A harmony of identities? The Balance between academic and entrepreneurial identities of university researchers (Esitys Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conferencessa, Wellesley, USA 5.-8.6. 2019)

Abstract

<p>Principal Topic:</p><p>Universities’ ongoing transition towards entrepreneurial university entails evoking entrepreneurial identity of academics. This often conflicts with academic identity that serves the fulfillment of traditional research duties. Although having strong identification as an academic and an entrepreneur is possible, enablers of this kind of dual role identity in the university context are scarcely researched. Organizational factors, such as implementation of a university’s entrepreneurship strategy, might have an effect on respective identities. Whether an academic perceives engagement into entrepreneurship-related activities as a threat to academic integrity can also depend on her degree of orientation towards industrial ties. In this study, we take the individual perspective of identity and investigate it with universities’ internal strategic actions.</p><p>Method:</p><p> Our sample comprises 318 researchers working at two multi-faculty research universities in Finland. It includes junior and senior researchers from different disciplines (humanities, technology, business, etc.). Data were collected in spring 2018 using online survey. We measured identity with established centrality scales of entrepreneurial and academic identities (Sellers et al. 1997). Independent variables – researchers’ perception of the entrepreneurship strategy implementation at a university and industry orientation – were developed based on Gibb (2011) and Lam (2010). We conducted binary logistic and linear regression analyses to test different patterns of predictors of the two identities. All the analyses had a unified set of controls including discipline and position held by a researcher, gender, age, active years in research, entrepreneurial experience, and university.</p><p>Results and Implications:</p><p> Our results highlight the researchers’ perception of the entrepreneurship strategy implementation and industry orientation enable strong dual role identity – both academic and entrepreneurial. More specifically, the effect of the strategy implementation perception was fully contingent upon industry orientation. We also find that the strong dual role identity has specific enablers different from those predicting academic and entrepreneurial identities separately. Our findings advance the understanding of the context-driven and individual enablers of the role identity among academics. For practice, they suggest that strategic actions of a university should go in conjunction with shaping researchers’ industry orientation, and allow making specific recommendations for the universities that seek to fulfill their societal mission.</p>