Journal of Enterprising Culture
Vol. 22, No. 1 (March 2014) 57–90
DOI: 10.1142/S0218495814500034
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The Individual’s Perceived Environment as an Antecedent
of Academic Entrepreneurship: Multiple Case Studies
of Thai University Researchers
Sutti Sooampon* and Barbara Igel†
School of Management, Asian Institute of Technology
P. O. Box 4, KlongLuang, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand
*[email protected]
†
[email protected]
This study investigates the individual researcher’s perceived environment as a
pre-condition of entrepreneurship within the university. Our objective is to
identify the micro-level antecedents that shape a university researcher’s decision
about whether to embark on an entrepreneurial venture. We conducted a series of
both entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial case studies through in-depth
interviews with six university researchers. The comparative case data generated
inclusive descriptions of the social conditions surrounding the researchers and
their individual characteristics as criteria for explaining their decisions on whether
to become entrepreneurs. Our findings add to the macro-perspectives typically
discussed, and advance knowledge of the entrepreneurial university by incorporating the individual’s perceived environment as a micro-level condition for academic entrepreneurship. Drawing on the context of Thailand’s emerging
economy, in which social inequality exists alongside growth, our findings shed
light on the university researcher’s entrepreneurial role as a leader for social
change through the commercialisation of science and technology research.
Keywords: Academic entrepreneurship; corporate entrepreneurship; social entrepreneurship; perceived work environment; personal characteristics; case study; Thailand.
1. INTRODUCTION
This study is grounded in the university’s research mission to serve as a
source of innovation and industrial competitiveness for society. University
researchers can contribute to their country by turning their scientific research into commercial products. Rather than producing a typical published
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work of theoretical knowledge, academics can conduct applied research
with an actual product outcome as the primary source for a new venture. A
number of spin-off firms, such as Cirrus Logic (a semiconductor company)
and Genentech (a biotechnology firm) have grown from university-based
ventures (Shane, 2004) through a process known as academic entrepreneurship that aims to commercialise the outcomes of faculty research
(Wood, 2011). From a policy maker’s point of view, the concept of the
entrepreneurial university has become a fundamental concern in the context
of enabling a national innovation system, which has been a top agenda item
in recent years (Yusuf and Nabeshima, 2007).
Many studies have been conducted to gain a better understanding of and
provide more effective support for research commercialisation by entrepreneurial universities. The organisational attributes of the university
itself have received attention as potential predictors of entrepreneurial
performance (O’Shea et al., 2005). Other studies have examined the idea of
supporting technological infrastructure, such as research and science parks
or related industrial clusters, as potential means for supporting university
entrepreneurship through spin-off formation (Link and Scott, 2005). The
broader public policy domain, including university financing and intellectual property acts, has also been considered influential for universities’
entrepreneurial activities (Mowery, 2004). Overall, the scope of the literature on academic entrepreneurship tends to focus on the macro level
(Rothaermel et al., 2007). However, this macro-level perspective rarely
considers how the individual researcher comes to recognise opportunities
and behave entrepreneurially. Investigation at the level of the individual
researcher’s decision to think and act as an entrepreneur is missing from
many studies (Jain et al., 2009).
Our study responds to this lack of individual-level analyses (Lockett
et al., 2005). We explore the individual researcher’s work environment
to identify antecedents that influence the decision to turn a perceived
opportunity for value creation into a commercial product. In other words,
our investigation takes place at the core of entrepreneurial activity, at
the individual-opportunity nexus (Shane, 2003). An academic’s entrepreneurial decisions, however, occur in a work environment that is
very different from the traditional domain of entrepreneurship. Rather
than operating independently, entrepreneurial researchers are embedded
in the organisational context of their university. Taking a closer look at
an academic entrepreneur’s decision-making process can complement
the existing literature on entrepreneurship and innovation efforts in
universities.
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Perceived Environment and Academic Entrepreneurship
University researchers are normally affiliated with their organisations as
employees, and have a full-time teaching and/or research workload. Although policy makers have grown more interested in the university’s potential for creating innovation, entrepreneurship is only one of several
options for university researchers (Bercovitz and Feldman, 2008), and it is
not commonly taken by researchers in emerging economies such as Thailand (Cheamsawat, 2005). The Thai government has made substantial
efforts to promote academic entrepreneurship, mainly via establishing a
national innovation system policy and by investing in technological infrastructure (Intarakumnerd, 2013). Given the assumption that these efforts are
necessary but not sufficient, we propose to explore how individual scientists
perceive their research environments and the related decision-making processes they experience. Specifically, this study investigates individual
university researchers’ reasons for choosing to either engage or not engage
in entrepreneurial activities. We argue that the critical antecedents for the
researchers’ actions are found in their individual perceptions of their particular work environments.
This argument is somewhat similar to the traditional school of thought
on corporate entrepreneurship, which postulates the influence of the
organisational environment on an employee’s decision to engage in entrepreneurial initiatives (Hornsby et al., 2002). Our aim, however, is to
investigate whether the corporate entrepreneurship concept is applicable in
the university domain. We propose that the individual researcher, as a
citizen of the university, is as much influenced by his/her own work environment as a corporate citizen in a business organisation. Some difficulties, however, may arise due to the differences in the context between a
private business organisation and an academic institution. The public research institute’s traditionally non-commercial environment poses additional challenges for entrepreneurs beyond those faced by employees in a
typical research-intensive firm (Lockett et al., 2005). Specifically, the diverse objectives of a non-profit-seeking public university make corporate
venturing efforts far more complex than in a profit-seeking corporation
(Narayanan et al., 2009).
The above discussion reveals a considerable gap in entrepreneurship
research, with a lack of micro-level studies on university-based entrepreneurship by academic staff. This study contributes new insights by examining how individual university researchers perceive their own work
environments in terms of the forces and stimuli that motivate their decisions
to make an entrepreneurial effort and put their research output to practical
use. The guided research questions are as follows.
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What elements of the individual researcher’s perceived work environment are essential conditions for academic entrepreneurship in the context
of an emerging economy?
What are the differences in researchers’ perceptions regarding their own
work environments that could explain the entrepreneurial or nonentrepreneurial actions of university researchers?
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2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Academic Entrepreneurship
Academic entrepreneurship generally refers to a university creating value
by developing its accumulated scientific research into commercial applications (Lockett et al., 2005). The university researcher becomes an academic entrepreneur through the process of transforming his or her scientific
research results into a new product or service, often by establishing a new
business firm (Fontes, 2005). The development of university-based ventures
can be understood as a process of growth that involves several phases,
including research, opportunity framing, pre-organisation, re-orientation
and sustainable returns (Vohora et al., 2004). Taking a knowledge-based
view of the entrepreneurial organisation, each new venture development
phase could be interpreted as a challenge in overcoming a knowledge gap
by various parties such as individual researchers, founding teams, incubators, technology transfer offices and the public research institutions themselves (Lockett et al., 2005). From the perspective of economic value,
academic entrepreneurship aligns product innovation, knowledge-worker
jobs and investment with the university’s emerging technology, which can
lead to the founding of spin-off firms and technological clusters in a broader
sense (Shane, 2004). The concept of an entrepreneurial university is thus a
potentially important pillar of the national innovation system that includes
multiple stakeholders, particularly the central government, local authorities,
the business sector and the university (Yusuf and Nabeshima, 2007).
Although the pattern and significance of university ventures has been
discussed in general, a number of underlying conditions that influence the
likelihood of entrepreneurship in universities remain to be fully investigated. The factors in the university environment that influence academic
entrepreneurship have been studied from several perspectives at the national, industrial and organisational levels. At the national level, the comprehensive context of university entrepreneurship has been considered from
the perspective of higher education and research policy, in addition to a
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Perceived Environment and Academic Entrepreneurship
specific set of incentives known as the Bayh-Dole act for universities
wishing to patent scientific work (Mowery, 2004). The role of state financing in university ventures has also been a prominent concern, as seen
in China’s model of university funding (Kroll and Liefner, 2008). At the
industry-cluster level, the birth of university entrepreneurship is also
studied in relation to science parks. Based on empirical evidence from the
US, a high proportion of university spin-offs can be found in science parks
that are well established, associated with a rich research environment, close
to a university and have a biotechnology focus (Link and Scott, 2005). The
taxonomy used to investigate university-industry interaction within the
science park context can be classified as either a researcher’s informal
access to industry’s technological resources, or a formal relationship
through consulting or joint research contracts (Vedovello, 1997). At the
organisational level, an econometric analysis conducted by O’Shea
et al. (2005) revealed that the university’s institutional, financial, commercial
and human capital jointly affect the outcome of its business venture spin-offs.
A study of university-based technology transfer units by Debackere et al.
(2005) focused in particular on decentralised governance and appropriate
incentives to stimulate the active involvement of research groups.
In explaining the phenomenon of academic entrepreneurship, the
abovementioned studies discussed various issues and conditions that facilitate entrepreneurship in the university. What seems to be missing,
however, is attention to the very origins of the phenomenon at the level of
the individual researcher. While macro-level studies at the governmental,
industrial or organisational levels dominate the literature, this study
explores how individual university researchers make the decision to start a
business venture for commercialising their research. Adopting this microlevel perspective, we argue that the factors which motivate individual
researchers to engage in academic entrepreneurship are in fact found in
their perceived environments at work. Such individual-level studies are rare
in the academic entrepreneurship literature, and a comprehensive understanding of the factors that encourage or discourage academic entrepreneurship does not yet exist. Thus, there is an important gap in our
understanding of the personal determinants of academic entrepreneurship
(Krabel and Mueller, 2009). Lockett et al. (2005) put forward a similar
argument, suggesting the need for more individual-level analyses of academic spin-offs, with attention given to the individual scientist. As a
promising domain of future research, academic entrepreneurship has recently been interpreted as an individual-level organisational change influenced by each academic entrepreneur’s localised social environment
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(Bercovitz and Feldman, 2008). In particular, the effect of the organisational environment on employees’ entrepreneurial behaviour is a research
domain to which the corporate entrepreneurial school of thought has contributed new insights. However, this school of thought has not yet gone
beyond the corporate ecosystem to include public sector organisations such
as universities.
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2.2. Corporate Entrepreneurship
The interchangeable terms of corporate entrepreneurship (Burgelman,
1983) and intrapreneurship (Pinchot, 1985) generally refer to the practice of
entrepreneurship within an organisational boundary. This kind of entrepreneurial activity can lead to new ventures within an established firm,
and can encompass a variety of innovation-oriented activities (Antoncic and
Hisrich, 2001). At the individual level, an intrapreneur is an employee in
any position who turns a perceived opportunity into a profitable reality and
pushes for change with an entrepreneurial spirit, often without any formal
assignment to do so (Menzel et al., 2007).
The concept of corporate entrepreneurship, also known as strategic entrepreneurship, refers to the transformation by which a firm incorporates
innovation into its strategy, product, market, organisational structure, process, capability or business models to enhance its competitive advantages
(Kuratko, 2007). A comprehensive view of corporate entrepreneurship
covers product and process innovation and market development through
business creation at various levels, including the corporate, business,
functional and project levels (Zahra, 1991). Simply put, corporate entrepreneurial activities can be classified as product line extensions, new
platform development or new business creation, depending on the particular
kinds of knowledge bases to be developed (Kazanjian et al., 2002). Corporate venturing can help a firm to build innovation capability, expand
organisational competence and quickly gain financial returns from a new
operation beyond its current scope (Morgan and Jeffrey, 2002).
Given the significance and scope of entrepreneurship within existing
firms, the search to identify external and internal factors that influence the
corporate entrepreneurial environment has become a major research agenda. Rather than simply assessing the objective characteristics of the work
environment, the manager’s perceived environments described in terms of
‘dynamic growth’, ‘hostile and rivalrous but technologically rich’ or
‘hospitable, product-driven growth’ have been shown to have positive
associations with various kinds of corporate entrepreneurial activities
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Perceived Environment and Academic Entrepreneurship
(Zahra, 1993). Furthermore, related sets of triggering events have been
classified as having internal or external sources, as being opportunity driven
or threat driven, as motivated by technology push or market pull, as top
down or bottom up and as resulting from either systematic and deliberate
searches or from chance and opportunism (Schindehutte et al., 2000). A
qualitative study by Sathe (2003) revealed even more dimensions of the
intrapreneur’s external environment in relation to competitive forces and
other more specific conditions, such as product liability, strong patents,
government regulations, industry standards, new technology, adverse economic conditions and external advisors. At the organisational level, the
importance of the corporate climate in the workplace, including its levels of
managerial backing, organisational structure and resource availability, has
been found to support the implementation of intrapreneurial ideas among
top-and middle-level managers, thus inducing the firm’s intrapreneurial
environment (Kuratko et al., 1990). Support from top management may
come from diverse parties such as corporate executives, the divisional
general manager or the division’s top management team (Sathe, 2003).
Conceptually, organisational factors can shape the ways that employees
perceive opportunities at work, and thus accelerate or impede corporate
entrepreneurship (Zahra, 1991). Organisational strategies for corporate
entrepreneurship need to be aligned with the perceptions of employees at all
relevant job levels (Hornsby et al., 2009).
The forgoing literature review suggests the possibility of applying the
concept of corporate entrepreneurship to organisations outside the domain
of business corporations, such as universities. As members of an organisation, university researchers may be induced to act entrepreneurially by the
perceived environment within and outside their workplaces. However,
simply attempting to examine the behaviour of university researchers in
relation to a set of corporate entrepreneurship characteristics seems inappropriate, given that the Thai university researchers we interviewed described their workplaces as having more of the characteristics of a social
enterprise than those of a profit-driven business. It thus remains challenging
to target a specific set of antecedents of entrepreneurship within the university. This argument is in line with the idea proposed by Narayanan
et al. (2009) that the future direction of corporate entrepreneurship research
should involve close attention to the heterogeneity of characteristics in
corporate ventures whose purposes range from financial to strategic. Furthermore, this study’s focus on Thailand is also inspired by concern over
the national differences in the antecedents of corporate entrepreneurship
that have been identified in studies comparing various geographical regions
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and economic conditions such as Slovenia (Antoncic and Hisrich, 2001),
Japan (Abetti, 1997) and the US. The variations in the explanatory factors
for corporate entrepreneurship found across different geographic locations
thus reflect the significance of regional conditions and levels of economic
development (Smith and Bagchi-Sen, 2011). All of these factors should
be considered more carefully, especially when examining entrepreneurial
activity that takes place in the context of a university.
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The qualitative case research approach was used in this study to explore the
relationship between individual researchers’ perceived work environments
and their decisions to engage (or not) in academic entrepreneurship. We
defined an academic entrepreneur as a researcher with experience in
transforming scientific expertise into a commercial product or service to be
sold in the market. Following Yin (2003), a multiple case-study research
approach was selected to explore the emerging boundaries of academic
entrepreneurship. The basis of our study was a comparative investigation of
a particular university’s research settings, as perceived by both entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial researchers. Targeting the individual researcher, this micro-level approach aimed to answer why some researchers,
but not others, decide to engage in academic entrepreneurship. The flexibility of our case study approach allowed for a gradual adjustment in the
research design, and enabled at least an extension of existing theories by
bringing fresh ideas to an already researched topic (Eisenhardt, 1989). This
approach suited our investigation of the academic entrepreneurship phenomenon, which has not been sufficiently explained by the established
entrepreneurship theories.
We used purposeful sampling (Creswell, 2007) to trace and obtain solid
confirmation of the critical antecedents of academic entrepreneurship, and
to compare how these antecedents influenced the researchers’ responses to
perceived opportunities for commercialising their research. To obtain reliable data on each researcher’s perceived environment, several rounds of
in-depth interviews were conducted with six university researchers working in the same scientific area. This approach enabled us to gain a deep
understanding of how these different individuals in the same university
perceived their research work environment, and how these perceptions
had influenced their decisions regarding whether to start entrepreneurial
activities.
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Perceived Environment and Academic Entrepreneurship
At the centre of this study is the proposition that the perceived environment provides important stimuli and barriers to the individual
researcher’s decision to engage in academic entrepreneurship. To identify
factors that were critical for each researcher’s decision on whether to start
an entrepreneurial venture, we investigated two groups of researchers —
one entrepreneurial and the other non-entrepreneurial. To classify entrepreneurial versus non-entrepreneurial actions, we limited the entrepreneurial case selection to those researchers who had not only identified an
opportunity to create value for users, but had also developed a complete
prototype and were actively involved in its commercialisation. The nonentrepreneurial researchers, in contrast, were defined as those who conducted
research for typical academic contributions, without aiming to develop
commercial applications to serve potential users. Although the nonentrepreneurial researchers may have had clear ideas concerning the commercial applications of their research, they were neither seriously interested
nor engaged in any effort to develop a usable product. To summarise, our
critical classification of entrepreneurial versus non-entrepreneurial cases
was based on whether or not the researchers had decided to engage in
entrepreneurial ventures. In terms of the research sector focus, we selected
the field of healthcare, which is one of Thailand’s fastest growing and most
promising economic sectors, showing good prospects and high potential for
innovation (Lorlowhakarn, 2010). We specifically targeted dental healthcare
because researchers in the field have been equipped with a specialised government-sponsored institute to facilitate innovation, namely the Advanced
Dental Technology Center, or ADTEC (Tharanon, 2011). Unfortunately,
we found there were still very few scientists who had begun to act entrepreneurially despite the technological readiness in this scientific area.
In total, six university researchers consisting of entrepreneurial and nonentrepreneurial cases were selected, all of whom were employed by the
same dental school in one of Thailand’s most reputable national universities. The rationale for this case selection was to exclude differences in other
related organisational factors that could influence the researcher’s decisions, such as the university’s research policies, the organisational structures or research laboratory infrastructures, which typically differ between
universities. In other words, our research design allowed us to focus on
any differences between the researchers’ individual perceptions of their
own work environments within the same dental school. These differences
were gradually investigated through a series of case studies conducted by
alternate interview appointments with each entrepreneurial and nonentrepreneurial case, respectively, until we reach a saturation stage at which
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Table 1. Description of the case sample.
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Case
Academic
Field
E1
Restorative
Dentistry
E2
Dental Prosthetics
E3
Dental Prosthetics
N1
Oral Pharmacology
N2
Dental
Anatomy
N3
Dental Biochemistry
New Product Opportunity
Current Status
Low-cost coating material
(sealant) for preventing
tooth decay among
children
Asian-user-friendly model of
dental articulator equipment used for making
high-precision dentures
Affordable dental implant
tools that make treatment
accessible, particularly for
the poor
A rough idea for a herbalbased mouthwash
Business start-up with product available for sale
A rough idea concerning
biomaterial development
for wound dressing
purposes
Enzyme used in oral medicine
Negotiation process with
investors in progress
Final phase of human trial
before upcoming market
launch
No serious start, despite continuing interest in herbal
research
Abandoned shortly after preconceptualisation stage
No perception of final product
at this stage
additional cases brought minimal improvement to the theory (Eisenhardt,
1989). The profiles of each case are shown in Table 1.
On average, the duration of each face-to-face interview was around 120
minutes, sometimes followed up by phone calls to clarify questions that
arose while transcribing and analysing data from the interview. Secondary
data from research publications and related news reports were also reviewed
to better understand the context in which an individual’s academic entrepreneurship occurred. In particular, the researcher’s scientific publications
provided important indications of their pathways toward product innovation, as rooted in the foundation of the individual’s accumulated scientific
expertise.
The results obtained from the individual case interviews were analysed
to trace specific patterns within each case (Yin, 2003). Similar to Shabbir’s
(1996) study, which investigated the key factors likely to influence Pakistani women’s processes in starting or not starting a business, the findings
we obtained from the entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial cases were
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compared to identify differences in each individual’s perceived environment
that could explain their different choices. This analysis paved the way for
constructing a framework for depicting the relationship between the individual researchers’ perceived work environments and their subsequent
decisions to engage or not to engage in academic entrepreneurship.
In terms of context, our early observations made during a pilot study
revealed that most entrepreneurial initiatives conducted in Thai universities
were started on a charitable rather than a business-venture basis. Without
serious expectations of personal gain, these kinds of initiatives were started
more for the sake of personal satisfaction. The small profit generated was
typically returned in the form of voluntary donations to the university’s
accumulated research fund, despite the absence of any clearly identified
profit-sharing scheme between the researchers and the university. Given
such conditions, we started to doubt the applicability of corporate entrepreneurship theory, which assumes a profit-seeking motive. We suspected
that academic entrepreneurship was guided more by motives related to
dealing with Thailand’s social inequality.
To probe this widening scope of corporate entrepreneurship in various
contexts (Phan, 2009), at the data analysis stage we paid specific attention
to how applicable the concept of corporate entrepreneurship might be in a
Thai university dental school. Based on our detailed case descriptions, we
identified and discussed the key similarities or differences from the entrepreneurial antecedents previously studied and the theories postulated by
the corporate entrepreneurship school of thought. Any other sets of conceptual explanations that closely matched the empirical case details discovered in our six cases were also compared with the existing concepts of
corporate entrepreneurship. In addition, we invited teams of experts to coreview and validate our initial findings. A director and a project manager
from the Thailand Centre of Excellence for Life Science (TCELS) reviewed
our case findings and provided valuable explanations concerning current
and future innovations in life-science from a policy maker’s perspective.
This review process helped us to understand the interface between scientific
knowledge and entrepreneurial opportunity.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The research findings are presented according to the interview questions,
which explored the perceived conditions in the dental scientists’ work environment and how these conditions influenced their decisions on whether
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to start an entrepreneurial venture. Underlying the interaction between the
perceived environment and the entrepreneurial decision, the individual
researchers’ personal characteristics further influenced how they responded
to opportunities for commercialising their research output. Each theme that
emerged during the interview-based discussions was recorded using quotes
from the respondents’ original statements made during the interviews. A
conceptual analysis of how our findings were similar to or different from
the corporate entrepreneurship concept helped us to find a comprehensive
explanation of how each individual researcher was motivated (or not) to
embark on academic entrepreneurship. Following Gassmann (2007), our
approach of merging our results and discussion allows us to seamlessly
show how the raw case data gradually shaped each theme of analysis.
4.1. Local Demand
A clear perception of local demand appeared to be the starting point for
academic entrepreneurial initiatives in all of the entrepreneurial cases we
explored. This perception, as reflected in the statements shown in Table 2,
generally indicated the respondents’ deep understanding of the context of
Table 2. Examples of local demand.
Case
Entrepreneur Case 1
Entrepreneur Case 2
Entrepreneur Case 3
Quotes
‘Here, pricing matters most. Our aim is to make it cheaper
than the Western brand, while keeping the same quality
standard.’
‘Demand for this product is so clear to me. Our research
will create a preventive care product for tooth decay
problems. Surely it is more sustainable for the treatment
of Thai children.’
‘This machine’s unnecessary complexity makes it difficult
(for students) to learn, difficult (for me) to teach, difficult (for the programme) to find somebody to teach.’
‘Since it looks difficult to use, Thai dentists generally
prefer using manual labour rather than scientific tools in
producing precision work. That’s not good for our
patients.’
‘On average, you have to think about the budget scale of a
hundred thousand baht for one dental implant.
Our work could help you to save incredibly. Believe
me!’
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Perceived Environment and Academic Entrepreneurship
Table 2.
(Continued )
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Case
Quotes
‘Look at my actual experience. Many times after I’ve
explained the treatment to my patients, they just say
goodbye only because of the price. Particularly for the
poor, they do not think a dental implant is for them at
all. Imagine! It’s hard for them to invest in healthy teeth
while a huge financial burden awaits them.’
Non-entrepreneur Case 1 ‘My interest started from the scientific novelty of this
product. But can it compete with the existing one? How
likely is it that the doctors will accept it? Will it really be
useful?’
Non-entrepreneur Case 2 ‘A long time ago, I tried for the advancement of a possible
prototype. However, I never imagined whether it would
really work or where to sell it. Some of my friends were
too excited, saying we will be rich soon.’
Non-entrepreneur Case 3 ‘With too limited a foundation of knowledge, most
Thai scientists don’t have much room to be creative.
The only thing they can do is to imitate rather than
innovate.’
local users, the main problems with existing products or services and the
possible solutions developed from their own scientific research. Having
confidence in their grasp of specific needs tended to reduce the perceived
business risks and provided strong encouragement for researchers to proceed with developing a commercial application.
Furthermore, the local demand perceived by the three entrepreneurial
researchers was usually seen in the context of what society cared about at
that time. Paying attention to social conditions created a certain urgency to
take action. Actively addressing societal needs was also interpreted as good
conduct that was in line with social priorities. This kind of perceived external environment strongly influenced the researchers’ desires to find better
solutions for society. For instance, Entrepreneur 2’s decision clearly began
with his idea to propose a simplified product design that would provide a
user-friendly dental articulator for dentists in Thailand. Entrepreneur 2
perceived the human constraints of using an overly sophisticated technical
tool. He saw the difficulty of using the existing tool as a critical threat,
because it increasingly discouraged Thai dentists from applying precision
technology in patient care and had resulted in potentially harmful practices,
especially in the case of elderly patients.
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The environment as perceived by the non-entrepreneurial researchers
was characterised by conditions that were very different from those the
entrepreneurial researchers perceived. Although all three non-entrepreneurial researchers had an idea for a possible new product that developed
from their research, scientific research goals and achievements clearly
dominated their agendas, and they gave priority to these goals over societal
needs. Any further product development thus had to begin with the experimental designs that suited the academic research priorities of publishing
in refereed journals. For these researchers, there was neither a clear impetus
nor a direction for how to proceed further.
Their purely science-driven perception of innovation may even have
limited their capability to imagine a new product in use. Non-entrepreneurial Researcher 3, for example, argued against pursuing the entrepreneurial projects initiated by some of his colleagues. He felt that the state of
scientific knowledge among Thailand’s medical scientists was sufficient
only for imitating others, but not for developing any real breakthrough
innovations.
The perceived environment of our entrepreneurial cases seemed to resemble the corporate entrepreneur’s demand-pull-conditions that typically
trigger entrepreneurial responses within a profit-driven business organisation (Schindehutte et al., 2000). Specifically, corporate entrepreneurship is
driven by an environment of hospitable and product-driven growth, with
rich opportunities for product innovation (Zahra, 1993). However, the
opportunities for new product development identified by the academic
entrepreneurs all related to overcoming social constraints such as inequality,
limited skills or financial burdens that hindered progress in public healthcare. The entrepreneurial scientists perceived the lack of solutions in the
market as an opportunity to create new solutions to improve the accessibility and quality of vital healthcare for low-income citizens. It was this
sense of social responsibility that appeared to be critical in defining the
local demand for their new products, as in the situation of social entrepreneurs who aim to solve a social problem (Neck et al., 2009), address a
social divide (Elkington and Hartigan, 2008) and/or overcome a market
failure (Dean and McMullen, 2007). In particular, social entrepreneurial
activities are strongly shaped by local characteristics of poverty and other
poverty-related needs such as the need for health care at the community
level (Seelos et al., 2011).
As illustrated in Table 2, our findings revealed various limitations
that reflected demand in response to existing products that did not fit the
local context and thus required better solutions through new product
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Perceived Environment and Academic Entrepreneurship
development. In other words, the three academic entrepreneurs perceived
and creatively explored the undesirable conditions in Thailand’s dental
healthcare industry, and turned these problems into opportunities for a
profitable business in terms of both economic and social value. In this
particular situation, the entrepreneurial university researchers acted in a way
similar to corporate entrepreneurs, but with the mind-sets and motivations
of social entrepreneurs who perceived social problems in the community as
stimuli for innovative solutions (Bacq and Janssen, 2011). Thus, the academic entrepreneurs’ perceptions were determined by an integrated set of
corporate and social entrepreneurial dimensions.
4.2. Stakeholder’s Force for Collective Impact
Each of the three entrepreneurial researchers frequently stated that they saw
a major market that was not served (see quotes in Table 3). In emphasising
the large size of this neglected market segment, each of them expressed
confidence that their new products would have a significant social impact,
often in helping the poor. At the same time, the revenue from this large
market would also be sufficient to achieve commercial sustainability. In
other words, this perception of being able to add social value while at the
same time ensuring and sustaining financial viability seemed to encourage
the researchers’ entrepreneurial decisions. Moreover, the three academic
entrepreneurs also perceived a strong endorsement from external stakeholders who could indirectly reinforce the social impact of the product
applications. The entrepreneurial cases provided strong evidence that attention to the interests of specific institutions or groups, such as public
hospitals, professional communities, or even the network of dental schools,
contributed to the entrepreneurship-enabling context. Entrepreneur 3 provided a good example for this context. His concern over the poor healthcare
conditions in Thailand’s provincial regions stimulated his vision of an affordable product suitable for the large group of general practitioner dentists
located in upcountry villages and townships, who lacked the expertise and
experience to work with dental implants. His perception of an opportunity
was further reinforced by the change he anticipated in the dental school
curriculum,1 which would help to train a future generation of domestic
dentists in the use of his new equipment, and therefore gradually diffuse his
innovation into society as the students left school and started their practices.
1 The revised curriculum had added courses on dental implant techniques to the undergraduate programme, which
were previously only covered in post-graduate education.
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S. Sooampon & B. Igel
Table 3. Examples of stakeholder’s force for collective impact.
Case
Quotes
‘To make a decision, in light of the market size, not only reflects our
working philosophy to aim at a big change but also determines our
survival.’
‘The government policy considerably increases our target users. It is a
good sign that I should go for this project.’
Entrepreneur
‘This project’s contribution is to develop a customised model of
Case 2
equipment for Asian people. I mean not only Thailand but also SE
Asia.’
‘With increasing attention among dental schools and clinical societies
to provide dental care for the elderly, the project’s revenue could
reach 20 million baht annually. Despite a not-for-profit purpose,
this project secures healthy finance.’
Entrepreneur
‘It may be difficult to convince an expert in comparison to the general
Case 3
practitioners as a newcomer (concerning this type of treatment).
Think about people who love Mac laptops. They hardly want to
switch to a Windows operating system. That’s why we have to
look ahead to make change with new target users.’
‘It will be like a chain reaction. The cheaper model could serve the
teaching purpose better, even for new students at the undergraduate level. Let these young people get used to it and finally open
up a new horizon. The dental implant will finally become just an
ordinary choice of treatment performed by any dentist for any
patient.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘The attention of the government’s research funding unit is only on
Case 1
the academic contribution of my research. My work, too, should
be modelled that way.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘At the beginning, we followed the PM’s beautiful vision of Thai
Case 2
innovations. In reality, the situation is still far from that vision,
with much uncertainty.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘The government’s way of thought is only to fuel consumerism in our
Case 3
society. Who cares about your scientific innovation?’
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Entrepreneur
Case 1
Compared with the entrepreneurial cases, the non-entrepreneurial
researchers’ perceptions told a different story. Looking ahead, the nonentrepreneurial researchers were in doubt over what kind of effect their
research output might have, and what a potential product might look like. Due
to their perceptions of the possibilities, they had neither sought nor obtained
any information on possible responses from the market. Furthermore, they
perceived too little engagement from any of the potential stakeholder groups
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to generate any results. For instance, Non-entrepreneurial Researcher 2
continuously expressed her lack of hope, even though she had an innovative
idea. According to her assessment, the primary aim of an entrepreneurial
university did not align at all with existing stakeholder groups, especially
the government, which seemed to show no interest in initiating change in
cooperation with a university researcher.
According to the corporate entrepreneurship school of thought, the
perceived behaviour of customers, suppliers and competitors, who represent competitive forces (Sathe, 2003), may define the attractiveness of a
new venture by its profit potential. Similarly, our entrepreneurial
researchers considered the role of various nearby players, such as the
hospital or the professional community in the healthcare sector. However,
instead of for-profit competition with these players, the academic entrepreneurs perceived these players as a pool of stakeholders who they
considered as supporters of the anticipated societal impact. In view of the
constructs presented in the entrepreneurship literature, the three entrepreneurial researchers behaved somewhat like social entrepreneurs who hoped
to facilitate change in the markets starting at the bottom of the pyramid
(Prahalad, 2005). Their aim for a specific market segment required vision
in terms of marketing and fulfilling the human spirit (Kotler, 2010) along
with entrepreneurial effort. As this kind of complex combination of vision
and initiative is rarely achieved independently, the role of multiple
stakeholders — who might be the means or the ends of the value-creation
process — was critical when evaluating social venture opportunities (Neck
et al., 2009). In other words, a long-term commitment from various stakeholders was required as collective support for large-scale social change
(Kania and Kramer, 2011). Consistent with the evidence from our cases,
the perceived existence of these stakeholders increased the academic
entrepreneurs’ confidence in starting the entrepreneurial process, because
the stakeholders reinforced the sense of opportunity to generate a positive
effect. This kind of outcome is specifically about achieving a social mission (Weerawardena and Mort, 2006) with a satisfactory level of social
return on investment (Nicholls et al., 2009). In other words, the promise of
social impact driven by various stakeholders made the social entrepreneur’s mission more attractive and worthwhile. Instead of profit-maximisation, the social impact anticipated by the university researchers
critically framed a social entrepreneur’s analysis of business opportunities.
In short, it was a matter of who would benefit that differentiated the
corporate and social entrepreneurs’ perceived environments.
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S. Sooampon & B. Igel
4.3. Interdisciplinary Expertise
According to the original interview statements shown in Table 4, a university environment with interdisciplinary expertise was perceived by all of
the entrepreneurial cases as an enabling platform for new product development. Although individual expertise may have been their core resource at
Table 4. Examples of interdisciplinary expertise
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Case
Quotes
‘Aiming for product outcome, my own expertise is never enough.
Multidisciplinary work is a vital choice; otherwise, it is impossible.’
‘Rather than work, this project makes me feel like I’m doing an
activity with a good old friend. Long-term relationships contribute
to good feeling and trust among colleagues. In a management
sense, we might be a family business but with a social purpose.’
Entrepreneur
‘The challenge of knowledge integration is a central to this task. This
Case 2
project is a mixture of multidisciplinary subjects to learn.’
‘It’s a hard job doing it alone. Without a collaborative force, I would
have to spend much more money, time and effort on this initiative.’
Entrepreneur
‘Let’s try our best to dream up an ideal product from various perCase 3
spectives. That’s how I invite and encourage my colleagues to
work together.’
‘Guess where I worked on the first design of this product? Not a
meeting room! Rather, it was a beer garden where I started the
discussion with an expert. How come? That mechanical engineering professor has been a good friend since we were just kids.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘There’s a total difference between the choice of publishing versus
Case 1
producing. Typically, I can work on my own within a small circle
of the academic community. In contrast, the world of innovation
demands research partners from outside our area. It is still hard for
me to get used to this new approach.’
‘My feeling towards research partners is a very subtle part of collaboration. For me, it is the most important criteria. Maybe this is
why I do not dare to start.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘He quickly says this and that about how the product should look.
Case 2
Then, it shocks me for a moment. I get totally lost in the possibility of that idea.’
‘From their CV or any kind of research database, we actually know
nothing about that other person. The unknown situation may
turn out to be risky. Other professors or even the guys from the
funding organisation can be tricky with your idea. This is what
I experienced at the beginning of this initiative.’
Entrepreneur
Case 1
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Perceived Environment and Academic Entrepreneurship
Table 4.
(Continued )
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Case
Quotes
Non-entrepreneur ‘After graduation, I continued working mainly with the same group of
Case 3
partners I had known since my doctoral study period. We still stay
in touch as a small community who share the same interests.
Outside this network, I don’t know much about what others are
doing.’
‘Our research proposal will surely look much more attractive with a
plan to collaborate with somebody. In fact, though, I’ve never seen
any researcher who takes it seriously in reality. Usually, people
here clearly split their job, and only work in their own area of
expertise.’
the beginning, the academic entrepreneurs still needed complementary
knowledge and skills to develop their whole product architecture.
According to our findings, the academic entrepreneurs clearly appreciated
the availability of complementary expertise within their university. This
perception was crucial in facilitating knowledge integration, and was thus a
major factor in their business start-up decisions. Still, the availability of the
required expertise alone did not seem to guarantee sufficient opportunity to
harness ideas for new product development. Beyond the required scientific
and technological knowledge, the perception of social ties between
researchers and experts from other departments was a strong inducement to
actually implement a potential collaboration opportunity. Because effective
collaboration also required understanding, trust and happiness at work, the
perceived friendship among prospective team members was the essential
glue for knowledge combination. As Entrepreneurial Researcher 3 indicated, seeing the opportunity for the new product design was largely induced by the brainstorming sessions between engineering and dental
experts who constructively shared their ideas on how the new product
should look. Interestingly, a less visible reason for the entrepreneurs’
commitment seemed to be their long-standing personal friendships that
created confidence in their cooperation from the start.
Although the abovementioned evidence suggests that interdisciplinary
expertise was abundantly available, it seemed to be hardly available in the
non-entrepreneurial cases. The non-entrepreneurial researchers perceived
their research work environment as having tight boundaries between different science disciplines and thus perceived it as very difficult even to
identify prospective research partners. Having no easy access to the
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necessary complementary expertise and no effective communication with or
trust in colleagues from related fields, the non-entrepreneurial researchers’
perceived environment appeared to be full of uncertainties, which fostered
a lack of confidence that innovation was possible. According to Nonentrepreneurial Researcher 1, the challenge of how to find and collaborate
with a resourceful partner strongly influenced her not to pursue further
product development. In particular, she perceived huge difficulties after
hearing negative rumours about the person she intended to work with, and
this dissuaded her from pursuing other opportunities.
According to Furman et al. (2002), the available human resources, basic
research infrastructure, information infrastructure and risk capital are important conditions for an innovation-orientation in any industry. At the firm
level, front-line managers regard the required funding resources and
rewards as a major antecedent of their corporate entrepreneurial decisions
(Kuratko et al., 1990). In line with such findings, an academic entrepreneur
might perceive opportunity or uncertainty ahead, depending on the perceived availability and accessibility of the required resources. Interestingly,
in our entrepreneurial cases, the integration of knowledge areas through
collaboration with researchers from other fields was mentioned throughout
the interview sessions as one of the most critical resources. Rather than
emphasising physical assets, these cases fit with a knowledge-based view of
the organisation (Grant, 1996), given that the access to complementary
knowledge encouraged individual university researchers’ entrepreneurial
decisions. According to our case-based evidence, what the entrepreneurial
researchers saw in their workplaces was a rich knowledge base (Nesta and
Saviotti, 2005) that covered core and related academic disciplines. However, in contrast to the views of the academic entrepreneurs, the three nonentrepreneurial researchers perceived a serious dearth of knowledge-based
resources in their environment. To sum up, the perceived knowledge resource base was judged not only in terms of whether there could be experts
available, but also by whether a friendly collaboration was likely to occur.
4.4. External Support
The university researchers saw it as vital to have an inter-organisational
environment beyond their own organisation’s boundary that provided
opportunities for external support. According to the entrepreneurial
researchers’ statements shown in Table 5, the perception of such a supportive wider environment was essential in allowing their expansion of
research ideas into commercial applications. In serving as a product
76
Perceived Environment and Academic Entrepreneurship
Table 5. Examples of external support.
Case
Quotes
‘Interest from an external partner is an early sign of a brighter future
for our product. It motivates me to continue.’
‘It is never easy to start any deal. Going beyond science usually
involves a lot of talk about finance, management and even politics.
That’s why the experience from my senior colleagues and alumni
is much in need.’
Entrepreneur
‘With the firm’s computer-aided design and manufacturing system, it
Case 2
will be much easier to move from a conceptual to a realistic idea.’
‘The outside facilitative actions are very important for the university’s
innovators. At least, they can guide me in where to go next.’
Entrepreneur
‘To search for the right partner who could further support me in
Case 3
completing the prototype, I’ve looked around at various places.
Each of them looks very different in term of readiness and even
motivation to co-innovate with us.’
‘Clearly, it would not be easy for an individual inventor like me to get
positive feedback from such a high-standard manufacturer in the
US. Let’s give credit to my engineering peer, Mr Somyos, who has
brought so much confidence to us regarding this.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘At this moment, I feel as though I am in an almost closed system in
Case 1
an academic sphere. Every time I hear about an idea for research
commercialisation, I feel interested in it, but I never have a clear
idea where to start. How? With whom? Who could help?’
Non-entrepreneur ‘Why us? Employing another group of innovation-focused
Case 2
researchers might be a better alternative for the university to seriously move on its commercialisation scheme.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘The dialogue around patents or production sounds good, but it’s far
Case 3
from the truth. I’ve never seen any possible channel for university
researchers to work with the private sector.’
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Case 1
development partner, an external organisation (usually a private firm) can
provide support, particularly in dealing with the perspectives of the industry
or in meeting the constraints of manufacturers as needed to link research
output to mass production. Our academic entrepreneurs perceived this kind
of opportunity to develop partnerships with external partners as a prerequisite and a positive signal of early success. Furthermore, all three entrepreneurial researchers emphasised the role of a facilitating agent as a
powerful force behind the scenes to help in establishing contact with some
never-easy-to-meet high-potential business partners. An agent, in this sense,
might be a person, a group or a formal organisation that is knowledgeable
and/or well-connected to the prospective partner, and can help to suggest
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and facilitate a deal. Such support increases confidence in starting and
fulfilling the deal with external partners. For example, Entrepreneurial researcher 1 expressed his strong desire to align his work with a potential
partner’s high production standards. Much of his early motivation came
through the interest of an external partner, who convincingly hinted at a
bright future for his product. Although it was not easy to engage in such a
business deal, a group of senior alumni from the university faculty acted as
facilitators, voluntarily helping Researcher 1 from the early stages by using
their personal networks to establish critical contacts with the business firm’s
top management.
The forgoing discussion of our findings provided a detailed description
of how the entrepreneurial researchers perceived a positive future path for
their business ventures. Among the non-entrepreneurial cases, however,
there was not much vision beyond the borders of pure science. The nonentrepreneurial researchers perceived their environment as distant from both
researchers in other disciplines and from private sector players who could
contribute critical resources for further development of a prototype. Furthermore, none of their research peers could connect them with the business
community. For instance, Non-entrepreneurial researcher 1 suggested that
there was hardly any future prospect for developing her idea, in spite of her
early interest in commercialisation. Although all of the entrepreneurial
researchers perceived a supportive network outside their workplace, the
environment perceived by the non-entrepreneurial researchers resembled a
closed system, which offered them no idea for how to begin obtaining
external support.
Within an existing organisation, it certainly seems difficult for any individual to embark on entrepreneurship alone, without the involvement and
support of top management. The consistent encouragement, motivation and
commitment to innovation (Sathe, 2003) from top management is found to
be a major pre-condition for the development of an organisational climate
that stimulates entrepreneurial behaviour among top- and middle-level
managers (Kuratko et al., 1990). Similarly, even a well-equipped academic
entrepreneur needs support from others, especially in managing the business side of a venture, and in gaining more confidence in the feasibility of
commercialisation. In all of the cases we explored, the non-entrepreneurial
researchers perceived a divide between science and the business side of new
product development. The entrepreneurial researchers were confident of
crossing this divide with sufficient support, but the non-entrepreneurial
researchers tended to get discouraged. They had little confidence, and no
clear idea how to move forward with their ideas.
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Interestingly, the meaning of management support discussed here expands across organisational boundaries to collaboration between industry
and non-industry partners, and this mostly happens through personal relationships without formal contracts. Such support resembles the formation of
a firm-level strategic community (Kodama, 2006), but it operates through
interpersonal networks (Biggart and Hamilton, 1992). According to our
findings, early dialogue with factory managers can be critical in building
the entrepreneurial researcher’s confidence in a commercial development.
Underlying this informal support network, there is usually another supportive person who shares relational capital (Liu et al., 2010), who can
facilitate this people-to-people contact between the researcher and the
business manager.
4.5. Personal Characteristics
Beyond the university researchers’ own descriptions of their experiences,
the personal characteristics that reflected who they were (as shown in
Table 6) also made a difference to their decisions to adopt entrepreneurial
roles. Although their perceived work environment may have already signalled an opportunity ahead, it was their personal characteristics that facilitated their own perceptions of the reasons for engagement. In addition to
Table 6. Examples of personal characteristics.
Case
Entrepreneur
Case 1
Entrepreneur
Case 1
Entrepreneur
Case 3
Quotes
‘Rather than the difficulties, what I feel is much more like a fascination. Let’s watch and play with it.’
‘We all want to see when it really works. On a charitable basis, each
researcher committed their expected gain from selling the product
as extra funding to further support this dental sealant project.’
‘Like Western inventors, we can do it too. This challenging innovation can be achieved through my combined principles of simplicity, sustainability and creativity, which will make a difference.’
‘It’s hard to point out exactly where my ideas and passion come from.
They may have developed gradually through my enjoyment of
browsing at technology product catalogues and magazines. The
usual questions that popup are how to make it work here in our
own context, in my workplace, with my staff, for my patients.’
‘My way is to keep on doing what I believe is the right thing that will
have a significant effect. There is nothing to lose whether it’s a
success or failure.’
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S. Sooampon & B. Igel
Table 6.
(Continued)
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Case
Quotes
‘Finally, both incoming revenue and the fresh perspective I have
gained from the commercialisation process could further support
academic research. The research itself might further increase the
product’s creditability. This is how education and commercialisation could work hand in hand.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘In the university system, to be a prolific researcher means to climb
Case 1
continuously through higher academic positions. That’s my major
goal.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘According to my personal feeling, I still prefer publication to
Case 2
(product) innovation work. It makes my life much easier and more
peaceful.’
‘What I am concerned about is the ethics of doing scientific research.
Paying too much attention to the commercial outcome might be a
danger for the academic system in the long run. Acting like an
entrepreneur, it is quite hard to be neutral about what we are
doing.’
Non-entrepreneur ‘It’s a waste of time, aiming for a product that will not bring as much
Case 3
opportunity for intellectual exercise and academic ranking as basic
research. Instead of a national university like ours, the specialised
vocational institutes may be better at this innovative role.’
‘I’m already happy with what I’m doing. Other researchers also feel
like me. I believe none of my colleagues here wants to get
themselves into trouble (by dreaming of innovation).’
their passion for science and technology, all three entrepreneurial
researchers expressed a driving desire to realise their visions. The development of a new product, therefore, became something they were interested
in beyond routine duty. Furthermore, each university researcher’s own attitude towards entrepreneurship was a critical factor in shaping his or her
decision. The alignment between their personal values and the expected
outcomes of their commercialisation efforts created the positive feelings
that to be innovative was the right thing to do. Specifically, these academic
entrepreneurs were motivated by the belief that they had a rare chance to
leave their masterpiece of innovation as a substantial contribution to society. Thus, in the entrepreneurial cases, researchers considered academic
entrepreneurship as good moral conduct in their profession, and they undertook it with pride. For instance, Entrepreneur 2 was the kind of person
who was always energetic in pushing for new things. He regarded his
project as an excellent idea that he must strive for. It also came down to
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what he loved, as he had a strong appreciation for high-technology gadgets.
The commercialisation of his research work was something he valued
highly as an opportunity to develop novel solutions that would work better
in the specific context of Thailand. This kind of expression sounded very
similar to the idea of Entrepreneur 3, who was willing to try and perhaps
fail in what he believed was the right thing to do.
In contrast, the non-entrepreneurial researchers’ personalities did not
align well with entrepreneurial behaviour. Although the entrepreneurial
researchers were constantly searching for new opportunities, the nonentrepreneurial researchers considered their current career paths as already
fulfilling good professional standards. The non-entrepreneurial researchers
even worried that their involvement in product development could turn out
to be a distraction from their academic advancement, especially if the new
product failed. Furthermore, their decisions were strongly affected by the
idea that the commercialisation of research was not acceptable for a scientist, because making money from research could be perceived as greedy
and this perception could harm their academic credentials. According to
their expressions, university professors were much more appreciated than
entrepreneurs. For instance, Non-entrepreneurial Researcher 2 frankly admitted that she preferred writing journal publications to product development work because it helped her progress on her career track. In her belief,
the commercial world was not compatible with academic values. Becoming
an entrepreneur could even be harmful to the researcher’s judgement and
the objectivity of her scientific research work.
The differences in personal characteristics between entrepreneurs and
others have received much attention as a major theme of entrepreneurship
research (Shane, 2003). To identify the differences among entrepreneurs,
small business owners and corporate managers, Stewart et al. (1999) effectively applied psychological dimensions, including achievement motivation, risk propensity and innovativeness. Similarly, in our findings
the entrepreneurial scientists expressed personal characteristics that the
non-entrepreneurs seemed to lack. The entrepreneurial academics aimed
innovatively and boldly at new venture-like research initiatives, but the nonentrepreneurial academics preferred to stick to their traditional career paths,
which appeared to be smoother and more certain. The entrepreneurial
researchers’ curiosity and joy when working with challenging and complex
ideas could be interpreted as arising from their internal need for cognition
(Lord and Putrevu, 2006), reflecting the enjoyment of cognitive stimulation, preference for complexity, commitment of cognitive effort and desire
for understanding. As in our findings, Wu et al. (2011) confirmed that this
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need for cognition is an antecedent to an individual’s innovation behaviour,
which can facilitate the development of products and improve the way
things are done. In addition, the values of our entrepreneurial researchers
were found to shape their decisions on research commercialisation. Rather
than taking a purely economic point of view, these people regarded the
choice of academic entrepreneurship as a moral decision about whether
such work is a good or a bad thing to do. As Holt (1997) explained, human
values indicate patterns of behaviour, motivation and expectations regarding cross-cultural boundaries. In Thailand, Benedict (1963) anthropological
study found that Thais have traditionally not paid serious attention to
wealth accumulation. Unlike dedicated capitalists, traditional Thais felt that
the respectful person should not be greedy or want more than he or she
receives (Pongsapich, 1994). This set of values also aligns with Confucian
thought, which regards the scholar bureaucrat — not the entrepreneur — as
the perfect gentleman, partly because the scholar strongly rejects the desire
for personal gain or profit (Kirby and Fan, 1995). Non-entrepreneur 3’s
description of academic scientists as belonging to an elite class of
researchers with superior intellectual power and dignity was a good reflection of this traditional sentiment. Although Thailand’s economy has
been developing towards capitalism since the last quarter of the twentieth
century, there is still widespread disapproval of a society that increasingly
values money and material status symbols above anything else (Baker and
Pasuk, 2009). In particular, Thai public universities have very little interaction with the private sector (Brimble and Doner, 2007) compared with the
close university-industry relationships found in the US (Mowery, 2004).
Traditional Thai culture tends to fit much better with the values of caring,
community and making merit (Chatthip et al., 1999). This, however, is a
sentiment that can pave the way for academics to engage in social entrepreneurship as an admired form of conduct, as represented by our entrepreneurial cases. Depending on which side of the coin their values lay,
both the entrepreneurial and the non-entrepreneurial cases were influenced
by their national culture. To summarise, these values combined with individual personality reflect how each university researcher’s personal characteristics can explain their entrepreneurial behaviour.
5. AN INTEGRATIVE MODEL
The aim of this study was to explore specific dimensions of the micro-level
research work environment of the university, and to determine which factors
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individual researchers perceive as essential for academic entrepreneurship to
occur. Specifically, we tried to identify those differences in the individual
researchers’ perceptions of their work environment that influenced their
decisions to engage or not to engage in an entrepreneurial venture. In other
words, we focused on two groups of university researchers with entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial actions, respectively. The entrepreneurial
researchers were scientists who were actively engaged in research commercialisation with at least a well-functioning prototype on hand. The nonentrepreneurial researchers, in contrast, had never shown serious interest in
commercial application, although such products might have stemmed from
their academic research. In our case studies, five dimensions were consistently described as important conditions that had influenced the researchers’
decisions regarding entrepreneurial activity. These five critical dimensions,
as illustrated in Figure 1, were found to be essential in the cases of both
entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial researchers. The resulting aggregate
model of these dimensions can provide a basis for understanding the different antecedents of academic entrepreneurship in relation to the individual
researcher’s perceived work environment.
Figure 1. Perceived environment for entrepreneurial decision making in the university.
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In the workplace, two critical conditions for engaging in academic entrepreneurship were whether the researchers had the opportunity to integrate their own expertise with that of colleagues from other related
disciplines (as discussed in 4.3) and whether they were able to find sources
of external support for industrial production (see 4.4). The differences between Entrepreneur 1 and Non-entrepreneur 1 clearly illustrate this point.
Entrepreneur 1’s early confidence in the feasibility of developing a dental
sealant product simply came from a perceived pool of molecular biology
experts nearby and alumni who were well-connected to local producers.
Non-entrepreneur 1, in contrast, foresaw the difficulty of proceeding
without good colleagues and with no supportive channel identified. These
conditions are similar to those that are essential for corporate entrepreneurs,
who consider the availability of resources (Kuratko et al., 1990) and
management support (Sathe, 2003) when determining the feasibility of
entrepreneurial innovations within their corporations. In this context, our
findings fit with the concept of corporate entrepreneurship, in the sense that
each university researcher is comparable to a corporate citizen, who is
employed by an organisation that is called a university.
With respect to the dental patient user community, the academic entrepreneurs in this study also perceived an opportunity to overcome constraints
in public healthcare services by introducing their new product ideas (see
4.1). These researchers felt able to improve the available services and to
relieve undesirable conditions in society (see 4.2). In comparison to Nonentrepreneur 2, who only cared about scientific achievements, Entrepreneur
3’s entrepreneurial motivation stemmed from his perceived need for a lowcost dental implant specifically targeted at the poor. However, unlike most
corporate entrepreneurs, the academic entrepreneurs in our study did not
regard issues such as financial returns on investment (Morgan and Jeffrey,
2002) or revenue growth (Zahra, 1993) as important motives for starting (or
not starting) an entrepreneurial venture. Therefore, the model of corporate
entrepreneurship could not sufficiently explain all of the conditions of our
sample cases. Instead, the social entrepreneurship theory seems to provide a
better explanation of what the academic entrepreneurs really considered to
be the important decision criteria for pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity. Specifically, our findings fit well with the social entrepreneurship
school of thought that considers the entrepreneur as an agent of social
change (Dees, 1998).
The entrepreneurial decisions of our interviewees were also influenced
by a blend of the researchers’ own specific personality traits and personal
values (see 4.5). These are distinct characteristics that are especially evident
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Perceived Environment and Academic Entrepreneurship
when comparing Non-entrepreneur 3 with Entrepreneur 2. While the former
had no intention at all of trying for research commercialisation, the latter
boldly pursued his entrepreneurial initiative to develop an Asian model of
dental articulator equipment. These personal qualities worked alongside
their perceptions of their environment. Our academic entrepreneurs displayed ‘intrapreneurial personalities’ (Åmo and Kolvereid, 2005), behaving
with innovativeness, boldness and motivation for achievement of their social missions. These enabling factors have been found to differentiate entrepreneurial researchers from the others (Stewart Jr. et al., 1999). As
mentioned earlier, the need for cognition (Lord and Putrevu, 2006) also
seems to explain the entrepreneurial researchers’ joy in learning and in
finding innovative solutions for complex problems. In addition, the Thai
values of caring, community and merit making (Chatthip et al., 1999) tend
to support a positive attitude towards commercialising scientific work if it is
likely to create benefits for the public. In contrast, the non-entrepreneurial
cases not only lacked the personality traits seen among the entrepreneurs,
but they also considered the desire to engage in commercialising science as
strange behaviour that did not match traditional Thai values. These
researchers felt that respectful and virtuous people (Pongsapich, 1994)
should not be motivated by a desire for personal material gains.
All five of the dimensions discussed were seen to act as an integrated set
of antecedents for academic entrepreneurship to occur in dental science
research. Our case evidence reflects how these dimensions shaped a particular research work context in which academic entrepreneurship had
begun as a social venture within the established organisation of a university.
This is a unique context which looks quite different from an independently
owned and operated business ventures as usually found in social entrepreneurship (Light, 2008). Hence, we found that both the corporate and
social entrepreneurship perspectives need to be conceptually integrated to
fully understand the antecedents of entrepreneurship within the university.
In this context, the entrepreneurial researcher seeks organisational resources
and support much like a corporate entrepreneur, but with the mind-set of a
social entrepreneur who perceives the chance to solve a social problem as
an entrepreneurial opportunity. The personal characteristics revealed in this
study are also essential conditions affecting the university researcher’s
personal motivation to become an entrepreneur.
The proposed model is based on an integration of the corporate entrepreneurship model with the social entrepreneurship school of thought, with
consideration for the individual researcher’s personal characteristics. Altogether, proposing this integrated set of five dimensions of antecedents
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responds well to the Narayanan et al. (2009) call to pay more attention to
the heterogeneous context of corporate venturing, such as in the intrapreneurship phenomena within public sector corporations (Kearney et al.,
2007). With its particular focus on the origin of entrepreneurship within the
university, our model is grounded in the elements of the individual-level
perceived environment that are essential for academic entrepreneurship to
occur. Therefore, our proposed model of academic entrepreneurship conceptually captures the conditions at the micro-level that may help to support
the entrepreneurial university, and this perspective complements the prevalent macro-level infrastructure and policy studies in this field (Rothaermel
et al., 2007). Further research that explores how each dimension of the
perceived environment can interact and shape entrepreneurial decisions
overtime, especially in diverse areas of science, may further enhance the
role of university researchers as originators of academic entrepreneurship.
Finally, all five dimensions identified in this academic entrepreneurship
model provide policy makers with useful insights for supporting entrepreneurial universities. In addition to the organisational environment itself, the confluence of factors found in this study emphasises the need to
consider academic entrepreneurship as a local phenomenon, which is also
driven by the societal context perceived by each individual researcher. Our
model can facilitate administrators in designing a development scheme that
emphasises the perceived environment and affirms personal traits and
values, such as the pride felt by individual university researchers when
becoming entrepreneurial academics. These five proposed dimensions are
meaningful sets of micro-level conditions that determine a university
researcher’s decision to embark on entrepreneurial ventures.
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