The concept of an ‘entrepreneurial orientation’ is well established in the literature on the strategic posture of firms. Increasingly, large public and non-profit organizations are also turning to entrepreneurship in their efforts to become flexible and respond to pressures to ‘do more with less’. Government rhetoric encourages universities in particular to become more entrepreneurial, increasing the commercialization of research and contributing to economic growth. To understand what it means for university departments to be ‘entrepreneurial’, interviews with 40 faculty members explore the issue. Transcripts of the interviews were analysed using content-analysis software. The results suggest that risk taking is the most important dimension in developing an entrepreneurial university, and may be a prerequisite for commercialization.
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