Consensus study on factors influencing the academic entrepreneur in a middle-income country’s university enterprise
Date
2023-05-20
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Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to ascertain the personal characteristics of a group of successful academic
entrepreneurs in a South African university enterprise and the prevalent barriers and enablers to their
entrepreneurial endeavour.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors used a Delphi process to identify and rank the
characteristics, enablers, barriers and behaviours of entrepreneurial academics, with a Nominal Group
Technique applied to establish challenges they encounter managing their enterprise and to propose solutions.
Findings – Perseverance, resilience and innovation are critical personal characteristics, while collaborative
networks, efficient research infrastructure and established research competence are essential for success. The
university’s support for entrepreneurship is a significant enabler, with unnecessary bureaucracy and poor access to project and general enterprise funding an impediment. Successful academic entrepreneurs have
strong leadership, and effective management and communication skills.
Research limitations/implications – The main limitation is the small study participant group drawn
from a single university enterprise, which complicates generalisability. The study supported the use of
Krueger’s (2009) entrepreneurial intentions model for low- and middle-income country (LMIC) academic
entrepreneur investigation but proposed the inclusion of mitigators to entrepreneurial activation to recognize contextual deficiencies and challenges.
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Keywords
Academic entrepreneurship, Academic entrepreneur, Entrepreneurial academic, Entrepreneurial intentions, LMIC, Delphi technique, Nominal group technique