The engaged and entrepreneurial university: A model for success for smaller programs

Abstract

In this chapter we offer a model for the development of engaged and entrepreneurial relationships from the university’s perspective, where we concentrate largely on smaller university programs and their partners. We start by describing engaged and entrepreneurial universities and then move on to how they build relationships with outside partners. Many of the processes driving the formation of dyadic relationships between universities and firms are often inefficient and unclear (Calcagnini et al. in Small Bus Econ 46(1):31-43, 2016).We therefore utilize the general stages of group development (Tuckman in Psychol Bull 63(6):384-399, 1965) which have been examined and explored as a building block for our proposed processmodel for university-industry collaborative relationships. Following Santoro and Chakrabarti (Res Policy 31:1163-1180, 2001) typology, we focus on industrial firms that are considered ‘Targeted Players’; small firms, often with limited resources that need problems specific to their business solved within a relatively short time horizon. We then discuss process spanning issues and conclude with implications for theory, practice and future research.