Me, You and the Big Picture: Top Academic Managers’ Narratives of Entrepreneurship

This case study examines how top academic managers make sense of entrepreneurship at the university. Based on semiotic analysis, the findings outline three management narratives. The entrepreneurial narrative emphasizes management by experience, the humanistic narrative focuses on management by networks and the development narrative highlights management by vision. Unpacking the dynamics of each narrative, our analysis sheds light on the conflicted role of academic managers at a crossroads between traditional academia and entrepreneurial management. Research Questions/Objective How top academic managers make sense of entrepreneurship at the university through narratives? Links to Theory The conceptual and theoretical framework of this case study is built based on academic entrepreneurship and narrative theory. Phenomenon Studied Academic entrepreneurship Case Context Academic top managers of a Finnish multidisciplinary university Findings The findings outline how top academic managers make sense of academic entrepreneurship through three management narratives. The entrepreneurial narrative centres around the idea of management by experience and emphasizes the manager’s own entrepreneurial experiences. The humanistic narrative centres around the idea of management by networks highlighting how the managers can guide and assist others who act as entrepreneurs. Finally, the development narrative centres around management by vision and focuses on the overall picture of the entrepreneurial university. Discussions The case study implies that academic entrepreneurship (AE) is understood and conceptualized by the managers in multifaceted and sometimes contradictory ways. Representing the frontline of academic management and changes in Finnish universities, the top academic managers are confronted with tensions between the ideals of traditional academia and the contemporary entrepreneurial developments in universities. This study contributes to the field of academic management by highlighting the much-needed experience-based perspective of top academic managers in relation to AE.