The purpose of this paper is to question whether the university entrepreneurial push strategy influences the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of its students. Previous research followed multilevel approaches that jointly addressed the impact of individual characteristics, institutional environment, and educational support on EI. Despite these efforts, the extant literature did not consider differences between universities regarding the whole set of activities they perform to foster entrepreneurship among students and their results.,Through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) procedures, this study compared data from 447 students of two Brazilian universities that differentiate themselves according to entrepreneurial push strategies (one adopts actions consistent with this type of strategy while the other does not). Whilst University 1 fosters entrepreneurship by investing in entrepreneurship courses, promoting entrepreneurship competitions, and offering incubation opportunities, University 2 primarily focuses on traditional managerial education without a specific focus on entrepreneurial activities.,Surprisingly, the results have shown the entrepreneurial push strategy of University 1 does not account for differences in the students’ EI when compared to University 2. Such finding contradicts previous studies on the effects of entrepreneurial education and sheds new lights on the role university’s support plays to foster entrepreneurship intention.,Contributions to the literature on the field of entrepreneurship intention were made by showing that the efforts toward the promotion of entrepreneurship through entrepreneurship education, business plan competitions, and incubation might not have a direct influence on students’ EI.,As a practical implication, the study stimulates universities to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts in promoting entrepreneurship through training, education and support for new ventures. The results also offer policy implications by suggesting that public policies should emphasize the development of institutions that foster a positive business environment, facilitate the creation of new ventures, the funding of start-ups and reinforce the benefits of becoming an entrepreneur.,The results are surprising because they contradict previous studies of the university’s role in fostering entrepreneurship intention. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first research comparing universities with two different approaches toward developing students’ EI: one university with a whole set of activities and another university without any specific activity with that purpose.

University entrepreneurial push strategy and students’ entrepreneurial intention

The integration of the Internet and the real economy has propelled the formation of a new economy. Internet cultural industries—defined as a collection of industries that engage in creative cultural content, production, circulation, and services based on Internet technology and core digitization—are a critical part of this new economy. This study argues that the development of Internet cultural industries has created a new entrepreneurial ecosystem, which is a dynamic and open ecosystem impacted by numerous factors. Using a structural equation model (SEM) method, we empirically examine the factors impacting the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Internet cultural industries. We find that both external ecosystem factors, including politics, the economy, sociocultural activities, and technological environments, and internal ecosystem factors, including netizens, governments, enterprises, and media and industry associations, are verified to significantly affect the entrepreneurial ecosystem performance of Internet culture industries. Most interestingly, we find that the political environment is the most crucial factor impacting the entrepreneurial ecosystem performance of Internet cultural industries. Thus, Internet cultural industries should prioritize the improvement of good government governance. Overall, our study deepens the research on the Internet entrepreneurial ecosystem by identifying its internal and external determining factors in the context of emerging economies.

Identifying the factors determining the entrepreneurial ecosystem of internet cultural industries in emerging economies

As the research on technology transfer and innovation continues to develop, there is still a need to determine which mechanisms can be used to develop entrepreneurial capabilities to enhance technology transfer. This study aims to show how mechanisms such as innovation spaces can be used to support entrepreneurs by enhancing their ability to seize opportunities of high value. This can be attributed to the development of new-generation technologies stemming from the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Thus, the objective of this study is to demonstrate innovation spaces’ role within knowledge-rich research environments such as universities, and how they enhance entrepreneurial abilities to create ventures of high value. To enhance the understanding of this concept, the important role of technologies, especially those attributable to 4IR to create entrepreneurial ventures of high value were reviewed. This was done through the lens of entrepreneurs who originate from academic environments within the context of South African universities. In order to achieve this, a theoretical overview of innovation, entrepreneurship, technology transfer and 4IR was developed. This study followed a case study methodology which allowed for an analysis of bounded entities, which—in this research—involved universities in South Africa and the innovation spaces they utilise to support entrepreneurs. The results indicated various themes and common practices across entities in South Africa, which create an ecosystem that aims to enhance technology transfer within the region by leveraging innovation spaces. This means that innovation spaces offer an early access point to technological innovation, which can emanate from academic research to accelerate the development of entrepreneurial ventures through an array of support resources and services. As such the findings show that technology transfer continues to play a pivotal role in this emerging technological paradigm, where strategies to address disruptions of 4IR require coordinated activities. It is recommended that further research be conducted based on an institutional theory approach to expand the focus of entrepreneurship, where innovation spaces are used as a launchpad in an attempt to improve their success rate.

Enhancing technology transfer through entrepreneurial development: practices from innovation spaces

How university-based principal investigators shape a hybrid role identity

University business incubators (UBIs) are an important part of the ecosystem that supports entrepreneurial activities and economic development. Extant research has focused on examining UBI activities at a single point in time, but there is a paucity of theoretical and empirical work aimed at understanding the forces that explain why and how UBIs change over time. This is an important gap because establishing a university business incubator does not assure its development and growth. We address this issue by drawing upon the Fisher et al. Academy of Management Review, 41(3), 383-409 (2016) Identity-Legitimacy-Life Cycle model to explain how the pursuit of resources and organizational legitimacy shapes the development of UBIs along key strategic and operational dimensions, which has implications for performance evaluation over time. We illustrate with a case study about the creation and evolution of the DMZ, a leading UBI at Ryerson University in Canada. This case provides new insights about the dynamics of UBIs and their relationships with the entrepreneurial ecosystems in which they are embedded. Implications for future research, management practice, and public policy are discussed.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems and the lifecycle of university business incubators: An integrative case study

For the past few decades, higher education institutions (HEIs) have been evolving into full-fledged managerial entities preoccupied with generating profits and creating an economic impact on local, regional and national scales. Taking cues from the international trend, numerous political initiatives in Russia have emphasized government support for innovative and entrepreneurial activities at regional universities. This study attempts to define the dimensions of entrepreneurial universities and determine to what extent this definition is applicable to the regional context in Russia. Using data from HEIs’ efficiency monitoring conducted by the Ministry of Education and the Science of Russian Federation, we analyze the scientific and research productivity metrics and the funding structure of 20 universities located in the Saint Petersburg region, and we investigate the entrepreneurial activities undertaken by different types of universities. While policymakers and universities tend to employ mostly quantitative quality performance indicators (QPIs) to capture scientific productivity and commercial outcomes, the findings suggest that the regionalized impact of universities extends far beyond technology transfer and tangible outputs (in terms of human capital attraction and detention, formation of entrepreneurship capital, informal networks, new ideas, etc.). This study furthers the knowledge about the heterogeneous nature of entrepreneurialism at Russian universities and provides useful insights for policymaking and managerial practice. The transformation of a university into a local entrepreneurial fulcrum demands massive government funding during the initial stages and coordinated policy measures to foster the innovative activities of the university without compromising its traditional teaching and research functions.

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Natalia Budyldina

Papers

Entrepreneurial universities and regional contribution