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In this PhD research I will attempt to (1) convince you of the usefulness and functionality of the
knowledge entrepreneurship concept by (2) explaining how the concept and its phenomena
have been identified (a) in the strategy and practice of universities and (b) in the reflective
knowledge venture of realizing this thesis as a knowledge product. At present, there is no
philosophical conceptualization of entrepreneurship, but rather lived practice and instrumental
(applied) best practice collections. So far the concept of entrepreneurship is strongly connected
to business, but lately political and especially social entrepreneurship have been conceptualized
successfully. This research proposes an integrated meta-theory of entrepreneurship1 and
develops the notion of knowledge entrepreneurship – which is assessed to be a beneficial
contribution especially to the discourse about the entrepreneurial university2. I hope the position
developed helps to bridge the divide between pro and contra entrepreneurship in university by
articulating and advocating for a position that focuses on entrepreneurship which isn’t
exclusively shackled to economic benefits, but instead allows for entrepreneurship aimed at
knowledge benefits.
The strategy and practices of how internet based innovations – as entrepreneurial opportunities
- are appropriated has proven to be a fruitful example. Specifically, as a source to research
knowledge entrepreneurship in the form of e-learning and e-research practices; because it is in
these fields wherein opportunities for creative destruction constantly arise.
As described in Methodology Chapter 2.1.1. the choice of following a grounded theory research
based approach allowed for a natural development and amendment of the research question:
components: knowledge entrepreneurship, higher education studies, and internet based innovation appropriation.
It begins with knowledge entrepreneurship and the historic and theoretic trajectory of the
developments that lead to the necessity of the concept of knowledge entrepreneurship as a
paradigm in the knowledge society. Next, the concrete understanding and definitions of the term
as well as an originating theory are put forward. Thereby, the components ‘entrepreneurship’
and ‘knowledge’ are formally defined, after which the working definition is put forward:
Knowledge entrepreneurship describes the ability to recognize or create an opportunity
and take action aimed at realizing the innovative knowledge practice or product. Second,
the publications that use the knowledge entrepreneurship term are reviewed, and finally, I will
present the originating model of knowledge entrepreneurship, which is an amended version of
the findings of McDonald’s (2002) PhD research on knowledge entrepreneurship in hospitals.
Once the core theme of the research has been defined, the context of the discourse of the
university in the network society is addressed. After introducing the sociological frame of the
network society developed by Castells (1996; , 2000) and reviewing the discourse on the
entrepreneurial university, the position of the researcher is presented as an argument for the
university as a public institution. Once the normative position has been made explicit, the theme
of knowledge entrepreneurship in the university will first be developed by reviewing the literature
about knowledge management in universities, and then by elaborating on the university as a
knowledge entrepreneur as proposed by Fuller (2006). Finally, the stage for dealing with the
practice and strategy of internet based innovation appropriation will be set by elaborating on the
organisational aspects of the university as a vessel of knowledge transmission.
The theoretic background of the last thematic aspect of the research - innovation appropriation,
which is used as an example of a field of practice for knowledge entrepreneurship, is presented
in the last section of this chapter. General insights about innovation and innovation in
universities are complemented with elaborations regarding the conditions and particularities of
innovation in cyberspace and the internet.
Chapter 2 presents the research design and its methodology. At first, the overall approach and
the development of the research questions are recounted. Then, the two research methods
applied (case study and phenomenological action research) are depicted in theory as well as in
concrete application. The chapter closes with the description of how the findings were
abstracted and developed into theoretic propositions.
Chapter 3 contains the four case studies that make up the heart of the empirical field work. The
case studies are meant to illustrate the setting, the conditions regarding practices and strategy,
as well as the position regarding academic results produced by the institution.
It is important to point out that it is not the objective at this stage to work out each institution’s knowledge
entrepreneurship, but rather to produce an actor validated description and analysis of the
current situation in general. The cases are then subsequently used in chapter 4 to theorise and
empirically ground the concept of knowledge entrepreneurship in universities.
Chapter 4 has two parts. First, the case studies are formally contrasted, especially with regards
to their strategy and practice in internet based innovation appropriation. Second, the concept of
knowledge entrepreneurship is developed theoretically.
In the first part, an illustrated objective is contrasting the highly diverse sample in order to
explore the whole spectrum of university institutions. This general contrasting is then
complemented by an analysis and classification/typologization of how the different institutions
deal with the challenges of exploiting internet based innovations for their educational and
research needs.
In the second part, the original theoretic contribution of the research is developed. Based on the
understanding of the essential conditions at universities (gained through the case studies), as
well as on the phenomenological action research conducted by the researcher as knowledge
entrepreneur, an innovative conceptualisation of knowledge entrepreneurship is presented and
applied to the case studies. According to the proposition, the concept is divided into an inner
and an outer environment. Following Simon the research is “drawing the line between outer and
inner environment, not as the firm’s boundary, but at the skin of the entrepreneur, so that the
factory is part of the external technology; the brain, perhaps assisted by computers, is the
internal” (Simon, 1996, p. 25). In this research the terminology of an internal mindset and an
external gestell (infrastructure) has been chosen.
The entrepreneurial mindset (Faltin, 2007) as constitutive for identity and persona (Erikson,
1974) is developed beginning with existentialist illumination (Aufklaerung); resulting in an actor
that takes decisions based on his free will (or internal locus of control). The paper
subsequently develops three more strange attractors around philosophical programs –
axiology/teleology, pragmatism, and ethics/sustainability - deemed essential for
entrepreneurship. The presentation first follows the format of elaborating on the nature of the
mindset components and then applying it to the universities investigated in the case studies.
The external component of the knowledge entrepreneurship concept exists out of the following
components: the entity’s governance structure, the spatial arrangement, the availability of
informality and transparency, and lastly, the availability of resources.
The last part of the chapter reviews the congruence of the findings with the originating theory
which was an amended version of the theory developed by McDonald (2002). It is found that the
components represent important aspects of knowledge entrepreneurship, and that the theory is
correct, but that it is suggested to be amplified by an organisational context and through efforts
to create an entrepreneurial mindset and gestell. In fact, the components of the originating
theory are only one aspect of practices that need to be institutionalized in order to provide for an
efficient gestell.
The last chapter, chapter 5, is divided into four parts. The first presents a set of cases of “best of
breed” knowledge entrepreneurship, allowing for a better understanding of what the target
practices can look like. The second deals with conclusions regarding the practical implications
of the paradigm shift from Clark’s suggestion of applying (essentially economic)
entrepreneurship to universities-- transitioning into a knowledge entrepreneurship paradigm for
universities. Next, (3) an assessment of the state of digitization in universities is compared to
civil society organisations and financial markets. The chapter closes with (4) the formal
answering of the research questions by summarizing and referencing the findings presented in
chapter 3.
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0.2 Ke-Ship as a memetic Paradigm
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Different from the natural laws of the physical world, the perceived life-world (Habermas) of the
individual is constructed through language (as explored by Wittgenstein). It is hence in the
hands of knowledge entrepreneurs to creatively deconstruct and recombine existing ideas about
social reality, or meme. A meme, as originally defined by Richard Dawkins, is "a unit of cultural
transmission, or a unit of imitation3" (Dawkins, 1976). He is preliminarily interested in cultural
expressions rather than abstract concepts, but the field of memetics has been expanded to
include ideas and other meta-physical concepts.
Allow me to recount Sloterdijk to elaborate on the intention of the approach herein deployed. He
says about the role of philosophy4: “Philosophy is stylizing the human being with the practice of
terminological gene-technology (‘begrifflicher gentechnologie’), thereby developing new
taxonomies of human existence” (Sloterdijk, 1999). He further explains that philosophy creates
meta-physical conceptions of human beings and their conditions, which serve as archetypical
development paradigms when perceived and internalized. One example given by Sloterdijk, is
Freud’s creation (or meta-physically engineering) of the Oedipus complex. The complex surely
existed in one or another form before he wrote about it, but he defined it and made it
a condition that affects us all. The proposed philosophical model of an entrepreneurial mindset is defined
herein in similar terms.
Put differently, meta-physical concepts can be constructed in the same way physical
engineering contributes to the potential to dominate the world; Simon’s (1969) groundbreaking
book “The Sciences of the Artificial” is a fruitful paradigm for the social sciences as well. The
proposed philosophic model of entrepreneurship and knowledge entrepreneurship in particular,
is a meta-physical innovation of this kind. Sloterdijk has held a very illuminating speech on this
issue highlighting how the search for truth was traditionally an aloft divine/teleological quest
which was then complemented by rational meta-physical ideals and values, and how in
modernity there is a perspective shift from transcending and reaching higher understanding to
an exclusivity of truth claims based on down-to-earth positivistic empiricism. Sloterdijk further
elaborates upon a recently changing dominance or zeitgeist, which is focused on the
development that is in front of us. In my translation the argument reads: “Today we are visually
impaired, my vision is narrow, and in fact, every human lives in his tunnel. ... We are in the
world, surrounded by things and entities.” He goes on to describe how the objectification of the
world has caused what Heidegger called the “ontological oblivion of Being”
(Seinsvergessenheit). “After Hegel the spirit descended to empirical hell. Once it reached the
factual ground, it will not resurrect on the third day, but forge a plan for the breakthrough
afore/ahead. ... Modern, he is not who wants to bring the world under him or behind him, but in
front of himself. One brings the world in front of oneself to start an undertaking. In front of us are
the fields of activity, the objectives, and the un-realized opportunities. In this direction embark
the expedition squads of our times: the visionaries, the technologists, the researchers. The
‘down to earth’ is for the people who tackle the world, the politicians, etc. ... All practice has the
movement of dragging the Being down.” Then he asks: “Is this what we wanted? “
My answer is a clear no. The lofty and complex aspects of human spirit, or what has been
traditionally called soul, are part of the human being. If we neglect this, we are neglecting an
aspect that is crucial to understanding the human condition5. The meta-physical Being contains
the rather important aspect of human creative energy, striving, and cognitive development, for
which the traditional (philosophical) methods of investigation have recently been discredited by
the dominance of the natural sciences. It is the neuroscientists and the psychiatrists who have
authority and are allowed to explore human thinking, but Being is much more than thinking, just
as human feeling is more than any sensor/machine can pickup. In the cognitive tunnel which
constrains our vision, we have been pointing our flashlight onto the ground in front of us for so
long that we have almost forgotten that it was by being curious about the stars above that we
began our fruitful quest. It is my understanding that the challenge of scientific inquiry for the
21st century is to transcend the artificial disciplinary borders developed to allow for the viable
piecemeal construction of human reality, and to use the insights gained in these efforts to tackle
the most challenging question: how to create and maintain the best of all possible
worlds/realities (not Leibniz’s but the individuals aspired reality), because with all the
instrumental/technological knowledge we have accumulated by researching what it means to be
in the world, we have forgotten to where we want to take this world.
Like all philosophical work, the codified knowledge presented in this document is based on
observation, investigation, conscious experience, analysis and rational reflection. To construct
and de-construct the idea (or meme) of knowledge entrepreneurship, to understand the
motivation and most essential components of the entrepreneurial mindset became the leitmotiv
and passion of my professional and personal strive during the last two years.
It is part of my entrepreneurial nature not only to identify and analyse a knowledge opportunity,
but to pursue it with the objective to reach understanding in order to suggest a solution.
Therefore, I have provided not only a description and analysis of the current practices at the
investigated universities, but I have had the urge to codify my understanding and to propose a
model for an entrepreneurial mindset based on all of the observations, interviews, reading, and
personal reflections made. Like all life philosophy, there can be no theoretic right or wrong, only
the perceived usefulness for the individual reader can be judged as relevant and helpful for
constructing pragmatic truth.
The result is the proposition of a philosophical paradigm6 of entrepreneurship that is more than
just a professional practice to reach professional goals; entrepreneurship is herein set at the
centre of a life philosophy, a solar attractor bringing together Aufklaerung (Enlightenment), the
search for meaning, practical implementation and the need for righteousness.
Is the concept thus developed the final answer to the questions investigated? It can not be.
Jaspers (1997) defined philosophy as “being searching on the way”. He elaborates that
philosophos is the antithesis of sophos. The latter indicates a knowing person, someone who
possesses knowledge; the philosopher in contrast loves knowledge and the search for Truth.
Like love, the truth is by its very nature impossible to possess.
But how is a life philosophy of an entrepreneurial mindset connected with entrepreneurial
universities? This question is answered most illustratively when contrasting this research with a
work like the CHEPS report on “Models of Technology and Change In Higher Education: An
international comparative survey on the current and future use of ICT in Higher Education”
(Collis & Wende, 2002). From the outset, the report deals with quite a similar question, but
when one looks at the conceptualization and especially the description of the results, the
different approaches become apparent. The CHEPS report investigates what the stakeholders
do, as well as what the universities are doing, as two sets of objective practices. In comparison,
in the research presented here, an original fractal perspective on knowledge entrepreneurship is
advanced. The complexity and meta-physical approach thus pursued allows for the integrated,
seamless description of an individual’s as well as an organizational mindset deploying the
concepts of wholeness (the universality of knowledge): It does this through fractality and
Deleuzian emergence (continuous “becoming”), where by the holistic totality of reality and the
temporal uniqueness of evolution are both given due diligence.
So why, one might ask, should one explore a question if the propositions given it cannot be
verified? On the one hand, there is the concluding argument Wittgenstein (Hoerster, 2001)
proposes: One can only speak about facts and what one cannot speak of, one must remain
silent about. I would claim that this is the most conservative and therefore anti-entrepreneurial
position possible. It is exactly the entrepreneur’s function to not accept facts and to reject
silence, acting instead to envision newly possible aspects of reality and then executing upon
them. In fact, it is Wittgenstein himself who at another more rewarding moment writes: “The
philosopher is to treat a question like a disease” (ibid). With this analogy a much more
productive and creative practice is possible. And it yields another illustration of the two kinds of
results presented in this research. The conditions for knowledge entrepreneurship are
investigated, just like a doctor would examine a patient. Given that knowledge entrepreneurship
has physical and meta-physical causes and expressions, the results of the examination stem
from observations about good practices and from phenomenological reflections conducted as
action research experience.
In consequence, important questions are posed and treated but not answered7. It is exactly for
these kinds of philosophies that Socrates had to drink the hemlock. This kind of self-exploring,
self-defining processes has long troubled authority, having been deemed as corruptive to the
youth by distracting them from their daily business. The question for the youth remains, is their
instrumental contribution to society, to operate in mindlessly prosaic constellations, or instead is
it a celebration of free will and a search for telos and logos? (Frankl, 1963)
Hence the research is necessarily, as Gadamer (1992) demands, pluralistic; it combines the
insights of the observation, investigation, analysis, and reflection of the factual with that of the
meta-physical. This process or mental setting, results in movements of consideration
(Bewegungen des Bedenkens) in the Heideggerian sense (Welsch, 1998). The work
presented herein, can be understood as a contribution that is an instance of a process rather than a final
product, because “each philosophy defines itself through its realization” (Jaspers, 1997), and
thus the relevance of this work has and will continue to develop in action research and in the
discourse held with the universities and knowledge entrepreneurs.
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0.3 A normative Study?
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As Watzlawick, (2002) author of “The Situation Is Hopeless, but Not Serious (The Pursuit of
Unhappiness)” pointed out absolutely correctly, we are drowning in a wave of ‘how to’ guides,
allowing the benevolent and struggling seeker, easy to follow, but equally shallow solutions and
recipes to such profound questions such as: how to become happy, how to become rich, a
leader, a perfect partner etc. Even though well intended, the ‘solutions’ are most of the time
simply dogmatic oversimplifications. Subsequently, due to the massive publication of this kind of
normative prose, critical and scientific normative investigations have lost acceptance in the
community, resulting in rather descriptive and analytic but less solution oriented publications.
This research attempts a normative proposition of entrepreneurship as a positive attractor, or
paradigm, and one that does so by engaging the seeker in a (possibly collective) midwife
process meant to rouse the internal locus of control and to cause the examination of one’s
values, practices and interrelations. It is thus less of a manual, and more of a normative
scaffolding allowing for institutional (or personal) development with a supportive memetic
structure, ultimately facilitating learning in the Vygotzkian sense (Boudourides, 2003; Watson,
Audio Lectures).
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