Research leadership as entrepreneurial organizing for research

Abstract

The paper discusses research leadership in public universities under change and the role of entrepreneurial strategies in research. Research leadership function today in situations where the New Public Management movement one the one hand have introduced management by accountability and control in the university while on the other hand open boundaries to other knowledge organizations, arenas and networks, and creation of resources are becoming more important than ever. Hence, an entrepreneurial strategy is more important than traditional managerial skills in order to produce new knowledge centres. By analysing two cases on the construction of new research groups, we will introduce new perspectives on research leadership, where dilemmas, uncertainty and complex relations to other managerial systems in the universities are in the forefront. The paper presents an important contribution to the understanding of a special form of creating new knowledge production in the university by means of organizational entrepreneurship.

Academic entrepreneurship (re)defined: significance and implications for the scholarship of higher education

“…However, none of the descriptors inherently addressed the creative and innovative nature of or the economic and/or social value created by the entrepreneurial phenomena studied. As previously discussed, we observed only two instances (Hansson and Mønsted 2008;Yokoyama 2006) in which the actual entrepreneurial phenomenon of each study was directly indentified. When studied from a quantitative perspective, academic entrepreneurship was usually operationalized according to activities such as faculty consultation, university-industry collaboration, intellectual property protection, and technology transfer.…”

“…We found, however, that two of the 44 articles included in our final sample provided an explicit definition of entrepreneurship that are situated in a specific context. The two articles that did include such a backdrop were studies by Yokoyama (2006) and Hansson and Mønsted (2008). In a comparative study of entrepreneurial cultures of Japanese and UK universities, Yokoyama (2006):…”

“…In a discussion of research leadership, Hansson and Mønsted (2008) articulated an entrepreneurial framework that was built around four conceptual constructs of the behaviors and activities of researchers within public universities. These constructs included resource acquisition to support academic and instructional activities, the establishment of global and industrial networks, the engagement in applied and market-oriented research, and the standardization of international publication that intersects disciplinary lines.…”

The entrepreneurial university and academic discourses: The meta‐synthesis of Higher Education articles

“…Several studies published in Higher Education journals also provided different examples related to major entrepreneurial activities in universities from various countries (Bernasconi, ; De Zilwa, ; Mazdeh, Razavi, Hesamamiri, Zahedi, & Elahi, ; Mok, Yu, & Ku, ; Sam & van der Sijde, ; Sharma, ; Yokoyama, ). In addition, academics’ activities and behaviours were examined within the entrepreneurship perspective in various studies from Higher Education journals (Bienkowska & Klofsten, ; De Silva, ; Ditton, ; Duberley, Cohen, & Leeson, ; Hansson & Mønsted, ; Lee & Rhoads, ; Rherrad, ; Ryu, ; Sinclair, Cuthbert, & Barnacle, ; Wardale & Lord, ; Ylijoki & Henriksson, ). Furthermore, other important aspects of entrepreneurship in academic settings such as the reflections of growing entrepreneurial expectations on the organisational design of universities, the recruitment policies of academics, and their teaching, research and service activities were discussed in articles in Higher Education journals (De Silva, ; McClure, ).…”

The changing research context: implications for leadership

“…While 'research' is acknowledged as having different meanings (Ball, 2007) it is also accepted as being an integral part of higher education (Tynan & Garbett, 2007), although it is only one activity performed in a tertiary institution (Hansson & Monsted, 2008). In the current context, as external demands oblige institutions to meet the requirements of funders, stakeholders and international competition, a major power shift is occurring within the tertiary sector (Mintrom, 2008).…”