Intellectual/Social (I/S) Entrepreneurship in Academia

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Intellectual/Social (I/S) Entrepreneurship in
Academia

• Liora Bresler, U of Illinois
• College of Education, Professor.
• Academy of Entrepreneurial Leadership, Fellow.
• School of Music, Fine and Applied Arts,
  Affiliate.
• Campus Honors Program, Faculty.

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Two inter-related goals

• Enculturation of potential faculty, pointing at
  possibilities and re-definition of what a faculty
  can be
• Case-studies of entrepreneurship in academia,
  focusing on diverse disciplines and areas (e.g.,
  humanities, engineering, sciences, arts).

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Current enculturation

• Tends to highlight the production of knowledge.

• Dichotomy of thinkers versus doers.

• Job security as a central feature.

• Scholarship presented as a lone endeavor
  (epitomized in the process of writing a
  dissertation). In some areas, discouraging
  collaborations.

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Discerning realities from myths

• Knowledge is key, but it does not have to be of
  the ivory tower kind.

• Doing in academe is actually rewarded and
  recognized.

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Unacknowledged aspects

• Academics are often people of deep commitments
  and passions (Neuman, 2006).

• Academics aspire to be innovative and cutting
  edge (part of the academic ethos and telos).

• Academics are self directed.

• Academics are perseverant.

• Teaching (essential part of academe) aims at
  social.

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Potential tensions

• Security (tenure system) versus risk taking.

• Tradition versus innovation.

• Achievement versus social justice.

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Definitions of Entrepreneur

• Traditional definitions seizing opportunities,
  generating a valuable product or service.
• Undertake a venture. Bring to completion.
  Tolerate risks.
• Innovation as organized, systematic, rationale.

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New ways of thinking and being

• Create something new that changes or transmutes
  values, opening a new space for human action.
  (Spinosa, Flores and Dreyfus, 1997).

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Intellectual/Social entrepreneurship

• One that highlights intellectual endeavors,
  expanding knowledge (Richard Cherwitz, Thomas
  Darwin).
• The knowledge benefits society, doing good.
  Social Entrepreneur, started in the 1980s
  promote social good in the communities they
  serve.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship ( U of Texas, at
Austen)

• Intellectual Entrepreneurship is a philosophy and
  vision of education viewing academics as
  "innovators" and "agents of change."
• Intellectual Entrepreneurship is academic
  engagement for the purpose of changing lives.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• It focuses on creating cross-disciplinary and
  multi-institutional collaborations designed to
  produce intellectual advancements with a capacity
  to provide real solutions to society's problems
  and needs.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• It moves the mission of institutions of higher
  learning from "advancing the frontiers of
  knowledge" and "preparing tomorrow's leaders" to
  also "serving as engines of economic and social
  development."

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• It focuses on creating cross-disciplinary and
  multi-institutional collaborations designed to
  produce intellectual advancements with a capacity
  to provide real solutions to society's problems
  and needs.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• In the process, the role of faculty member and
  student evolves from that of "intellectual
  provocateur" to becoming what might be called an
  "intellectual entrepreneur.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• Intellectual Entrepreneurship includes a
  readiness to seek out opportunities, undertake
  the responsibility associated with each and
  tolerate the uncertainty that comes with
  initiating genuine innovation.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• Intellectual Entrepreneurship changes the model
  and metaphor of higher education from one of
  "apprenticeship-certification-entitlement" to one
  of"discovery-ownership-accountability."

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• Intellectual Entrepreneurship is premised on the
  belief that intellect is not limited to the
  academy and entrepreneurship is not restricted to
  or synonymous with business. Entrepreneurship is
  a process of cultural innovation.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• While the creation of material wealth is one
  expression of entrepreneurship, at a more
  profound level entrepreneurship is an attitude
  for engaging the world.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• Intellectual entrepreneurs, both inside and
  outside universities, take risks and seize
  opportunities, discover and create knowledge,
  innovate, collaborate and solve problems in any
  number of social realms corporate, non-profit,
  government, and education.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• Collaboration demands mutual humility and
  respect, joint ownership of learning and
  co-creation of an unimagined potential for
  innovation--qualities that move universities well
  beyond the typical elitist sense of "service."
  Knowledge, after all, involves the integration of
  theory, practice and production.

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Intellectual Entrepreneurship (cont)

• Teachers and students come to accept
  responsibility not only for what is learned and
  how, but are also accountable to the community
  for how they apply that learning. IE are
  encouraged to act as citizen scholars and
  social entrepreneurs with their intellectual
  capital leveraging knowledge for social good.

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Why the new concept?

• Academe can easily be seen as an ivory tower,
  detached from the real world.
• Academics have many qualities that seem to be
  uniquely compatible with entrepreneurship.
• The new roles of academe and the changing
  realities mean that we have more to gain (and
  more to lose if we dont change).

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A changing context Interdisciplinarity

• The crossing of disciplinary boundaries and the
  ensuing cross-fertilization has generated new
  disciplines such as computational neuroscience,
  biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology,
  psychological economics, cultural anthropology,
  and social psychology.

• There is increasing recognition of unprecedented
  opportunities to expand the role of academics
  beyond traditional, often self-imposed
  boundaries.

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Information technologies

• Not only do contents of academia change, but also
  their formats are being shaped by new information
  technologies, and their audiences expanded. While
  these trends have evolved over a long period of
  time, they have vastly accelerated in the last
  ten years, reinforcing each other.

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New opportunities

• The new opportunities created by these trends can
  shape research, teaching, and service. In
  research, we note new questions and directions.
  Responding to the cross-fertilization of
  disciplines, teaching invites the creation of new
  curricula.

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A doctoral courseFaculty education

• Case-studies of academics who manifest
  Intellectual/Social Entrepreneurship.
• An examination of Intrapreneurship.
• Diversity of disciplines and colleges (e.g.,
  Library Information Science Chemistry
  Engineering Archeology/anthropology Art
  Education Music Performance Human Resource
  Education).
• Diversity of perspectives (e.g., faculty,
  Associate Dean Director of AEL Vice-Chancellor
  of Research Director of Music Center President)

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Questions

• What characterizes intrapreneurs in academia?
• (What characterizes entrepeneurial action? John
  Gartner, 1988)
• What facilitates Intrapreneurships?
• What hinders it?
• An underlying question What can be done to
  promote Intrapreneurship in academia?

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Issues

• Evolving definitions of entrepreneurship.
• Examining entrepreneurial variants
  (intrapreneurship, focusing on intellectual and
  social aspects). Cross-appropriating intellectual
  and social spaces with entrepreneurship.
• Negotiating the academic system.

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Data sources

• Conversations with Intellectual Entrepreneurs and
  facilitators.
• Observations of entrepreneurial events (Vivaldi
  Project Black Chorus).
• Readings of related materials.
• Discussions of evolving issues and themes.

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Case-studies (qualitative)

• Case bounded system.
• World View Interpretive (Social Sciences).
• Goal Understanding rather than explanation.
  Meaning rather than prediction.
• Methods Unstructured interview observations
  analysis of materials. Prolonged engagement,
  depth.
• Meaning Description, interpretation
  (evaluation).
• Assumption Contextuallity is essential.
• Criteria Transferability rather than
  generalizability.

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From the syllabus

• The overall goal of the course is to develop an
  entrepreneurial perspective of the role of
  faculty in academe.
• The three components of the academic
  endeavor--research, teaching, and service--will
  be conceptualized as highly entrepreneurial
  activities.

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Empowering students

• Building on their individual passions and
  strengths, the course will empower doctoral
  students (prospective faculty) to experience each
  of these three components of academia along the
  three entrepreneurial axes recognize
  opportunities, acquire resources, and create a
  new entity of value.

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Teaching, research, and service

• Specifically, the course will address the
  following
• Expansion of contents, forms, and audiences in
  teaching
• Choosing research questions for significance and
  impact, garnering means for effective execution,
  and creating avenues to bring the fruits of
  research to society Refocusing of academic
  service as a vehicle for the building and
  nurturing of intellectual community.

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New audiences, new intellectual communities

• In attending to new audiences (e.g., minorities,
  remote students world-wide), teaching can involve
  the exploration of new structures and media.
  Service draws on these to build and nurture new
  intellectual communities.

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Creativity and resourcefulness

• This course is seen as an important part of the
  education of doctoral students, in preparing them
  to be resourceful, dynamic faculty, responsive to
  the needs and opportunities in the field, drawing
  on their visions, creativity, and skills, to
  create new endeavors.

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Emerging issues

• Issues related to academic Intrapreneurship
  (reduced risks bureaucratic aspects of the
  system).
• Rich diversity of paths and inside contexts.
• Characteristics of successful (fulfilled)
  academic Intellectual/social Entrepreneurs.

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The notion of Intrapreneurship

• An Intrapreneur is the person who focuses on
  innovation and creativity and who transforms an
  idea into a profitable venture, by operating
  within the organizational environment. Thus,
  Intrapreneurs are Inside entrepreneurs who follow
  their founders example.
  http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrapreneurship
• 
  
• The profit can be financial, social, or
  intellectual.

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Intrapreneurship

• Intrapreneurship is the practice of
  entrepreneurial skills and approaches by or
  within a company or at home. Employees, perhaps
  engaged in a special project within a larger firm
  are supposed to behave as entrepreneurs, even
  though they have the resources and capabilities
  of the larger firm to draw upon.

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Intrapreneurship

• Capturing the dynamic nature of entrepreneurial
  management (trying things until successful,
  learning from failures, attempting to conserve
  resources, etc.) is claimed to be valuable in
  otherwise static organizations.

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Motivational goals of academic I/S Entrepreneurs

• Passion for a subject.
• A sense of mission social justice, commitment to
  educate in its broadest sense.
• Curiosity, a quest for understanding.
• Internal locus of control.
• Carry something to fruition.

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Characteristics of I/S Intrapreneurs

• Openness to emergent possibilities, alertness.
• Attention to opportunities rather than obstacles
  (risks).
• Need for achievement (not identical to
  recognition).
• Highly connected to people.
• Caring for others, ability to listen (humility),
  giving, commitment.
• Independence and tolerance for disagreement,
  juxtaposed with the ability to negotiate a
  system.

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Potential (resolved)
tensions

• Security (tenure system) versus Risk taking
  More Entrepreneurial once tenured.
• Tradition versus Innovation Possible to combine
  both.
• Achievement versus social justice Achievement
  and a sense of identity is built on social
  projects.

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Academic contexts

• Stage of career (mid-to-later career). Associate
  and Full tended to be more intrapreneurial.
• Openness of leadership (varies within the same
  university. Department heads have a major role in
  shaping the well-being of I/S intrapreneurs).
• Nested values Fit of individuals agenda with
  institutional image (visibility valued across
  disciplines social justice). When lack of fit,
  the entrepreneur searches for another setting.

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Entrepreneurs vs. Administrators

• Entrepreneurs
• Creativity
• Focus on possibility
• Improvisation, flexibility.
• Informal networks,
• Focus on venture.

• Administrators
• Analysis
• Focus on Resources
• Scripted procedures, bureaucratic
• Hierarchical
• Focus on organization.

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Course goals met

• Students reported having gained an expanded
  vision of what they could do as entrepreneurs.
• Overall, positive evaluation of the course (rated
  as excellent).

• From my perspective, this served as an
  exploratory work. Next stages will include
  in-depth study of 4-5 intellectual/social
  academics, and larger survey information.

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This is a beginning

• A future study will involve in-depth interviews
  of faculty, and intensive observations of
  entrepreneurial projects, as well as a survey
  across campus that investigates the
  characteristics across larger populations.
• Liora_at_uiuc.edu