기업가적 대학의 개념적 프레임워크 개발: 탐색적 사례연구

This paper develops a conceptual framework for the entrepreneurial university. The role of universities has changed over the last several decades from being viewed solely as academic learning centers to becoming engines of innovation for creativity to create new economic value and social impact, the basis for new companies and the next generation products, systems, and therapies upon such companies are based. Many universities have tried to transform themselves into more effective entrepreneurial engines. However, while there are numerous specific programs and initiatives having this intent, there is no higher level, integrative framework for University entrepreneurship ecosystem design to guide such efforts. Specific data are reported for two large Korean universities and one American institution. The two Korean universities has active entrepreneurship centers and receive considerable government funding. The American University is well-regarded for its entrepreneurship success, being the recipient of the 2020 award for Outstanding Contributions to Venture Creation Best Venture Creation by the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers. The entrepreneurship university framework proposed here has four major dimensions. The first dimension is entrepreneurship education, providing specific innovation design and business planning methods for undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate participants. In addition to assessing the breadth and depth of classroom offerings programming, we assessed the specific and aggregated capabilities of the teaching faculty itself, as well student engagement in said programs. The second dimension is experiential learning, the degree to which universities provide work internships in dynamic venture companies, or, allow students to self-intern in their own startups with industry mentorship. Internship count, structure, and type are metrics here. The third major dimension is are the specific processes and funding provided by universities to incubate new companies, as measured not just by the number of startups, but participation rates throughout the University, the type of ventures (in terms of being technologically intensive, non-lifestyle ventures), and their sustained success. This third dimension also incorporates a University’s mentoring system to complement faculty and University staff. The fourth dimension encompasses the integration by the University in its regional entrepreneurship ecosystem and its various stakeholders. This includes the planned interactions and programs with adjacent accelerators, government agencies, and early-stage investors for the purpose of allowing University ventures to advance to the next level of startup, and then, scale up. Using a structured research instrument, we conducted in-depth data collection for specific data items within each of the four major dimensions in the higher-level framework. Using these data, we then compared the educational, experiential, and external programs of these universities, assessing each university’s strengths and weakness according to our framework. Then, in aggregate across the three Universities, we identified best practices for each of the four dimensions. While the primary purpose of this study is to provide an integrative framework for University-based entrepreneurship ecosystems, it also had a practical outcome. By contrasting their current approaches to observed best practices, University administrators could develop specific improvement plans for their respective entrepreneurship ecosystems.