Copy editor: Meagan Down

Photos: Ewa Strumiłło

Book cover: Andrzej Sobkowski

Skład i łamanie: Andrzej Sobkowski, Magraf s.c., Bydgoszcz

Skład wersji elektronicznej: Robert Fritzkowski, Magraf s.c., Bydgoszcz

Copyright © Ewa Strumiłło

Copyright © Wydawnictwo Stapis, Poland, Katowice 2022

ISBN epub: 978-83-7967-256-1

ISBN mobi: 978-83-7967-257-8

Wydawnictwo STAPIS

ul. Floriana 2a

40-288 Katowice, Poland

tel. +48 32 206 86 41, +48 32 259 75 74

www.stapis.com.pl

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Acknowledgements

The author wishes to express her sincere gratitude to Professor Thomas Lange for his supervision of this study.

The author thanks Mr Gerry Robert of Black Card Books for the inspiration to publish this study.

1. Abstract

This paper examines the current organisational structure, functioning and goals of three research centres at business faculties of selected universities in four geo-economic areas: the European Union (EU), United Kingdom (UK), United States (US) and Asia Pacific (APAC). The centres are: centres for entrepreneurship, centres for financial markets and centres for industrial relations/labour.

The paper aims to identify the benefits of setting up all three centres at the Faculty of Business at the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. The potential benefits have been identified through benchmarking analysis and an overview of existing literature on innovation, research and development management, academic research, research policy, business venturing and entrepreneurial education.

2. Executive Summary

Today’s society is a knowledge-based society. This means that knowledge has become a commodity of an inexhaustible nature and its production is the result of funds invested in research. The nature of research is basic or applied. To give an example: half of basic (government-funded) research in the US is performed by universities.

Over time universities have evolved from teaching institutions to teaching and research institutions. This evolution was later followed by the second academic revolution which made universities entrepreneurial. The triple helix model describes the place academic research assumes today: in the chain of the government-university-industry helix.

The entrepreneurial university—its reputation, quality of teaching, staff, students and research—depends largely on the amount of funding the university manages to attract or generate. A certain proportion of this funding is obtained on commercial basis.

Modern academic research is carried out by teams of researchers who act as “quasi-firms”. The teams of researchers are either informal or they are formally organised into research centres and units. Research centres originated in the US during the Second World War. They were first created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to meet the need for warfare innovation, before spreading to Stanford University and other US universities. The organisation of research into research centres was adopted worldwide. In Europe, research centres often remain independent institutions functioning outside the university. In the UK they function similarly to the US.

University research centres produce innovation, knowledge and technology, which has become marketable. Ever since US universities were granted the ownership of intellectual property (1980) the process of commercialization of research has grown exponentially. Some universities host as many as 150 research centres. Business faculties (i.e. Schools of Business) comprise few to over 20 research centres. Commercialization of research takes various forms: from licensing and equity ownership, to start-up and spin-off formation.

On its way to knowledge sale, the entrepreneurial university developed an array of tools that make this sale possible and profitable. Faculties of business play a crucial role in this process as the knowledge and techniques of profit creation become, directly or indirectly, a domain of all disciplines taught and researched at faculties of business.

In spite of widespread criticism of the “ivory tower” model, based on eleemosynary and disinterested academic education and research which has functioned for centuries until the beginnings of 20th century, the “ivory tower” model has faded away and is gradually being replaced by the “entrepreneurial” model. A new model of co-existence between those two models will probably prevail and remain.

Among the research centres governed by a Faculty of Business, there are usually centres that are linked to the faculty department (finance, accounting, management, marketing etc.). There are also additional research centres the faculty specialises in, devoted to a narrow topic of interest (taxation, auctions, insurance etc.) and those linked to the faculty’s global interests (Asian labour, emerging markets, etc.). A special role is played by the Centre for Entrepreneurship. At some universities this role is limited to business networking and teaching of entrepreneurship programmes. At other universities the Centre also conducts research in teaching. At most universities, they provide links to other university departments to create marketable knowledge, innovation and technology (such as engineering, aerospace, biotechnology, medicine, computer science, agriculture, urban policy), functioning as a “hub” between the Faculty of Business and other faculties on one hand, and entrepreneurial students/academics and the business community on the other.

This study provides a benchmarking analysis of selected research centres at business faculties and identifies benefits of establishing them, while drawing a general picture of the academic research environment, as depicted by international scholars of recent years.

International literature, including a substantial proportion of US literature, has been reviewed on this subject. Not only because US universities lead the trend of entrepreneurial universities, but also because of the availability of such literature and the comprehensiveness of data provided over the internet.

As the purpose of the study is to provide the grounds and orientation for decision-makers in the process of establishing research centres at the Faculty of Business at the Auckland University of Technology, the research centres of other New Zealand universities at their business faculties have been presented. The general background of NZ business environment has been presented as well.

In line with the initial plan of establishing one or more of the three research centres at AUT; that is, The Centre for Financial Markets, The Centre for Entrepreneurship, and The Centre for Industrial Relations/Labour, a qualitative benchmarking of such centres was presented. Due to their multi-functional role at the Faculty of Business and at the university as a whole, a competitive analysis of entrepreneurship centres has been carried out viewed from the perspective of entrepreneurial education.

This study provides the grounds for recommendation that three research centres should be established at the AUT Faculty of Business. The study presents the benefits of the formation of each centre, supported by existing academic literature and the views of its authors.

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