Scientists’ attitudes towards academic entrepreneurship: the results of an empirical study

Abstract

In recent years, there has been growing pressure on both universities and enterprises to intensify cooperation. The subject of this article here is academic entrepreneurship at the researcher level. The aim is to identify attitudes towards such entrepreneurship and define the diversity of attitudes. Moreover, it has been established how such attitudes towards entrepreneurship differentiate the intention and commitment to start cooperation with industry in reality. Achieving this aim required an empirical study involving primary sources. The study subjects were university researchers working on tourism issues, and a total of 73 participated. Methods from descriptive statistics and the chi-square test of independence were used to analyse the results. According to the study, researchers are much more likely to perceive the benefits than the disadvantages of cooperation, and the benefits perceived most are chances to obtain information and the inspiration to conduct academic and didactic work. The work also found that researchers who see academic entrepreneurship as an opportunity for financial benefit and see cooperation as an opportunity to increase enterprises’ competitive advantage significantly more often declare their intention to engage in it.

Keywords

• academic entrepreneurship
• attitude
• entrepreneurial researcher
• theory of planned behaviour
• tourism industry