Academic Entrepreneurship for Scaling Innovation

Introduction

Over the past thirty years, there has been an increasing interest toward academic entrepreneurship, i.e. the direct approach towards commercializing education or involvement of academicians and scientists into the development and commercialization of knowledge, research (Baporikar, 2009). In fact, education has become a playfield for entrepreneurs. Academic entrepreneurship takes several forms: starting institutions as enterprises, industry-university collaborations, university-based incubator firms, start-ups by academicians, double appointments of faculty in firms and universities, etc. Though the term academic entrepreneurship is used to indicate different cases, in this paper it means and deals with individuals and institutions that have entered the field of academics with an entrepreneurial perspective. However, need based the terms “Entrepreneur,” “Scientist,” “Researcher” and “Inventor” have been used interchangeably. Further, the distinction between 'Entrepreneur' and 'Academic Entrepreneur' is also made as it is our belief that the academic entrepreneurship can be developed only by better adaptation to the local requirements. Through in depth literature review and grounded theory approach, the paper focuses on understanding the importance of academic entrepreneurship in the Indian context. It raises a number of questions: what is a right perspective for academic entrepreneurship and how should it be developed? What role can government play? How academic resources and capabilities should be configured to develop the right quality of academic entrepreneurship and enterprises. How academic entrepreneurship has enabled scaling innovations in education? The goal of these questions is to provide the reader with a suitable analysis platform for decision-making. It also aims to ensure growth and success for academic entrepreneurs through optimization of knowledge management process. After the introduction, is the literature review, then the key factors, impact of entrepreneurs, the role of government and thumb rules for academic entrepreneurship are discussed. The last part is the findings, implications and conclusion.