Purpose UK higher education has faced an unprecedented period of change due to multiple UK governmental policies over a short period – coupled with demographic change and the vote to leave the European Union. This pressures universities to meet third mission aims by engaging effectively with society and business, generating income in the process to address reduced funding. Support from the UK Government includes over 20 years of funding for universities to develop entrepreneurial structures and processes, termed entrepreneurial architecture (EA). While the government regularly collects data on funds generated through third mission activities, less is known about how EA is perceived by those inside the university. The purpose of this paper is to meet that gap by exploring the perspectives of those employed specifically as part of EA implementation, as knowledge exchange intermediaries. Design/methodology/approach The study takes a phenomenological approach to achieve deeper insights into those routines and norms resulting from the application of EA. This is a purposeful sample with what is reported to be an under-researched group (Hayter, 2016); those employed as internal knowledge intermediaries across 15 universities (two from each). These university employees are specifically charged with business engagement, knowledge exchange and research commercialization; their contracts are funded and designed as a part of the EA rather than for research or teaching. An initial pilot comprising four semi-structured interviews indicated suitable themes. This was followed up through a set of three interviews over 18 months with each participant and a mapping of EA components at each institution. Findings Despite EA strategies, the picture emerging was that universities had embedded physical components to a greater or lesser degree without effective social architecture, shown by conflicts between stated and actual routines and norms and by consistent barriers to third mission work. Power and perceived power were critical as participants felt their own worth and status was embedded in their senior manager’s status and power, with practical difficulties for them when he or she lost ground due to internal politics. Research limitations/implications The benefits of this study method and sample include deep insights into the perspectives of an under-reported group. The purposeful sample might be usefully expanded to include other countries, other staff or to look in depth at one institution. It is a qualitative study so brings with it the richness, insights and the potential lack of easy generalizability such an approach provides. Practical implications In designing organizations to achieve third mission aims, EA is important. Even where the structures, strategies, systems, leadership and culture appear to be in place; however, the resulting routines and norms may act against organizational aims. Those designing and redesigning their institutions might look at the experience suggested here to understand how important it is to embed social architecture to ensure effective actions. Measuring cultures and having this as part of institutional targets might also support better results. Social implications Governments in the UK have invested resources and funding and produced policy documents related to the third mission for over 20 years. However, the persistent gap in universities delivering on policy third mission aims is well documented. For this to change, universities will need to ensure their EA is founded on strong underlying supportive cultures. Knowledge sharing with business and community is unlikely when it does not happen in-house. Originality/value The study adds new knowledge about how EA is expressed at individual university level. The findings show the need for more research to understand those routines and norms which shape third mission progress in UK universities and how power relations impact in this context, given the pivotal role of the power exerted by the senior manager.
Purpose This paper aims to use (in)visibility as a lens to understand the lived experience of six women managers in the headquarters of a large multinational organization in the UK to identify how “gender” is expressed in the context of organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach The researchers take a phenomenological approach via qualitative data collection with a purposeful sample – the six female managers in a group of 24. Data were collected through quarterly semi-structured interviews over 12 months with the themes – knowledge, interaction and gender. Findings Organizations seek to build advantage to gain and retain competitive leadership. Their resilience in a changing task environment depends on their ability to recognize, gain and use knowledge likely to deliver these capabilities. Here, gender was a barrier to effective organizational learning with women’s knowledge and experience often unseen and unheard. Research limitations/implications This is a piece of research limited to exploration of gender as other, but ethnicity, age, social class, disability and sexual preference, alone or in combination, may be equally subject to invisibility in knowledge terms; further research would be needed to test this however. Practical implications Practical applications relate to the need for organizations to examine and address their operations for exclusion based on perceived “otherness”. Gendered organizations cause problems for their female members, but they also exclude the experience and knowledge of key individuals as seen here, where gender impacted on effective knowledge sharing and cocreation of knowledge. Social implications The study offers further evidence of gendered organizations and their impacts on organizational effectiveness, but it also offers insights into the continues social acceptance of a masculinized normative model for socio-economic practice. Originality/value This exploration of gender and organizational learning offers new insights to help explain the way in which organizational learning occurs – or fails to occur – with visibility/invisibility of one group shaped by gendered attitudes and processes. It shows that organizational learning is not gender neutral (as it appears in mainstream organizational learning research) and calls for researchers to include this as a factor in future research.
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