An exploration of the application of universities as artificial institutional entrepreneurs: The case of China

• Date: 01 February 2018
• Published date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1697

SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER

An exploration of the application of universities as artificial

institutional entrepreneurs: The case of China

Connie Zheng

1

|Mei‐Chih Hu

2

1

Department of Management, Deakin

Business School, Faculty of Business and Law,

Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria,

Australia

2

Institute of Technology Management,

National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu,

Taiwan

Correspondence

Connie Zheng, Department of Management,

Deakin Business School, Faculty of Business

and Law, Deakin University, 70 Elgar Road,

Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia.

Email: connie.zheng@deakin.edu.au

Universities worldwide have increasingly been encouraged to incubate and create business enter-

prises in order to fulfil national and regional economic development objectives via rapid research

commercialization, technology transfer, and open innovation. The definitions of university‐level

entrepreneurship appear to be controversial in the extant literature, with special reference to

government–university–industry partnerships under the overarching theoretical framework of

institutional entrepreneurship. No longer do universities act only as agents for knowledge trans-

mission and diffusion but also as business enterprises to help change formal institutional arrange-

ments to meet evolving economic and social demands and to graft the entrepreneurial paradigm

into academic culture and structures. As a transitional economy, have China's universities also

acted as institutional entrepreneurs for change? In this paper, we address this research question

by exploring the nature of government–university–industry links and the application of “institu-

tional entrepreneurship”to Chinese universities. We use a case analysis of the Industry Technol-

ogy Research Institute of Geo‐Resources and Environment Co. Ltd. established by the China

University of Geosciences to support our argument that Chinese universities are artificial institu-

tional entrepreneurs. As a result of our analysis, we identified several success factors and con-

straints on universities as institutional entrepreneurs in the context of China.

1|INTRODUCTION

Universities worldwide are increasingly being encouraged to create

business enterprises as a way to commercialize intellectual property

(Rothaermel, Agung, & Jiang, 2007; Siegel, Wright, & Lockett, 2007).

The aim for universities in becoming entrepreneurial is to promote

economic well‐being via university research commercialization and

technology transfer (Rideout & Gray, 2013, p. 329). The definition of

university entrepreneurship is subject to much debate but is generally

agreed to cover entrepreneurial activities in which a university is

involved, leading to various outcomes such as patenting, licensing,

creating new firms, and facilitating technology transfer through

incubators and science parks (Rothaermel et al., 2007, p. 692).

University‐level entrepreneurship can be categorized into three

distinct areas: an entrepreneurial university, academic entrepreneur-

ship, and university technology transfer (Yusof & Jain, 2010). It is gen-

erally agreed that an entrepreneurial university emphasizes the close

university–government–industry collaboration (i.e., Triple Helix) and

builds a university's intra‐entrepreneurial processes, leading to new

venture creation and acquisition of external funding. University

technology transfer is clearly defined as an increased emphasis on

technology transfer from university to industry (O'Shea, Allen,

Chevalier, & Roche, 2005). Conflicting views were presented to define

what constitutes academic entrepreneurship.

Based on a corporate entrepreneurship perspective, Brennan and

McGowan (2006) offer an integrative view to define academic entre-

preneurship as encompassing organizational creation, innovation, and

strategic renewal inside and outside the university. According to

Chrisman, Hynes, and Fraser (1995) and Etzkowitz and Klofsten

(2005), academic entrepreneurship is a mechanism to facilitate

efficient university–industry technology transfer and create new busi-

ness ventures via the entrepreneurial activities of faculty members.

The entrepreneurial activities cover consulting, contract research,

large‐scale science projects, external teaching, testing, patenting/

licensing, spin‐offs, and sales of products and services (Rasmussen &

Borch, 2010).

Institutional arrangements in the university context are particu-

larly related to the national objectives of improving economic perfor-

mance as well as the university's financial advantage and that of the

faculty (Yusof & Jain, 2010). According to Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff's

(2000) Triple Helix model, the university plays an important role in

industrial innovation in national innovation systems (see also, Liu,

2011; Lundvall, 2007; Rothaermel et al., 2007). It appears that no lon-

ger are universities acting only as “agents for the production and

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1697

J Public Affairs. 2018;18:e1697.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1697

Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of10