Entrepreneurial University in the Emerging Country: An Exploratory Study in CAMES Area

Abstract

The entrepreneurial university is recognized as an organization capable of maintaining an active link with the actors of its environment and of impacting socio-economic development. However, while it should be noted that the entrepreneurial university concept has been developed from the experience of advanced economies in the West, there is a lack of theoretical considerations and empirical evidence on whether the entrepreneurial university model is applicable in the contexts of less developed countries. Building on the understanding that the evolution of an ideal entrepreneurial university model is facilitated by certain institutional logics in advanced economies, this paper takes the case of CAMES area in Africa (19 emerging countries) as an example to explore the entrepreneurial practices supported by the regulatory framework documents. It also looks at the practices in the field in order to identify those that are most common compared to the models found in the literature. Our study presents new possibilities of understanding for entrepreneurial university from Africa contexts. It shows that despite the absence of certain key factors characteristic of the entrepreneurial university in the regulatory and institutional documents, the actors have informal practices that contribute to some extent to the purpose of the entrepreneurial university. The conclusion reinforces the need to see entrepreneurial university through the lens of less developed countries' contexts, highlighting opportunities for future studies.