 0213104920 
 
Contemporary  universities  face  new  challenges  and  opportunities  in  the  context  of  the  dynamic 
environment.  Therefore, a modern university must become entrepreneurial, which means that it has to 
behave according to the following characteristics: autonomy, innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, 
competitive aggressiveness.  This paper explains the above mentioned features and demonstrate that an 
entrepreneurial university is the most appropriate one of a sustainable institution. 
 
Keywords: entreprenorial university, sustainable institution, education for life. 
 
JEL classification: I20. 
 
1. Characteristics and Opportunities for the Entrepreneurial Universities 
The Entrepreneurial University is a non-traditional institution which runs an independent activity 
on its own risk, being strongly involved in the economic and social development of the region 
where it is located.  All the resources the University uses are allocated creatively, including the 
human resource which may be distributed and re-distributed among departments according to the 
institutional needs and economic reasons. 
The characteristics of the entrepreneurial university are the following: 
a)  autonomy; 
b)  innovativeness; 
c)  risk taking; 
d)  proactiveness; 
e)  competitive aggressiveness; 
 
a)  Autonomy 
Universities  are  autonomous  higher  education  institution  created  according  to  the  national 
legislation in the country.  Either public or private, universities have internal documents to apply 
such  as  University  Charta,  interval  documents  regarding  the  didactical  activity,  the  research 
activity, different procedures for all the processes that take place in the academic area. 
Magna Charta Universitatum is a simbolic document proposed in 1986 by Bologna University to 
80 European Universities which decided about a comitee to create this document content.  The 
purpose of it is to establish the fundamental values of the university tradition and to encourage a 
strong cooperation relationship among European Universities.  The same idea had then generated 
a  new  document  well  known  as  the  Bologna  Declaration,  signed  in  1999  by  29  European 
Countries which started a profound restructuring process of the higher education system. 
Therefore, university is declared as: 
-  an  autonomous  institution  which  produce  and  transmit  culture  through  research  and 
education; 
-  an independent unit from a moral and intelectual point of view, not affected by political 
or economical reasons; 
-  a free institution meant to develop research and education for future generations in order 
to allow them to respect the equilibrium requirements of natural environment and of life; 592 
 
 
b)  Innovativeness 
Universities act on an interesting market where competition is increasing year by year.  We assist 
of several changes regarding the candidates’ options for higher education not necessarly from a 
domain to another, but from an university to another, even if it is located far away from the first 
one.  In addition many ranking system classify faculties and Universities according to specific 
criteria which absolutely affects the near future of the institution (eg. Times Higher Education 
Supplement). 
Therefore, Universities must be innovative.  They need to accept the change and to create the 
new in education and research as long as it is for a better off position on the market. 
Innovativeness is linked to the ability to change things.  In the education system, innovativeness 
concretizes in one or several of the following: 
-  Innovation  in  the  area  of  the  information  and  communication  technologies.    This  is  very 
important for compatibility reasons with advanced universities and it implies two aspects: 
- firstly, the university as an institution has the obligation to use these technologies, to participate 
at their innovation; 
-  secondly,  the  university  through  teaching  must  use  these  technologies  in  the  students’ 
education; 
- Innovation in the area of interactive teaching methods.  This means that an entrepreneurial 
university which is innovative must not only use TIC in teaching, but give up at traditional 
teaching and use new and modern teaching methods like project-based learning or problem-based 
learning, etc. 
- Innovation in the management activities.  This means that an entrepreneurial university is open 
to the idea of progress and understands the need of quality in education.  Therefore, the new 
academic management is that management which supports the quality culture and develops it 
through procedures, standards and criteria for quality assurance toward a quality management 
system in the university. 
- Innovation in the area of small processes that take place in the adminstrative departments.  This 
means that every person is responsible of his/her work and must find better ways of doing it; 
every small improvement in the area of secretary, accounting, acquisition, human resource etc. is 
in fact a small innovation. 
 
c)  Risk taking 
In the New Economy, universities are facing uncertain environment and have to make decision in 
different risk conditions.  Therefore, the academic management for the entrepreneurial university 
is also a risk management. 
The main factors of risk for universities are the following: 
- Internal and external competition.  There are many universities that organise same activities 
much better than other universities.  An entrepreneurial university must be an active one able to 
admit the gap between itself and other universities in order to adopt measures to improve its own 
activity. 
- Competition in the area of research project.  National and European funds are allocated for 
research projects, but they are never sufficient compared to the needs or to the number of the 
projects.    Therefore,  an  entrepreneurial  university  accepts  it  can  not  always  win  in  reaserch 
competition and continue to improve the proposals for a better evaluation in the future selection. 
-  Competition  in  the  professors’  selection  which  according  to  the  internal  process,  in  one 
university may be better trained professors than in another one. 
- Difficulties (too much bureacracy) in the acquisition processes which sometimes take too much 
time and the equipments ordered become less useful. 
 593 
 
d) Proactiveness 
An entrepreneurial university must be a sustainable institution which continuously expand its 
factors of succes.  Proactiveness in education system allows universities to create strategies for a 
durable positioning in relation to competition. 
Either the client is the student or the company, the university with an entrepreneurial behavior 
acts in order to get the succes through client’s satisfaction.  Thus, the logical chain is one of the 
following: 
(1)  Student oriented à quality oriented à student satisfaction à comittment to the student 
à students’ value à success of the university. 
(2)  Organisation oriented à quality oriented à organisation satisfaction à comittment to 
the organisation à organization’s value à success of the university 
“Student/organisation oriented” is a starting point in defining the proactive strategy.  The client’s 
needs  must  be  well  understood  as  well  as  his/her  expectations  and  requirements.    Many 
questionaires are used by universities to study these requirements, and then the conclusions are 
disseminate to all the responsible factors in order to generate concrete effects. 
“Quality oriented” is an important step for the clients and the client’s decision-making process 
takes into account the prices involved in education, the utility of the studies and the skills and 
competences generated at the end. 
“Client satisfaction” is easily observed in the tendency of choosing again the same university for 
continuing  the  training,  if  the  client  is  the  student  and  for  recruting  employees  from  the 
graduates, if the client is the company. 
“Comittment to the client” is a phase according to which the university must develop a relatively 
stable relationship with the client, to adapt the promisses regarding the important educational 
needs. 
“Client value” is a real indicator on the value of the university.  The client value may be observed 
in some aspects like: how easily the student finds a working place, how easily the graduate can 
develop a carreer, what kind of welfare the graduate achieves after a while, how is the company 
evolving after hiring some of the graduates etc. 
“University success” is the final phase of the whole process of creating proactive strategies.  The 
success itself is not a stable position, but a dynamic one, an entrepreneurial university being 
preoccupied of improving the success. 
 
e) Competitive aggressiveness 
A company can create a competitive advantage in three major ways: 
- practising a lower price; 
- helping the customer to reduce other costs; 
- adding benefits in order to make the offer more attractive; 
An entrepreneurial university must be competitive agresiveness.  This means that its offer must 
become visible much more competitive than the competitors’ offer: 
- processes better organised in the universities; 
- more quality in teaching; 
- more prestige added to the diploma; 
- more attractivity for the study programs; 
- more famous professors; 
- better known visiting professors etc.; 
Therefore, the entrepreneurial universities are the universities which will exists in a future rapidly 
changing  environment.    The  future  university  will  be  able  to  better  manage  the  economic 
dynamism and the lack of resources, to succesfully face the new opportunities. 
The opportuinities for the entrepreneurial universities include: 594 
 
- Globalisation process with its many consequences.  For the higher education, globalisation 
means that the student is able to study in a virtual library spread all over the world, that he/she 
can contact a professor from a long distance, that he/she will be professional qualifiet for a global 
labour market.  At the same time, globalisation means that one country culture may be expanded 
in a region; therefore, universities have a major role to protect the cultural identity. 
- Mass higher education development.  Many Universities are not yet prepared for a large scale of 
education being confronting with a severe lack of classrooms or some overload of others, lack of 
qualified professors etc.  More than that, the lifelong learning process is a continuing one and has 
already started.  Therefore, modern universities must actively adapt to this demand, to find proper 
teaching methods for new educational forms. 
-  Increasing  gap  between  individuals  regarding  their  different  access  possibilities  to  higher 
education. 
Study programs have becames more and more expensive.  Many young people do not afford to 
pay for higher education, meaning tuition and living cost in a different city.  An alternative seem 
to be the long distance education, but it is also not tuition free.  Entrepreneurial universities have 
to find strategies to allow access to all individuals no matter their incomes, their origins are, but 
only their abilities for study. 
- Public financing.  This is a new opportunity for universities to prove their active, flexible and 
strategic management.  For many universities public financing is the most important financial 
resource, but the public funds are decreasing year by year.  The modern universities must adapt to 
this challenge and behave like a company which has to manage itself in a competitive market.  
Therefore, an alternative for financial resurces has already been used by many universities: funds 
from  research,  cooperation  with  other  faculties  within  the  same  university,  optimum 
dimensioning of the member of students, costs diminishing etc. 
- Diversification of the educational offer.  Criteria of efficiency and quality assurance in higher 
education  impose  a  correct  dimension  of  the  current  study  programe  (eg:  no  more  than  50 
students  for  a Master  course).    An  entrepreneurial university  is  developing  a  horizontal  line 
which  means  diversification  of  the  study  program,  even  joint  programs  with  other  partner 
universities. 
As  a  consequence,  an  entrepreneurial  university  is  the  only  structure  capable  to  resist  in  a 
changing environment.  Its management is a complex type of management which includes many 
components: risk management, strategic management, quality management, change management. 
Briefly, the characteristics of the entrepreneurial university may be observed in the following 
manner: 
- Characteristics of behavior: 
- autonomy; 
- innovativeness; 
- risk taking; 
- proactiveness; 
- competitive aggresiveness; 
- Characteristics of strategies: 
- flexible; 
- adaptive; 
- market oriented; 
- client relationship management; 
- global. 
 
2. Entrepreneurial University as a sustainable institution 
When some or all factors of influence change a rigid structure fail being unable to face the 
dynamic conditions.  On the other hand, a flexible structure is easy to face the new stimuli from 595 
 
the  economic  environment.    Thus,  the  only  flexible  structure  in  the  higher  education  is  the 
entrepreneurial university.  It generates a solution to the resource administration, capitalizing the 
opportunities and creating values for the clients. 
Two dimensions of the entrepreneurial character of the modern university can be identified, like: 
-  Behavioral dimension: 
  -  Reaction to the changing factors; 
  -  Resource evaluation; 
  -  Action to opportunities; 
  -  Changing reality into profitability; 
-  Attitudinal dimension: 
  -  Looking for new challengies and opportunities; 
  -  Accepting and managing the risk; 
  -  Creative changes; 
  -  Consistency in action. 
At  the  present,  most  of  the  universities  understand  the  importance  of  being  entrepreneurial.  
Some  of  them  even  start  to  behave  like  this.    There  are  several  degrees  or  levels  of 
entrepreneurship  in  education,  which  means  the  contemporary  universities  have  an 
entrepreneurial behavior, to some extent. 
Therefore,  a  concept  of  elasticity  might  express  the  entrepreneurial  level  of  the  university.  
Action elasticity of changing factor is the sensibility of variation of the actions the university 
takes as a consecquence to a changing factor: 
-  Actions at the university: 
  -  New study programs; 
  -  Different markets; 
  -  New teaching methods; 
  -  New learning objectives; 
  -  New partnerships; 
  -  New agreements; 
  -  Stronger relationship with the business community 
  -  New management principles; 
-  Changing factors in the market place: 
  -  Legislative changes; 
  -  Clients’ needs; 
  -  Competition; 
  -  Economic factors (purchasing power, real incomes, inflation); 
  -  Demographic factors; 
  -  Social factors; 
  -  Cultural influences. 
In order to better define the action elasticity of changing factor, both the actions and the changing 
factors  need to  be  quantitative expressed.   For  instance,  some  quantitative  factors  might  be: 
number  of  candidates  which  increase  or  decrease,  level  of  income  which  also  increase  or 
decrease  and  some  quantitative  actions  might  be:  number  of  Master  programs,  number  of 
Cources, number of partnerships or agreements etc. 
The level of action elasticity of changing factor can be: 
-  No  action  elasticity  (or  low),  then  no  adaptive  solutions  to  the  environment  =>  no 
entrepreneurial position; 
-  Medium action elasticity, then some adaptive reactions to the market => a begininng 
entrepreneurial behavior; 
-  High  action  elasticity,  then  many  adaptive  reaction  to  the  stimuli  =>  a  clear 
entrepreneurial behavior and attitude. 596 
 
At present many universities are placed in the middle position of medium action elasticity which 
means a beginning of the entrepreneurial behavior for the universities.  In order to extend this 
attitude, the academic management must be toward an entrepreneurial culture in the university 
community. 
Any change in an university must be adapted to its culture.  If changes became too visible in a 
higher education institution, the rigid management may want to step back and leave things run as 
before, but an entrepreneurship – oriented management accepts the challenge and innovates, risk 
takes and becames competitive aggressive on the market. 
Therefore, the entrepreneurial culture is very important in universities.  It leads to: 
-  A set of new principles and implications; 
-  A system of applied principles to practice; 
-  A mechanism of understanding the entrepreneurship. 
The entrepreneurial university is the only sustainable structure for the future environment.  Why?  
Simply, because no change affects an entrepreneurial university since the ability to change and to 
generate it is its strenght. 
An entrepreneurial university is a sustainable institution because: 
-  University is a strategic actor on the market; 
-  Science is kept competitive for the companies; 
-  Industries needs valuable universities; 
-  University is always looking for new opportunities; 
-  Students are not trained for a single job, but for a global market; 
-  Specialists from practice are encouraged to come for some lectures for the students. 
 
References  
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Teachers College Record, 2000; 
3. Clark, R.B., Creation of the entrepreneurial universities: directions of organisational changes, 
Ed. Paideia, Bucharest, 2000; 
4. Deem, R., Globalization, new managerialism, academic capitalism and entrepreneurialism in 
universities: is the local dimension still important?  Comparative education, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2001; 
5.  Pintea  Sebastian,  Entrepreneurial  culture  in  the  University  area, 
http://unescochair.ubbcluj.ro/articolsp2.htm; 
6. Aldrich, H., Zimmer, C., Entrepreneurship through socia networks.  The Art and Science of 
Entrepreneurship, Cambridge, Mass, Ballinger, 1986; 
7. Zollondz Hans-Dieter, Fundamentals of Marketing, Ed. Bic All, Bucharest, 2007; 
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Creation of the entrepreneurial universities: directions of organisational changes,

Entrepreneurship through socia networks. The Art and Science of Entrepreneurship,

Fundamentals of Marketing, Ed. Bic All,

Globalization, new managerialism, academic capitalism and entrepreneurialism in universities: is the local dimension still important?

Universities in transition: The promise and the challenge of new technologies, Teachers College Record,

ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY IN THE NEW ECONOMY

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ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY IN THE NEW ECONOMY

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