This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Wells, Lee Title: A Critical Realist Analysis of the Legitimising Affects of the Entrepreneurial University General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. 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A Critical Realist Analysis of the Legitimising Affects of the Entrepreneurial University Lee Wells A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for award of the degree of Doctor of Education (EdD) in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law School of Education December 2019 Word Count: 82,000 Abstract Despite the expansive literature on the Entrepreneurial University, very little has been written regarding the impact of university entrepreneurialism on the legitimacy of the university. This study hopes to address this shortcoming by conducting a detailed analysis of newspaper articles, taken to represent a proxy of public opinion (Baum, 1995). Grounded in the findings of this analysis the study will present a conceptual framework describing the antecedents of university legitimacy within an entrepreneurially driven university sector. The study is grounded in a critical realist philosophy and therefore accepts that outcomes, seen and unseen, experienced or not in the real world are determined by structures and mechanisms laden in hegemony and on culturally contingent interpretations of the social world (Bourdieu et al., 1991). Nevertheless, these structures, seen or unseen, remain very real in an ontological sense as they cause people to act, to invoke experience and to search for understanding. The current literature on the entrepreneurial university lacks a clear consensus on definition, preferring to identify shared characteristics (Yusof and Jain, 2010) and provides limited systematic examination of the barriers and enablers to entrepreneurialism (Kirby et al., 2011). The literature is often case study based and descriptive (Sotiris, 2012) with limited causal depth (Stam, 2015). This study hopes to overcome these limitations by utilising an innovative research methodology that integrates a grounded theory approach within a critical realist three-domain model of reality (Fleetwood, 2004) to explore the complex relationships and causal affects between entrepreneurial endeavour and university legitimacy. The study ultimately finds that the current preference for analysing the entrepreneurial university as an egocentric entity within a complex, open system may only partly reveal the multifaceted interrelationships between the university and its environment, thereby limiting causal inference. By addressing this concern, the study hopes to provide recommendations that extend both current theoretic and applied professional knowledge in relation to the entrepreneurial university and its legitimacy. 2 Acknowledgements I would like to start by thanking a group of people that seldom appear in dissertation acknowledgement sections, the administrative and backroom team at the University of Bristol School of Education. Due to serious illness, this has be long and often interrupted journey. During this time, the administration team have been fantastic. Always supportive, understanding and patient, they have gone beyond the call of duty to ensure my studies could progress and my personal welfare was not compromised. My personal thanks go to Mia Gilson, Gina Biggs, Daisy Perry and Liz Roberts, and of course to all the other individuals who ensure the department is such a great place to study. In a similar vein, I would like to thank Dr Sally Thomas for her wise counsel and support, especially in the early stages of the programme. Without her guidance and encouragement, it would have been so easy to give up before I really got started. I would also like to thank all the academic staff at the School of Education, especially Dr Frances Giampapa, Professor Michael Crossley, Dr Lisa Lucas, Dr Angeline Barrett, Professor Leon Tikly, Dr Malcolm Reed, Professor Sheila Trahar, and Ms. Wan Ching Yee. Your teaching has not only made me think differently, it has also changed me as person (for the better I hope!) Thank you. From Bristol, I would finally like to thank my supervisor, Dr Helen Manchester. It has taken more time than we both expected but I am so grateful that you were able (and willing) to continue as my supervisor, on my return from suspension due to illness. You have an uncanny knack of saying just the right thing at the right time to keep me encouraged and directed. Your values, insight and enthusiasm have been an inspiration to me and are very much reflected in the words of this dissertation. My final words, because thanks are just not enough, go to my wife Alison to whom this dissertation is dedicated. I’m sure you’ll be almost more pleased than me that it’s complete. Like most other things in my life, I could not have achieved this without you. You make everything possible, but more importantly, you make everything worthwhile. 3 Author’s Declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University's Regulations and Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate's own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. SIGNED: .....Lee Wells........................ DATE: .....1 December 2019.......... 4 Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 11 1.1 Research Context: Legitimacy and the Entrepreneurial University .................................................... 11 1.2 Key Issues and Research Questions .................................................................................................... 12 1.3 The Objectives and Originality of the Research .................................................................................. 13 1.4 Dissertation Structure ......................................................................................................................... 15 2 Literature Review ............................................................................................................................ 17 2.1 The Concept of Legitimacy ................................................................................................................. 17 2.2 The Historical Legitimacy of the University ........................................................................................ 20 2.2.1 Nation State Driven Legitimacy .................................................................................................. 21 2.2.2 Economic Driven Legitimacy ....................................................................................................... 23 2.3 The Emergence of the Entrepreneurial University ............................................................................. 26 2.3.1 Commercial Exploitation of University Research ........................................................................ 27 2.3.2 Government Policy and the Entrepreneurial University .............................................................. 28 2.3.3 Internal Transformation into the Entrepreneurial University ..................................................... 41 2.3.4 The Changing External Environment ........................................................................................... 45 2.3.5 Summary: The Emergence of the Entrepreneurial University ..................................................... 48 2.4 Defining the Entrepreneurial University ............................................................................................. 50 2.4.1 Different Perspectives in Defining the Entrepreneurial University .............................................. 50 2.4.2 Challenges in Defining the Entrepreneurial University................................................................ 53 2.4.3 Alternatives to the Entrepreneurial University ............................................................................ 54 2.4.4 Summary: Defining the Entrepreneurial University ...................................................................