Exploration and exploitation in the development of more entrepreneurial universities: A twisting learning path model of ambidexterity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.10.014Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The development of entrepreneurial universities is analysed through the notion of university ambidexterity.

  • In the university context ambidexterity is achieved over time.

  • Entrepreneurial universities alternate periods of exploration and exploitation.

  • The tensions between exploration and exploitation generate a twisting learning path.

Abstract

The paper conducts a systematic literature review on the development process of universities towards the entrepreneurial model to provide a conceptual framework and a strategic research agenda. From the analysis of the body of literature on the topic, exploration and exploitation emerge as critical processes in the development of entrepreneurial universities. Nevertheless, the way they are balanced within universities is an under-researched topic. Adapted from the concept of organisational ambidexterity, this paper develops the notion of university ambidexterity to analyse the development process of entrepreneurial universities. To achieve this research aim, a conceptual model is developed by integrating the learning processes of exploration and exploitation to the previous theories used to analyse the entrepreneurial university. As already emphasised in other studies focusing on the role of ambidexterity in different research contexts, this paper proposes an idea of balance over time. The universities need to balance exploration and exploitation in their evolutionary path towards the entrepreneurial model, but it may be not necessary to invest in exploration and exploitation processes simultaneously. On the contrary, it may be most important to oscillate between periods of exploration and periods of exploitation to achieve ambidexterity over time. As a result, the tensions between exploration and exploitation processes generate a twisting learning path for entrepreneurial universities. Finally, the paper proposes an integrated conceptual framework which consists of six constructs, namely internal organisational environment, external environment, university exploration, university exploitation, university ambidexterity, entrepreneurial university performance. The proposed research hypotheses on the interrelationships between the mentioned constructs and the mediating role of university ambidexterity constitute potential areas of investigation to direct future empirical research and further develop the body of knowledge in the field of entrepreneurial universities.

Introduction

In recent years, the modern knowledge-based economy acknowledges the pivotal role of a third mission of universities related to the process of knowledge transfer as a driving force facilitating innovation and affecting innovation, social and economic development in addition to the two traditional missions focusing on research and teaching (Audretsch, 1995; Audretsch et al., 2006; Etzkowitz, 2002; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1997; Fayolle and Redford, 2014; Guerrero et al., 2016a; Guerrero et al., 2016b; Herrera et al., 2016; Jones-Evans and Klofsten, 1998; Klofsten and Jones-Evans, 1996; Mueller, 2006; Redford and Fayolle, 2014). The literature has coined the term entrepreneurial university to identify “a social system” that “actively seeks to innovate in how it goes about its business, to work out a substantial shift in organisational character so as to arrive at a more promising posture for the future” (Clark, 1998a). According to this definition, universities are becoming “stand-up” social systems in which entrepreneurship can be considered both as a process and an outcome (Jones-Evans et al., 1999; Klofsten, 2000; Mian, 1996; Mian, 1997). Successively, the definition provided by Clark (1998a) has been accepted, refined and intensively explained by an increasing literature on the topic (Chang et al., 2009; Fayolle et al., 2010; Guerrero and Urbano, 2011; Shane, 2004; Siegel et al., 2007; Thorp and Goldstein, 2010). Specifically, Shane (2004) defines an entrepreneurial university as “an important catalyst for the facilitation of academic entrepreneurship, which in turn generates regional economic and social development through the added value created by the identification and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities”.

In this context, many theoretical models have been developed in the body of literature to define the phenomenon of entrepreneurial universities (Carayannis and Campbell, 2009; Clark, 1998a; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1995; Guerrero and Urbano, 2012; Kirby, 2006; O'Shea et al., 2005, O'Shea et al., 2008; Rothaermel et al., 2007; Sporn, 1999, Sporn, 2001).

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the literature was influenced by the triple helix model (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1995), the theory of entrepreneurial pathways of transformation (Clark, 1998a), and the theory of adaptation for building entrepreneurial universities (Sporn, 1999, Sporn, 2001).

In the 2000s, the literature on entrepreneurial university also appeared to be affected by the strategic actions theory (Kirby, 2006), the university spinoff activity framework (O'Shea et al., 2005, O'Shea et al., 2008), and the entrepreneurial research university theory (Rothaermel et al., 2007).

In the last decade, the literature was influenced by the discussion on how entrepreneurial universities should be transformed into entrepreneurial organisations and how the results of an entrepreneurial university are connected to its missions (Bienkowska and Klofsten, 2012; De Cleyn et al., 2015; Klofsten, 2008; Lamine et al., 2014; M'Chirgui et al., 2016; Mian, 2011; Mian, 2014; Passaro et al., 2017, Passaro et al., 2018; Svensson et al., 2012). The quadruple helix model adds the crucial role of civil society and the media as the fourth component to model interactions between university, industry, and government (Carayannis and Campbell, 2009). This model aims to bridge the gap between innovation ecosystem and civil society since the degree courses offered by the universities do not always match the real needs of society, thus limiting their potential impact. With this premise, the model of development of an entrepreneurial university (Guerrero and Urbano, 2012) integrates the different factors identified in the previous theories: the environmental factors (i.e., formal and informal factors) and the internal factors (i.e., resources and capabilities).

The increasing attention in the third mission of the university was also highlighted by previous literature reviews (Galvão et al., 2018; Gorman et al., 1997; Hayter et al., 2018; Larrán Jorge and Andrades Peña, 2017; Mascarenhas et al., 2017; Schmitz et al., 2017; Venkataraman, 2004). More in details, the paper by Gorman et al. (1997) reviews the articles published on innovative entrepreneurial practices in the university as composed by the following aspects: attributes, skills, tasks, active participation to projects, a stage for developing venture and functional integration. This previous literature review reveals the need for a systemic approach to investigate a set of factors that influence the introduction of entrepreneurship courses in the university. Venkataraman (2004) analyses the fundamental role of the university to create a qualified human capital with entrepreneurial skills. To achieve this aim, the university needs the modernisation of its degree programs, the reconfiguration of its processes, the adoption of innovative education tools and practices, the development of public-private partnerships. In more recent years, Larrán Jorge and Andrades Peña (2017) analyse the new challenges faced by universities during the last years highlighting the necessity to integrate social responsibility principles into universities. Mascarenhas et al. (2017) conduct a bibliometric analysis based on 78 papers on entrepreneurial universities using the Web of Knowledge database. The authors consider universities as structures increasingly dedicated to the commercialisation of knowledge. Schmitz et al. (2017) conduct a systematic literature review analysing the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship in the academic context. More recently, Galvão et al. (2018) adopt a bibliometric approach to review the literature on the role of entrepreneurship education for regional development highlighting the central role of universities in fostering entrepreneurship and innovation. Hayter et al. (2018) adopt a grounded-theory systematic approach to review the literature on academic entrepreneurship ecosystem. Specifically, they classified articles according to eight main independent variables emerging from their analysis (i.e., academic entrepreneurship programs, characteristics of academic entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial environment, financial resources, human capital, social networks, scientific, technical and product characteristics, universities management and policies).

Although the reviews presented above have been written on the topic of entrepreneurial universities in recent years, the examination of the role of exploitation and exploration in the development process of universities towards the entrepreneurial model still seems to be neglected and this paper aims to fill this literature gap. This analytical perspective of analysis is crucial and highlights important additional issues. The factors affecting the development of entrepreneurial universities in the processes of exploration and exploitation are not necessarily the same. Even the effects of exploration and exploitation on university activity are different as well as their impact on the entrepreneurial university performance.

In the context of this research, our literature review has two main objectives. The first is to summarise existing research in the field of investigation and identify relevant patterns, issues, and themes. The second consists in providing a comprehensive description of relevant research contributions in the field to propose a conceptual framework and a strategic agenda. As a result, the achievement of the above two objectives allows us to recognise research gaps as well as determine research hypotheses to be addressed through future empirical research. To achieve these aims, this study develops the notion of university ambidexterity to analyse the development process of entrepreneurial universities. This notion included two main dimensions of ambidexterity (Cao et al., 2009): the combinative dimension, which refers to the combined magnitude of exploration and exploration, and the balance dimension, which refers to the orientation to maintain close relative alignment between periods of exploration and exploitation.

The article is organised into five main sections. After this introduction, the second section is dedicated to the description of the literature review methodology. The results of the first methodological phase of papers selection have been analysed in the third section. The main results of the second methodological phase of descriptive, theoretical and content analysis are presented in the fourth section. In the fifth section, the conceptual model developed and the proposed research hypotheses to define a research agenda are presented. Finally, conclusions and implications are discussed in section six.

Section snippets

Methodology

In this paper, the literature review methodology has been developed by integrating different methodological approaches adopted to conduct a systematic review in the field of social sciences (Centobelli et al., 2017; Easterby-Smith et al., 2012; Jones et al., 2011; Petticrew and Roberts, 2006; Pittaway et al., 2004; Tranfield et al., 2003).

Pittaway et al. (2004) developed a systematic literature review process divided into several steps which mainly include the identification of keywords and the

Results of papers selection

This section presents the results of the first phase of our literature review methodology and aims to search and select the final number of papers to be included in the final sample. To provide an overview of the concept of the entrepreneurial university and achieve a high level of rigorousness of methodology, the material comprehensive search is conducted using two academic databases (Scopus and Web of Science). The search phase was conducted at the end of July 2017 and therefore the time

Results of descriptive, theoretical and content analysis of the selected papers

This section presents the results of the second phase identified in the literature review methodology and aims to analyse the papers selected through descriptive, theoretical and content perspectives. To achieve this aim, papers were analysed by two different researchers in parallel, plus a third one in case of uncertainty, to categorise the selected contributions by theories, topic areas and learning processes investigated. This analysis has been based on the entire paper and not merely on the

Conceptual model and research agenda

The main findings of the literature review presented above highlight that exploration and exploitation emerge as critical processes affecting the development of universities towards the entrepreneurial model. Nevertheless, in the body of literature on entrepreneurial universities the balance between exploration and exploitation is an under-researched topic. Therefore, starting from this issue in the first part of this section we develop a model to analyse how exploration and exploration can be

Conclusions and implications

This paper has conducted a systematic literature review on the development process of universities towards the entrepreneurial model to provide a conceptual framework and a strategic research agenda. From the analysis of the body of literature on the topic, exploration and exploitation emerge as critical processes in the development of entrepreneurial universities. However, the way they are balanced within universities is an under-researched topic. Therefore, adapted from the concept of

Piera Centobelli is Asst. Professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II. Piera is currently Professor of Bioeconomics and Intellectual Property in the MSc program in Industrial and Molecular Biotechnology. In 2016 she held a Ph.D. in Technology and Production Systems at the Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering at the University of Naples Federico II. Her research interests focus on operations management, logistics and

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    Piera Centobelli is Asst. Professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II. Piera is currently Professor of Bioeconomics and Intellectual Property in the MSc program in Industrial and Molecular Biotechnology. In 2016 she held a Ph.D. in Technology and Production Systems at the Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering at the University of Naples Federico II. Her research interests focus on operations management, logistics and supply chain management, decision support systems, knowledge and technology management, big data and analytics in logistics and sustainable supply chain.

    Roberto Cerchione is Delegate of the Engineering Management Committee and teaches Business Management at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Naples Parthenope. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Entrepreneurship Education and Guest Editor of the journal Current Issues in Tourism. He is Adjunct Professor at University of Maryland University College. His research projects are focused on knowledge management and entrepreneurship, technology management and digital transformation, supply chain management and environmental sustainability management in high-tech manufacturing and service industries.

    Emilio Esposito is Full Professor of Engineering Management at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II. He has been Chair of the Logistics and Manufacturing Management Engineering Degree Council of the University of Naples Federico II. He has been Chair of the Logistics and Manufacturing Management Engineering Degree Council of the University of Naples Federico II. His current scientific interests include knowledge management, technology management, supply chain management organisation.

    Shashi is a PhD student in the School of Management Studies, Punjabi University Patiala, Punjab, India. His research mainly focuses on the supply chain management, food cold chain management, performance measurement, and knowledge management and environmental sustainability.

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