THE THIRD MISSION OF UNIVERSITIES: CONSTRAINTS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE CASE OF VIETNAM

This article researches current practices of several Vietnamese universities to fulfill their third mission. Analyzing results of major activities (such as technology transfer, research commercialization, and entrepreneurship) in 9 universities in the North of Vietnam from 2013 to 2018, the article identifies the limitations and suggests a number of governance policies to support universities in fulfilling their third mission in Vietnam’s current context. Keywords: Third Mission, University, Entrepreneurial University, Technology Transfer, Commercialization.

Instrument Development to Review Factors for Research Commercialization Study in Universities

Recently, university commercialization has drawn growing attention to the role of the university as one of the drivers to local economic growth. Majority universities and other research institutes in Malaysia has established Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) to give support and guidance to the researchers in the bid to commercialize Research and Development (R&D) activities. The issues that are faced by current researchers are progressing and adapting to the role of developing and commercialising products while having lack of business acumen that hinders success in commercialization among the researchers. The objective of this study is to create a research model for commercialization study in universities and developing questionnaire to assess the issue in a holistic view. This study reviews the role of TTO, lists of incentives from the government to the researchers and factors that impedes the researchers’ output to the commercial bench. Contextual factor, Process factors and Organizational factors lead to the successful commercialization in the research institutes. A research model for impediment in commercialization is created and questionnaire for TTO and survey for researchers, are developed to investigate on the impediment factors that hinder success in the research commercialization among universities. The in-house developed instruments are modified based on massive literatures on commercialization to stimulate strategies and improvement of units from Planning to Execution role in the TTO. On another hand, researchers in the university will be able to plan and execute their research that will deliver scientific, technological, cultural and economic developments in addressing industrial, culture and social issues.

Contested internal legitimacy: the emergence of organized academic entrepreneurship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the emergence of organized academic entrepreneurship in the context of institutional complexity, in which multiple institutional logics co-exist. The paper is focused on the dynamics of internal legitimation of new research commercialization initiatives and the interrelations between internal and external legitimacy and their underlying institutional logics. Design/methodology/approach Based on a historical case study of the founding of Yeda Research and Development Company at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1959, the paper examines the rhetorical struggles between the proponents and opponents of the company. The analysis is based on archival data and focuses on the analysis of a meeting of the Institute’s Scientific Committee in which the new company was introduced and debated. Findings The findings show the strengths and limitations of rhetorical legitimation work in supporting the establishment of new organizational initiatives. Rhetorical strategies that bridge the different institutional logics in the field can enable the emergence of new enterprises. Yet, when organizational practices do not concur with the institutional logic on which internal legitimacy is based, new organizational initiatives become illegitimate and organizational actors withdraw their support. Originality/value This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the under-researched process of constructing internal legitimacy for an organizational change, both in general and in the specific context of academic entrepreneurship. Further, this study contributes new insights to research on the historical process of the emergence of organized research commercialization in universities in the context of institutional complexity.