From Container Knowledge to Entrepreneurial Learning: The Role of Universities

The new quality of international competition changes the function of universities dramatically. They have to ? in addition to their traditional role as sources of ideas, knowledge and intellectual capital ? become agents of innovations, i.e. entrepreneurial universities, enhance regional development and international competitiveness. The transformation of university produced knowledge into market-oriented innovations depends on the quality of academic entrepreneurship. The article analyses two competing approaches to promote academic entrepreneurship: The 'knowledge container' and the 'entrepreneurial learning' approach ? and their foundations in neoclassical and evolutionary growth theory. The obstacles to introduce entrepreneurial learning as an educational innovation are being analysed (non-innovative university culture/history/attitudes, bureaucratic over-regulation, defence of vested rights). The article finally discusses some conditions for successful academic entrepreneurship (corporate university entrepreneurs, change agents, inter-university competition, entrepreneurial universities as learning organisations)