The Entrepreneurial University

This excellent book, put together by Foss and Gibson, provides a unique and fresh perspective on entrepreneurial universities. The editors offer us insightful theoretical ideas whilst the empirical studies illustrate the variety of contexts entrepreneurial universities can operate in successfully.

Friederike Welter, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn and University Siegen, Germany.

This insightful book offers ideas, thoughts and research results on the role of context in the emergence and development of entrepreneurial universities through the lens of institutional theory. This is done mainly by examining a number of cases providing a great level of diversity. After reading the book, factors and strategies which could facilitate the transition to more entrepreneurial university behaviors appear in a wide variety of contexts and institutional conditions.

Alain Fayolle, Professor, EMLYON Business School, France

Lene Foss and David Gibson provide us with a splendid variety of new cases -- from familiar locales of Austin and Cambridge UK to unfamiliar settings of the Arctic University and Lund University -- where universities are an anchor tenant in burgeoning regional economies. The cases are enriched with a provocative analysis of the institutional changes and conflicts that are triggered by these enterprising efforts to make higher education an engine of economic growth.

Walter W. Powell, Professor, Stanford University, USA

The notion of the entrepreneurial university has received considerable attention from the academic community and policymakers. This research book, co-edited by Lene Foss and David V. Gibson, which consists of 12 chapters from leading academics, joins this timely intellectual conversation and policy debate by discussing various cases of entrepreneurial universities. This book offers an interesting perspective perceiving the entrepreneurial university as a change agent based on rich case studies across northern Europe, the United States, and the United Kingdom…To summarize, we highly recommend this book to the students of entrepreneurship, small business, higher education, entrepreneurs, and policymakers who are interested in the research agenda and practice of building an entrepreneurial university. The detailed case analysis provides a comparative perspective to comprehend the entrepreneurial university in particular and the entrepreneurship ecosystem in some cases across diverse institutional contexts.

Yijun Xing, Beijing Jiaotong University, China; Yipeng Liu, University of Birmingham, UK, International Small Business Journal, 2016, Vol. 34(7) 972–973