Entrepreneurial invisible colleges: Infused and disassociated cultures.

摘要

Small, nonselective, resource-poor colleges and universities educate a significant percentage of the undergraduates in the United States. Because of increasing costs, the greater use of technology, and a more competitive market, these institutions will likely face an environment that is even more difficult in the coming decades than what they have already experienced.; One way that some of these colleges have chosen to address these problems has been to build or acquire nontraditional sources of revenue---businesses that may or may not be a core piece of their original mission. Synthesizing two bodies of entrepreneurial research for a literature framework, Market Based Management and Clark's 1998 Entrepreneurial Universities, two organizations are examined. Graceland University and its ownership of the world's largest seminar company and Brigham Young University - Hawaii and its relationship with Hawaii's most successful tourist attraction, work as excellent case studies for discovering the ways in which a nontraditional revenue source can impact the organizational culture of the campus.; While these two case studies illustrate the range of connectedness between the nontraditional revenue generator and its college (Graceland is disassociated, BYU-Hawaii is infused), it was found that the institutions were comparable in their overall adherence to the principles found in the entrepreneurial literature. The differences in that adherence between the two institutions provide a good cross-case analysis for other institutions that may be looking at this technique for raising revenues. Additionally, it was discovered that an entrepreneurial invisible does not have to compromise its own educational culture in order to have a successful nontraditional revenue stream, although the college and revenue generator have an impact the each other's culture. Though there are positive aspects for a college that chooses to act entrepreneurially, the additional expertise and budget variability create new challenges for the board and president.