How higher education institutions become entrepreneurial? A case study on a small European university

Given the relevance and impact of entrepreneurial universities (EUs) in enabling supportive environment to promote entrepreneurial activities, the objective of this study is to contribute to the understanding of how EUs may shape the Entrepreneurship ecosystems (EE) in which are embedded. From a micro-foundation perspective, it is of high relevance to understand EUs emergent organizational structures and the strategic initiatives that facilitate their entrepreneurial transformation (internal capabilities development), as well as how such internal configurations allows them to fulfill their strategic goals (research, education and third mission), while at the same time influence the EE in which are embedded. To explore the internal capabilities development, we followed Bronstein and Reihlen (2014) taxonomy of EUs emergent organizational archetypes (research-preneurial, technipreneurial, inno-preneurial, and commerce-preneurial) and to understand EUs influence in EEs, relationships with relevant stakeholders (internal and external) were explored as dyads, rather than in the aggregate, aiming to understand what complementarities are relevant to create and maintain such interactions. The research design consists of a case study in which data collection follows a mixed method approach.