Organizational Antecedents of Academic Entrepreneurship in Malaysian Public Research Universities

The focus of this study is on academic entrepreneurship, an emerging area of inquiry in the last three decades. It has become a phenomenon of significant interest in Malaysia especially with the designation of research university status to four local public universities. Specifically, this research evaluates, validates and tests an organizational framework of academic entrepreneurship, and investigates the relationship between the identified organizational factors and academic entrepreneurship. The methodology used involves the collection and analysis of quantitative data and the implementation of this design is guided by the study's organizational framework of academic entrepreneurship which adopts the corporate entrepreneurship view and measures academic entrepreneurship as an organization-level construct. The dependent variable in this research is academic entrepreneurship and the independent variables are structure, controls, human resource management systems and culture. This study contributes to the literature by examining the theoretical connection and relationship between the internal environment and level of academic entrepreneurship in Malaysian public research universities. Findings and results of the correlation and regression analyses from this study will enable public research universities to evaluate the status of their entrepreneurial systems, and identify enablers and barriers for entrepreneurial development within their academic organizations.