The ‘Innovative’ University

Change Academy: 7th & 8th July 2009

The Changing Sector

HEFCECap

Reduced Budgets

Signalled

ChallengingEconomicClimate

IncreasingLevels

ofCompetition

Quality of Provision & of Service, Responsiveness, Relevance, Engagement in the Local & Regional Economic Development,

Income & profit generation & the ability to adapt

Our Strategic Plan

‘The Innovative University – sustaining, pioneering, transforming’

‘learning, community & service’

‘developing an enterprising environment for our students and staff’

Innovation & Enterprise…

A clear set of ambitions, driven by you Encouraging enterprising behaviours Reducing duplication of effort A climate that is less risk averse Real & on-going encouragement &

support Investment – time, money & related

resources

Enterprise

‘a project or undertaking that is especially risky, difficult or complicated’

‘a systematic or purposeful activity’

‘a readiness to engage in daring or difficult action’

Entrepreneurship

‘the practice of starting a new organisation or

re-vitalising a mature organisation generally in response to identified

opportunities’

Entrepreneurial Behaviours & Values Initiative taking Ownership of a

development Commitment to see things

through Strategic thinking Negotiation capacity Selling/persuasive capacity Networking capacity Intuitive decision making

with limited information Incremental risk taking

Strong sense of independence

Self made/self belief Strong sense of ownership Strong belief in the value

of freedom to take action Hard work brings its

rewards Distrust of bureaucracy Strong action orientation Belief in informal

relationships Belief that you can make

things happen

Some of the characteristics of an entrepreneur….(1)

Enthusiastic vision, the driving force of an enterprise.

A vision that is usually supported by an interlocked collection of specific ideas not available to the marketplace.

The overall blueprint to realise the vision is clear, however details may be incomplete, flexible, and evolving.

Some of the characteristics of an entrepreneur….(2)

The entrepreneur takes the initial responsibility to cause a vision to become a success.

Entrepreneurs take prudent risks. They assess costs, market/customer needs and persuade others to join and help.

An entrepreneur is usually a positive thinker and a decision maker.

Entrepreneurs….the downside Tough, pragmatic people driven by needs of

independence and achievement. They seldom are willing to submit to authority.(Collins and Moore, 1970)

Prone to insights, brainstorms, deceptions, ingeniousness and resourcefulness. They are cunning, opportunistic, creative, and unsentimental. (Bird, 1992)

Entrepreneurs exhibit extreme optimism in their decision-making processes. (Cooper, Folta & Woo, 1993)

Prone to overconfidence and over generalisations. (Busenitz and Barney, 1997)

Calculating inventors, the over-optimistic promoter (Cole, 1959)

Entrepreneurship…in an HE environment

Risk (Randomness with knowable probabilities)

Ambiguity (Randomness with unknowable probabilities)

True Uncertainty (Where the outcome is impossible to calculate)

Entrepreneurship Risk

Measurable statistically (such as the probability of drawing a red colour ball from a jar containing 5 red balls and 5 white balls).

Ambiguity Hard to measure statistically (such as the probability of drawing a red ball from a jar containing 5 red balls but with an unknown number of white balls).

True Uncertainty Where it is impossible to estimate or predict statistically (such as the probability of drawing a red ball from a jar whose number of red balls is unknown as well as the number of other coloured balls).

Frank Knight, Risk, Uncertainty & Profit (1921)