Entrepreneural activities in independent college and university presidents: A view from the top.

摘要

Pressure is growing for presidents of small independent colleges and universities to become more entrepreneurial in generating revenue for their schools. This study examined the entrepreneurial orientation of such presidents and how their orientations relate to their institutions' revenue-generating activities.; Forty-seven presidents of small independent institutions were surveyed to determine their self-ratings on 10 characteristics of entrepreneurial orientation: innovative, risk taker, creative, change agent, team builder, competitive, opportunist, visionary, proactive, and persuasive. They also reported their institutions' revenue-generating activities, their education and professional preparation, and their schools' enrollments and endowments. Follow-up interviews were conducted with four of the presidents to gain further insights into the results.; All of the presidents considered the 10 entrepreneurial characteristics to be, overall, somewhat to very self descriptive (mean 4.11, range 3.10-5.00). There were no relationships between entrepreneurial orientation and previously held position or undergraduate education. Presidents believing they had been sufficiently prepared for their fundraising activities perceived themselves as more entrepreneurial than those believing they had not.; Of 54 activities in 8 categories, the presidents' institutions carried out a mean of 21.19 (range 9-38). Larger institutions generally carried out more educational programs, retail sales activities, and intellectual property activities than smaller schools. Institutions with endowments of less than 10 million dollars invested in fewer types of securities than those with larger endowments.; Entrepreneurial orientation of the president was positively correlated with total revenue-generating activities, and with Fundraising, Small Business Development, Intellectual Property and Off campus Real Estate activities. Presidents' entrepreneurial orientations were not related to their institutions' reported financial strength.; Conclusions based on both surveys and interviews include the following: (1) Most presidents of small independent educational institutions have at least a fairly high entrepreneurial orientation, but they exhibit considerable differences in this respect. (2) Most small independent schools engage in a fairly large number of revenue-generating activities, but some engage in considerably more such activities than others. (3) Institutions led by presidents with higher entrepreneurial orientations tend to engage in more revenue-generating activities. (4) Becoming more entrepreneurial in developing revenue-generating activities is important to the financial well-being of many small colleges and universities.