A Cooperative Approach to Academic Entrepreneurial Initiatives

Abstract

this article we introduce a novel entrepreneurial model, the “<em>Faculty Cooperative</em>”, an eco-system for creating and managing academic <strong>entrepreneurial initiatives</strong>. The goal of this model is to promote academic entrepreneurism, by providing a guiding concept and tools that overcome the lack of alignment between individual academic attributes and faculty efforts in <strong>driving academic spin-out companies</strong>. Through an empirical inquiry based on an academic <strong>spin-out company</strong> in a UK university context, we have explored the key activities, actors, organisational processes and outcomes related to the formation and development stages of the <strong>academic entrepreneurship process</strong>. The empirical evidence reveals that the key principles embodied by the “<em>Faculty Cooperative Model</em>” namely, openness, freedom and collective shareholding, are likely to promote the <strong>entrepreneurial culture</strong> within a university context. The paper argues for the importance of developing <strong>entrepreneurial culture</strong> in conventional research focused universities, which not only improves the traditional values of teaching and research, but also enhances the <strong>dynamic capabilities</strong> of universities in a global marketplace. It is suggested that the entrepreneurial ideal is not contradictory to the conventional university missions, rather it is complementary