Does university entrepreneurial orientation matter? Evidence from university performance

• Author: Steven Tello,Yi Yang,Sandhya Balasubramanian
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/sej.1341

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Does university entrepreneurial orientation

matter? Evidence from university performance

Sandhya Balasubramanian | Yi Yang | Steven Tello

Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Manning School of Business, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell,

Massachusetts

Correspondence

Yi Yang, Department of Marketing,

Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Manning

School of Business, University of

Massachusetts Lowell, 1 University Avenue,

Lowell, MA 01854.

Email: yi_yang@uml.edu

Abstract

Research Summary:As a firm-level attribute, entrepreneurial

orientation (EO)'s beneficial relationship to firm perfor-

mance has been established in the corporate sector; how-

ever, its implications in other sectors including university

settings remain a rather underexplored area. Based on a

sample of 107 universities in the United States, we examine

the impact of EO on a wide range of university performance

measures from commercialization of intellectual property to

more comprehensive university performance metrics. Our

findings underscore the critical importance of EO in the con-

text of universities and also reveal the moderation effects of

university characteristics such as size and the presence of

science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) focus.

Managerial Summary:This study examines the impact of EO

on university performance. Our findings can be of signifi-

cance to higher education administrators in several ways.

First, we draw attention to the need to recognize university

EO as the glue that binds resources together for discovery

and exploitation of opportunities. Furthermore, the evi-

dence connecting EO to the U.S. News and World rankings

demonstrates that leveraging university EO has potential to

impact metrics that many of its stakeholders pay attention

to. In addition, our findings suggest that large universities

and those with a STEM focus are able to better leverage the

EO shift upward in their rankings, which provides guidance

© 2020 Strategic Management Society

Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. 2020;14:661–682. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/sej 661

Received: 13 December 2017 Revised: 20 November 2019 Accepted: 7 December 2019 Published on: 13 January 2020

DOI: 10.1002/sej.1341

for university administrators on how to strategically create

and develop new academic programs.

KEYWORDS

entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial universities, higher

education, technology commercialization, university performance

metrics

1|INTRODUCTION

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has been examined immensely through a growing stream of research over the past

three decades. In general, EO is viewed as the entrepreneurial strategy-making processes that key decision makers

use to enact their firm's organizational purpose, sustain its vision, and create competitive advantages (Rauch,

Wiklund, Lumpkin, & Frese, 2009). The relationship between EO and firm performance has been well investigated

and proven in both the strategic management and entrepreneurship literature (Miller, 2011; Tang, Tang, Marino,

Zhang, & Li, 2008). Yet, implications of EO in nonprofit and public organizational settings such as universities remain

an underexplored area (Klein, Mahoney, McGahan, & Pitelis, 2013; Morris, Webb, & Franklin, 2011).

Universities are now recognized to play important roles as both knowledge producers and disseminating institu-

tions (Guerrero & Urbano, 2012). They serve as natural incubators that endeavor simultaneously to fulfill the mis-

sions of teaching, research, and entrepreneurial activities while providing an adequate atmosphere in which

university communities can identify, explore, and exploit innovative and creative ideas that could be transformed

into new ventures (Kirby, Guerrero, & Urbano, 2011). Faced with environmental uncertainties, universities have been

forced to become relevant and responsive to their society or region through utilizing entrepreneurship as the critical

force in stimulating economic growth and social development (Audretsch, 2014). Thus, it becomes relevant and

important to examine the EO of universities as it plays a vital role in accomplishment of their multiple missions of

teaching, research, and entrepreneurial activities (Guerrero, Cunningham, & Urbano, 2015) through changes in cul-

ture, governance, and administration (Mowery & Shane, 2002) of universities. Indeed, the increasing number of pub-

lications on entrepreneurial universities highlight that entrepreneurial universities as a field of study is drawing

significant attention. With more than 100 publications published since 2010, theoretical understanding of

entreprenueurial univerisites is improving; yet, despite the growing awareness, little is still known about EO within

the university as well as how such an orientation may influence the performance of universities (Balasubramanian &

Yang, 2015; Kalar & Antoncic, 2015; Todorovic, McNaughton, & Guild, 2011).

Thus, in this study we attempt to investigate the relationship between EO and university performance. Spe-

cifically, two research questions become our research focus: (a) does EO of an university influence its perfor-

mance? and (b) might factors such as a university's size, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) focus

moderate the EO—university performance relationship? Based on a sample of 107 U.S. universit ies, we find that

university EO positively impacts a wide range of performance measures including technological commerci aliza-

tion outcomes and comprehensive university performance metrics such as university ranking. Our results also

reveal the moderation effects of university size and STEM focus on the relationship between university EO and

these performance outcomes.

The findings offer several key contributions to the EO and university entrepreneurship literature. First, our study

reveals that universities with a higher EO will achieve better performance and sustain competitive advantage by

leveraging its resource endowments through entrepreneurially oriented actions. While doing so, we also extend

research on performance of universities beyond technology transfer outcomes (Perkmann et al., 2013; Rothaermel,

Agung, & Jiang, 2007), readily measurable factors, or single campus case studies (Walshok & Shapiro, 2014).

662 BALASUBRAMANIAN ET AL.