Entrepreneurs in Academe: Exploration of Behaviors among Life Scientists. ASHE 1988 Annual Meeting Paper.

Interest in the relationship of entrepreneurship to organizational performance and validity is widely and increasingly discussed in educational contexts. An examination of academic entrepreneurship is presented in this paper. Five types of entrepreneurship are described, and many questions more directly related to organizational theory are examined, including the structure of entrepreneurship as a behavioral construct, the relation between individual entrepreneurship and possible predictors, the entrepreneurial elite, and whether there is any institutional patterning that suggests that universities have distinctive entrepreneurial strategies. Two surveys conducted in 1985 used a sample of life scientists and key administrators in major research universities. The life scientists were mailed a questionnaire dealing with their research activities. Data on university policies and characteristics were collected in a phone survey of 40 administrators having the most responsibility for life science departments. Data suggest that scientifically productive scholars are more entrepreneurial, and most academic groups do not develop norms that encourage multiple forms of entrepreneurship. A tentative conclusion is that entrepreneurship in academic settings is not an either/or condition, nor are the different forms minor variations on a similar social phenomenon. Contains 47 references. (SM)