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Mats Benner. Photo.

Mats Benner

Professor

Mats Benner. Photo.

Doomed to be Entrepreneurial: Institutional Transformation or Institutional Lock-Ins of 'New' Universities?

Author

  • Bjorn Stensaker
  • Mats Benner

Summary, in English

Universities worldwide are facing enormous strains as a result of increased external expectations where global visibility should be mixed with local and regional utility. In debates on the future of higher education, becoming an entrepreneurial university has been highlighted as a novel - although perhaps a more hybrid - way to deal with this challenge. However, while the label entrepreneurial points to an image of the university as a dynamic free agent shaped in the interplay between dynamic environments and internal flexibility, the current article takes a more critical view on the factors conditioning universities with the ambitions of becoming more entrepreneurial - particularly those of more recent age and less academic standing. For these institutions it is suggested that the university ideal of being entrepreneurial may lead to a situation of strategic inertia characterized by an institutionalized 'lock-in' with few alternative development paths.

Department/s

  • Research Policy Institute (RPI)

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Pages

399-416

Publication/Series

Minerva

Volume

51

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • Entrepreneurial
  • University
  • Strategy
  • Higher education
  • Institutional
  • profile

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1573-1871