Strategic Entrepreneurship for Practitioners in the Higher Education Industry: Shaping the Context to Fill An Institutional Learning Void in International Mobility

The broader, original definition of entrepreneurship (Schumpeter, 1947), including aspects of autonomy and flexibility and building on a strong value culture rather than bureaucratic process, mirrors the precious concept of ‘academic freedom’ and resists the rise of the “worst of managerialism” (Turner & Robson, 2007, p.67). We accept the benefits of adopting a more strategic approach and the team-working more common in commercial organisations. These can be described as ‘the best of managerialism’. This paper’s new model’s contribution to practice is to propose a method of implementing strategy through strategic entrepreneurship and to learn from it. It suggests the structure of a bridge across the knowing-doing gap and, if crossed, might provide Binks & Lumsdaine’s (2003) powerful ‘demonstration effect’ for other universities. Communication is the foundation in building and sustaining a conducive climate for entrepreneurship and innovation in HE. Much entrepreneurial skills development relies heavily on experiential learning. (ibid, p.51). This work broadens AR from education into entrepreneurship. The model focusses on the creation and combination of environmental and context-specific factors that shape the evolution of the entrepreneurial process in this contradictory and turbulent industry, enabling individual and institutional learning for entrepreneurship.