Abstract
The development of entrepreneurial activities within the majority of academic institutions around the world was the subject of an important scholarly investigation over the last three decades university is referred to as an ‘entrepreneurial university’ when it completely embraces its role of contributing to the economic development, in addition to the dual mission of teaching and research. According to Etzkowitz et al. (2000), an entrepreneurial university is defined as any university that embarks upon entrepreneurial actions ‘… with the objective of improving regional or national economic performance as well as the university’s financial advantage and that of its faculty’. In addition, previous academic studies have advanced that the interaction between the three institutional spheres of university, industry and state is crucial to stimulate regional and national systems of entrepreneurship. Based on this tri-spherical cooperation, the task of universities becomes more and more critical in society’s knowledge production system (Turpin and Garrett-Jones, 2001). They contribute to the enhancement of the academic entrepreneurial capability in two principal ways: the creation of applicably skilled human capital and the transfer of knowledge from academia to industry.
This book looks at different aspects linked to the ‘entrepreneurial university’ and how it creates new knowledge and transfers them to industry. It strives to give readers a deeper understanding of the entrepreneurial university concept and how this concept manifests itself within varied university contexts. This would be a ‘must have’ manual for university decision makers who are tasked with developing and implementing such programmes.
The first part of this book is apparently intended to highlight some drivers for developing successful education around entrepreneurship and to shed light on the possible collaboration between academia, state and industry. For example, Dias Daniel, Vitoria and Pita in their chapter give us important learnings about how teaching methodologies contribute to enhancing entrepreneurship education’s outputs. They focus on an implementation case from the University of Aveiro in Portugal. This innovative approach, named Learning to Be programme may provide useful insights into how to develop and stimulate entrepreneurial personality traits of students.
Ademar Schmitz, Gertrudes Aparecida Dandolini, Joao Artur de Souza, Maribel Guerrero and David Urbano in their chapter develop the notion of knowledge as both an important element in entrepreneurship education and a vital pivotal point that relates industry, government and communities to the university. They argued, based on a comparative multi-case study between Spanish and Brazilian universities, that the mechanisms related to innovation and entrepreneurship in the academic setting manifest themselves in four dimensions called teaching, research, extension and management which were illustrated at three levels: individual, organisation and interaction. From the same study, these authors distinguish three forms of interactions: knowledge-push (output), demand-pull (input) and social interaction (input and output), which need more theoretical development. This short description does not do justice to the chapter which merits further consideration by the readers.
Under the second theme, the chapters investigate the impact of methods employed in the entrepreneurship education process on economy and society, that is, the policies that aim to solve future needs. This leaves the question of how the real impact of entrepreneurship education programmes at both economic and societal levels can be evaluated. In chapter 7, for example, Andrea Rosalinda Hofer, Peter Gaur and Gabi Kaffka argue through some findings found in several country reviews that entrepreneurship and innovation are crucial enablers of change, economic growth, inclusion and sustainability. They insist on the fact that implementing innovative approaches to teaching and learning and assuring greater synergies between the core functions (i.e. education, research and engagement) are vital for a successful university. In chapter 8, Guillermo Andrés Zapata-Huamaní, Sara Fernández-López, Lucía Rey-Ares and David Rodeiro-Pazos highlight some interesting findings from several countries on how do entrepreneurial universities drive technology entrepreneurship. After running both univariate analysis and multivariate analysis using 368 observations from 65 countries during the period 2006–2013, they confirm the importance of the interactions between universities and industry in producing and sharing knowledge which serves as a source of ideas for new technology-based firms, which, in turn, constitute a vital source of creating new jobs.
On the contrary, the last chapter written by Sandro Battisti, Eduardo Giugliani, Rafael Prikladnicki and Paolo Traverso offer the reader a discussion of the certain success factors and their role in the selected collaborative model of innovation named ‘TECNOPUC-FBK Joint Lab’. By reviewing both the Italian and Brazilian cases, the authors argue that consultancy, collaboration, education and mobility are vital to keep the strong collaboration of the innovation ecosystems towards the business, research and high societal impact. After a rather unsatisfactory introduction, the reviewer hoped to find convincing lines of argumentation in the theoretical section, which justified the contribution of this study.
While interest in the field of entrepreneurship education as a niche research area is increasing permanently (Fayolle and Kyrö, 2008), there is an absence of books which combine three main complementary assignments of entrepreneurial university, named, that is: collaboration, education and policies. The book, which is based on recent and interesting empirical data, is well written. It offers educators, entrepreneurs, policy makers and researchers significant and practical implications. After reading the book, we can conclude that the different experiences described by authors on the academic tools and educational methods can be generalised in many other universities around the world, in both developed and developing countries.