Universities in the Context of the Knowledge-Based Society According to Systemism: Evidences from a Brazilian Community University

Abstract

An increasing body of literature has begun to emerge on innovation and entrepreneurship in the academic setting. However, literature is still fragmented, requiring more systematic studies, considering both economic and social aspects of innovation and entrepreneurship within universities. This chapter contributes to this subject by discussing the suitability of using systemism as an approach to understand innovation and entrepreneurship as mechanisms that allow universities to contribute to socioeconomic development and to preserve their own sustainability. Particularly, the case of the University of Southern Santa Catarina (Unisul), in Brazil, is analyzed. Results show that systemism is suitable, among other reasons, because universities are in fact complex systems, it allows to consider the three levels by which innovation and entrepreneurship have been studied within universities (individual, organization, and interaction), and it offers clear conceptual dimensions that can be applied to both theoretical and empirical levels of research.