Universities worldwide are facing enormous strains as a result of increased external expectations where global visibility should be mixed with local and regional utility. In debates on the future of higher education, becoming an entrepreneurial university has been highlighted as a novel – although perhaps a more hybrid – way to deal with this challenge. However, while the label entrepreneurial points to an image of the university as a dynamic free agent shaped in the interplay between dynamic environments and internal (...) flexibility, the current article takes a more critical view on the factors conditioning universities with the ambitions of becoming more entrepreneurial – particularly those of more recent age and less academic standing. For these institutions it is suggested that the university ideal of being entrepreneurial may lead to a situation of strategic inertia characterized by an institutionalized ‘lock-in’ with few alternative development paths. (shrink)

Do academics who commercialize their inventions have a different professional character than those who do not? The author conducted a nationwide survey in Hungary including 1,562 academics of hard sciences from 14 universities. According to the cluster analysis based on their participation in research commercialization, university scholars can be divided into three distinct groups: ‘traditional faculty’, ‘market-oriented faculty’, and ‘academic entrepreneurs’. Traditional faculty members typically do not participate in RC, while, within the framework of the university, market-oriented academics are engaged (...) in RC the most frequently. Academic entrepreneurs, in addition to their university positions, work for spin-off firms that commercialize research findings. Multinomial logistic regressions revealed that university scientists in various engineering fields, and especially in chemical technology, as well as in biotechnology and pharmaceutics have a considerably greater potential to engage in RC, similar to scholars with industry work experience, high number of publications, and professorial rank. Discipline, work experience, scientific performance, and academic rank seem to outweigh the effect of the university and its location on RC behavior. These findings underscore the inherent diversity of the academic profession and question the necessity of implementing uniform RC policies such as the Bayh–Dole model across universities, disciplines, and segments of university scientists. (shrink)