Faculty Survey of Attitudes Towards Academic Entrepreneurship

1
Faculty Survey of Attitudes Towards Academic
Entrepreneurship

• Harvey A. Goldstein
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Research partially funded by The Kauffman
Foundation, UNC Institute for Arts and
Humanities, CURS
2
The Context

• Research universities have taken a decided
  entrepreneurial turn in the last 15-20 years
• Commercialization of technology based upon
  university research has become an important
  institutional mission
• But controversy over the appropriate roles and
  activities of the university
• Commitment to norms of open science
• Unintended consequences of commercialization
• Conflict-of-interest and even scandals(!)
• Fiduciary responsibility of the university as
  producer of knowledge and truth threatened

3
Research Objectives

• To what extent has academic entrepreneurship
  become consensually adopted, taken-for-granted
  among faculty?
• How do attitudes differ?
• Are there boundaries of legitimacy and
  appropriateness?

4
Research Design

• Stratified sample of U.S. research universities
• 42 Research Universities Very High
• 26 public
• 16 private
• 29 Research Universities High
• 21 public
• 8 private
• 8 disciplines
• Biological sciences Physics
• Political science Economics
• English History
• Chemical engineering Computer science

5
Research Design, continued

• Web-based questionnaire
• Sent to (in each department)
• Chair
• Plus
• Stratified random sample
• 1 Full
• 1 Associate
• 1 Assistant

6
Results

• Questionnaire sent to 2,148 faculty
• 112 unable to deliver
• 510 respondents
• Effective response rate 25.0 percent

7
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
8
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
9
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
10
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
11
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
12
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
13
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
14
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
15
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
16
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the
following is legitimate or appropriate?
17
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the
following is legitimate or appropriate?
18
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the
following is legitimate or appropriate?
19
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
1 Strongly Agree 2 Agree 3 Neither Agree nor
Disagree 4 Disagree 5 Strongly Disagree
20
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
1 Strongly Agree 2 Agree 3 Neither Agree nor
Disagree 4 Disagree 5 Strongly Disagree
21
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the
following is legitimate or appropriate?
1 Strongly Agree 2 Agree 3 Neither Agree nor
Disagree 4 Disagree 5 Strongly Disagree
22
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
23
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
24
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the
following is legitimate or appropriate?
25
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the
following is legitimate or appropriate?
26
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
27
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the
following statement?
28
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the
following is legitimate or appropriate?
29
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the
following is legitimate or appropriate?
30
Academic Entrepreneurship
To what extent do you agree or disagree that the
following is legitimate or appropriate?
31
How should we interpret these results?

• Academic entrepreneurship as commercialization of
  knowledge has not become thoroughly
  institutionalized taken-for-grantedness and
  legitimacy questioned by many faculty
• Important differences in perceived legitimacy
  among activities
• Engagement (in RED) widely accepted
• Activities mixing university duties and
  for-profit gain widely perceived as not
  legitimate

32
Interpretation of results, continued

• Generally, attitudes do not differ significantly
  across rank or across type of university
• Attitudes do differ significantly across
  disciplines
• Opportunities for commercialization?
• Self-selection?
• Different norms?

33
Interpretation of results, continued

• Commitment to norms of open science widely held
• Among faculty who have been active in
  commercialization
• Among faculty who have received research funding
  from private industry
• Challenge how IHEs can become more engaged and
  stimulate innovation, yet maintain the norms and
  societal benefits of open science?

34
Future Directions

• Measure the attitudes towards academic
  entrepreneurship of other stakeholders
• Cross-national comparisons