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Increasing faculty engagement in entrepreneurial behavior to advance regional economic development: an innovation study

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Increasing faculty engagement in entrepreneurial behavior to advance regional economic development: an innovation study

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Content INCREASING FACULTY ENGAGEMENT IN ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHA VIOR TO
ADV ANCE REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: AN INNOV ATION STUDY

by
Allison C. Boxer

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

August 2020

Copywrite 2020 Allison C. Boxer

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to acknowledge USC Rossier School of Education for supporting the development
of this unique and innovative Global Doctor of Education program. Thank you to Dr. Mark
Robison for your vision and tenacity to create such an inspiring program; I returned from every
in-person session invigorated and renewed both personally and professionally. Dr. Sabrina
Chong kept everything running smoothly, making the program a success. My Committee Chair,
Dr. Tracy Poon Tambascia was a truly helpful and steady resource throughout the journey. Our
check-ins kept me sane and prepared. Finally, thank you to Dr. Donde Plowman for opening the
door to the opportunity to research the topic I joined this program to pursue in the first place. I
hope this research will be helpful to you in some small way.
My path toward education was deeply influenced by two extraordinary individuals. First,
my orientation to attend an equity-focused program that examines comparative global realities
was grounded in the formative experience of studying in Tanzania with Dr. Kathy Thomforde.
Our time in Iringa fundamentally shaped my passions and career path. And, Dr. David R.
Anderson, who embraced my wild idea to take leave from my job and immerse myself in higher
education administration. My month “in residence” with your team was the foundation of my
understanding about what is possible in higher education.
This dissertation and degree were only possible thanks to my wonderful parents, who
raised me to understand the value of education and have unwaveringly supported my educational
endeavors. For those months that I was working professionally, writing and studying for my
Doctoral degree, and wedding planning, my mom was the MVP to help me get it all done. And,
my dad was always on the other end of the phone to tell me he was proud. Finally, there are not
enough pages in this dissertation to thank my husband, Benjy. A line from our vows, written
iii
halfway through this degree: “I love that you believe there are no limits to what I can
accomplish, you support my ambitions and encourage me to reach higher.” We have only just
begun.

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................... ii
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................................... vi
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................. vii
Abstract ...................................................................................................................................................... viii
Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1
Background of the Problem .................................................................................................2
Importance of Addressing the Problem ...............................................................................4
Organizational Context and Mission ...................................................................................5
Organizational Performance Goal ........................................................................................6
Description of Stakeholder Groups ......................................................................................7
Stakeholder Groups’ Performance Goals.............................................................................8
Stakeholder Group for the Study .......................................................................................10
Purpose of the Project and Questions ................................................................................10
Conceptual and Methodological Framework .....................................................................11
Definitions..........................................................................................................................12
Organization of the Study ..................................................................................................12
Chapter Two: Literature Review................................................................................................................. 14
The Changing Role of Universities....................................................................................14
Universities’ Struggle to Remain Relevant ............................................................................. 15
Universities’ Growing Role in Fostering Regional Development ........................................... 16
Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education .....................................................19
Evolution of the Entrepreneurial University ........................................................................... 19
Challenges to Building an Entrepreneurial University ............................................................ 21
Overcoming Challenges to Build a Culture of Entrepreneurship ......................................22
Elements of a Culture of Innovation and Entrepreneurship .................................................... 22
Fostering a Culture of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education ....................... 23
Role of Faculty in University Innovation and Entrepreneurship ............................................. 25
Faculty Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Influences .......................................27
Knowledge .............................................................................................................................. 27
Motivation ............................................................................................................................... 30
Organization ............................................................................................................................ 33
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................37
Chapter Three: Methods ............................................................................................................................. 39
Participating Stakeholders .................................................................................................39
Survey Sampling Criteria and Rationale ................................................................................. 40
Survey Sampling Strategy and Rationale ................................................................................ 40
Interview Sampling Criterion and Rationale ........................................................................... 41
Interview Sampling Strategy and Rationale ......................................................................41
Data Collection and Instrumentation .................................................................................42
Surveys .................................................................................................................................... 43
Interviews ................................................................................................................................ 44
Data Analysis .....................................................................................................................45
Validity and Reliability ......................................................................................................47
Credibility and Trustworthiness .........................................................................................48
Ethics..................................................................................................................................48
Limitations and Delimitations ............................................................................................49
v
Chapter Four: Findings ............................................................................................................................... 51
Participating Stakeholders .................................................................................................52
Interview Participants .............................................................................................................. 52
Survey Participants .................................................................................................................. 54
Findings..............................................................................................................................56
Knowledge Findings ................................................................................................................ 58
Motivation Findings ................................................................................................................ 64
Organizational Findings .......................................................................................................... 75
Emergent Themes Beyond the Anticipated Influences ........................................................... 94
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................99
Chapter Five: Recommendations .............................................................................................................. 101
Discussion of Key Findings .............................................................................................102
Recommendations ............................................................................................................104
Recommendation 1: Define and Communicate the Desired Entrepreneurial, Risk-Taking
Behavior ................................................................................................................................ 104
Recommendation 2: Build a University-Wide Unit to Identify and Support Entrepreneurial
Faculty ................................................................................................................................... 105
Recommendation 3: Revamp NUtech ................................................................................... 109
Recommendation 4: Adapt Faculty Incentives and Reward Structure .................................. 111
Implementation Considerations .......................................................................................114
Resource Requirements and Timing ..................................................................................... 114
Implementation Constraints and Challenges ......................................................................... 116
Evaluation Plan ................................................................................................................118
Evaluating Recommendation 1: Define and Communicate the Desired Entrepreneurial, Risk-
Taking Behavior .................................................................................................................... 119
Evaluating Recommendation 2: Build a University-Wide Unit to Identify and Support
Entrepreneurial Faculty ......................................................................................................... 121
Evaluating Recommendation 3: Revamp NUtech ................................................................. 123
Evaluating Recommendation 4: Adapt Faculty Incentives and Reward Structure ................ 125
Limitations and Future Research .....................................................................................127
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................128
References ................................................................................................................................................. 130
Appendix A: Survey Instrument ............................................................................................................... 139
Appendix B: Interview Questions ............................................................................................................. 142
Appendix C: Information Sheet for Interview Participants ...................................................................... 144

vi
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Organizational Mission, Global Goal and Stakeholder Performance Goals .......................9
Table 2 Assumed Knowledge Influences .......................................................................................30
Table 3 Assumed Motivation Influences ........................................................................................33
Table 4 Assumed Organization Influences .....................................................................................37
Table 5 Interview participants (n = 12) ..........................................................................................53
Table 6 Influences and validation status ........................................................................................57
Table 7 Assumed Knowledge Influences and validation status .....................................................64
Table 8 Assumed Motivation Influences and Validation Status .....................................................75
Table 9 Assumed Organizational Influences and Validation Status ...............................................94
Table 10 Validated Influences ......................................................................................................102
Table 11 Summary of recommendation resource requirements and timeline .............................. 116
Table 12 Evaluation Plan for Recommendation 1 .......................................................................120
Table 13 Evaluation Plan for Recommendation 2 .......................................................................122
Table 14 Evaluation Plan for Recommendation 3 .......................................................................124
Table 15 Evaluation Plan for Recommendation 4 .......................................................................126

vii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Survey Participants by College .......................................................................................55
Figure 2 I have Engaged in Entrepreneurial Activity as Defined by This Study ...........................56
Figure 3 I Understand the Steps Necessary for Me to Engage in Entrepreneurial Activity ..........61
Figure 4 When it Proves Difficult to Apply My Research to Practical Solutions, I Can Figure Out
How To Do It .................................................................................................................................63
Figure 5 Faculty Perceived Benefits Associated with Entrepreneurial, Risk Taking Behavior .....66
Figure 6 Faculty Perceived Benefits Associated with Entrepreneurial, Risk Taking Behavior
Filtered by Self-Reported Engagement in Entrepreneurial, Risk-Taking Behavior ......................67
Figure 7 I Believe That I Could Be Successful at Engaging in Entrepreneurial Activity .............69
Figure 8 Engaging in Entrepreneurial Activity Is Worth My Time ...............................................71
Figure 9 Faculty Perceived Barriers Associated With Entrepreneurial, Risk Taking Behavior. ....72
Figure 10 If I Attempt Entrepreneurship and It Is Not Successful, It Will Hurt My Reputation
Within the University .....................................................................................................................74
Figure 11 UNL Supports a Culture of Willingness to Take Risks and Adopt New Behavior,
Specifically Related to Entrepreneurship.......................................................................................78
Figure 12 I Would Engage in Entrepreneurial Activity More Often if I Would be Rewarded
Through Faculty Incentive Structures ............................................................................................81
Figure 13 UNL Offers Dedicated Services to Support Faculty in Entrepreneurial Activity .........87
Figure 14 I Would Like More Support Connecting my Research To industry ..............................88
Figure 15 UNL Has Promoted the Resources Available to Support Faculty Entrepreneurial
Activity ..........................................................................................................................................93

viii
ABSTRACT
Higher education institutions (HEIs) are generally resistant to change and struggle to
remain relevant amidst the changing social and economic context in the United States. As
knowledge increasingly drives economic activity, society expects universities, as creators and
distributors of knowledge, to play a larger role in economic development at the regional and
national levels. Some universities struggle to take on an augmented position in economic
development due to a resistance to change within the organization. Yet, those institutions that do
take risks and embrace change have the opportunity to play an increasingly central role in the
economic and social development of their regions, which means increased relevance and
sustainability for the region as well as the institution. Because HEIs are generally more
comfortable operating the way they have for many decades, it will take fostering a culture of
taking risks for a university to challenge the status quo and embrace its role to spur economic
development in a knowledge-based society.
This study used a case study approach to explore the innovations and changes that would
need to occur within a land grant, research university to increase faculty engagement in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. The research sought to answer the questions: What are the
knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences dimensions that have enabled some faculty
to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior? And, how can those influences be fostered to
increase this behavior? The qualitative study gathered data via a faculty survey and interviews,
which were coded and analyzed. Data indicated that faculty conceptually understand the benefits
of entrepreneurial risk-taking endeavors but could use additional support to understand the
process and skills to execute. While the majority of faculty reported that entrepreneurial behavior
was worth their time, few actually engaged in such behavior due to institutional barriers. Overall,
ix
organizational changes to encourage and support entrepreneurial behavior would be required to
increase overall incidence of such behavior.
Keywords: higher education, entrepreneurship, innovation, faculty

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
The problem of practice addressed by this dissertation is that higher education institutions
(HEIs) are generally resistant to change and struggle to remain relevant amidst the changing
social and economic context in the United States. As knowledge increasingly drives economic
activity, society expects universities, as creators and distributors of knowledge, to play a larger
role in economic development at the regional and national levels (Nelles & V orley, 2011;
Schmitz, Urbano, Dandolini, de Souza, & Guerrero, 2017). Some universities struggle to take on
an augmented position in economic development due to a resistance to change within the
organization (Layne & Lake, 2015). Yet, those institutions that do take risks and embrace change
have the opportunity to play an increasingly central role in the economic and social development
of their regions (Urbano & Guerrero, 2013), which means increased relevance and sustainability
for the region as well as the institution (Etzkowitz, 1998; Etzkowitz, Webster, Gebhardt, & Terra,
2000). Because HEIs are generally more comfortable operating the way they have for many
decades (Christensen & Eyring, 2011; Layne & Lake, 2015;), it will take fostering a culture of
taking risks for a university to challenge the status quo and embrace its role to spur economic
development in a knowledge-based society.
This study examines this problem of practice in the context of the University of Nebraska
– Lincoln (UNL). In 2019, UNL identified fostering a culture of risk-taking as a part of its
strategic direction, which would require change within the institution. The goal of this shift is to
catalyze connections between research and expertise within the university and the surrounding
region to spur economic and social development in Nebraska.
2
Background of the Problem
Recent years have seen an increasing rate of closures at institutes of higher education in
the United States (Seltzer, 2018). Some researchers believe that these closures are evidence that
HEIs have been relatively slow to recognize and adapt to the needs of their surrounding
geographic region, the country, and the world (Layne & Lake, 2015; Nelles & Vorley, 2011). In
this context, HEIs are struggling to remain relevant in a changing world. Only recently have
universities began to embrace a role in regional economic development, specifically through a
more entrepreneurial orientation.
Research indicates that universities have an impact on the economic and social
development of the regions in which they are situated (Etzkowitz et al., 2000; Goldstein et al.,
1995). Yet, only recently have universities begun to recognize and embrace their role in regional
development as a third mission, in addition to teaching and research (Saiz-Santos, Araujo-Dela
Mata, & Hoyos-Iruarrizaga, 2017). In many institutions this third mission takes the form of a
focus on innovation and entrepreneurship as channels to apply knowledge more directly to
society to impact regional economic and social development (Saiz-Santos et al., 2017).
Regarding the dual concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship, Schmitz et al. (2017)
highlighted that innovation refers to the knowledge while entrepreneurship applies to the
process. Schmitz et al. (2017) provided a robust review as to “the interrelatedness and
complementary roles of innovation and entrepreneurship in the academic setting” (p. 88), giving
permission to link these concepts.
Activities associated with the entrepreneurial university that originally received the most
attention include technology transfer, spinoffs, and partnerships with industry (Abreu &
Grinevich, 2013). As the research on the topic grew over time, the study of and the definition of
3
“academic entrepreneurship” (Wood, 2011) also expanded and matured (Wright, 2014). Other
authors have sought to create a broader definition for academic entrepreneurship that includes
the entire university (Abreu & Grinevich, 2013). Etzkowitz et al. (2000) introduced the idea of
the “entrepreneurial university,” in which the institution itself is fundamentally re-aligned to
achieve a third mission of social and economic development, on top of the original missional
components of research and teaching. In this model, the tripartite mission of research, teaching
and economic development are melded together and mutually reinforced, stemming from the
shift to a knowledge-based society, where these elements are increasingly overlapping
(Etzkowitz et al., 2000). Urbano and Guerrero (2013) also noted that entrepreneurship at a
university “requires a supportive climate to promote the drive for innovation and
entrepreneurship in all members” (p. 44). These articles transition entrepreneurship and
innovation in higher education from individual actors or activities to an institutional paradigm.
The literature indicates that there are three primary reasons for an institution to embrace
entrepreneurship and innovation. The first reason is to be more relevant as an institution in a
knowledge-based society. Layne and Lake (2015) assert that the default position of universities
is to continue their current trajectory, and therefore, HEIs are increasingly challenged to explain
how their educational offerings and degrees are relevant. Drucker’s (1998) assertion that
entrepreneurship positively impacts an organization’s social potential provides a response to
Layne and Lake’s concerns. The second reason is to improve an institutions’ financial position.
Academic entrepreneurship provides a way to generate market value for what universities have
always done – create and transfer knowledge (Urbano & Guerrero, 2013). In a context where
many universities are facing financial vulnerability (Christensen & Eyring, 2011), financial gain
is a key driver for entrepreneurial activity in the short-term. The third reason is to create social
4
value (Schmitz et al., 2017), including improved economic performance in the university’s
surrounding geographic area (Etzkowitz et al., 2000). Wood (2011) brought these reasons
together by stating that “universities that successfully embrace entrepreneurship have the
opportunity to generate much-needed revenue, to help spur economic development and job
creation, and to produce solutions for some of our most pressing problems” (p. 160).
The heightened form and function of an entrepreneurial university that seeks to impact
regional economic growth requires different organizational capacities, mindsets, metrics and
other forms of change (Goldstein, 2010). Brettel, Chomik, and Flatten (2015) established that
there are conditions within organizational culture that specifically foster an entrepreneurial
orientation. Originally explored in relation to business and industry, research has shown that
several factors influence entrepreneurial behavior in an organizational setting. These factors
include elements such as human resources management (Hayton, 2005), the characteristics of
social networks within the organization (Floyd & Wooldridge, 1999), knowledge creation
(Zahra, Nielsen, & Bogner, 1999), and cooperative behavior among employees (Peris-Ortiz,
2009). Chrisman, Hynes, and Fraser (1995) also show that a university’s policies and procedures
impact faculty entrepreneurship. In order to create the systems and capacities needed to take on a
more deliberate role in regional economic development as a third mission, a university will need
to overcome resistance to change and develop an organizational culture that encourages risk-
taking.
Importance of Addressing the Problem
The problem of HEIs’ resistance to change is important to address for a variety of
reasons. In an increasingly knowledge-driven world, there is a societal expectation that
universities foster regional, and even national, economic development (Nelles & V orley, 2011;
5
Schmitz et al., 2017). Yet, embracing this role will require new capabilities and mindsets, which
requires taking risks (Goldstein, 2010). Therefore, creating a culture of risk-taking is critical for a
university to pursue a more central position in regional economic development.
If the faculty and staff are not able to take risks with new ideas and ways of operating, the
university will not have the capacity to succeed in its role to spur economic development in the
region. In this case, the region and its people will suffer from lost economic opportunities.
Additionally, the university will struggle to remain relevant (Layne & Lake, 2015), and HEIs that
are no longer seen as relevant will eventually have financial challenges. Additionally, The
National Center for Education Statistics published a report indicating that post-secondary
enrollment declined seven percent between 2010 and 2017. On the other hand, if a university is
able to encourage risk-taking and entrepreneurial behavior, the literature shows that
entrepreneurship and innovation at an institution of higher education can have a positive impact
on many levels, including individual (Martin, Mcnally, & Kay, 2013) and socioeconomic
(Urbano & Guerrero, 2013), as well as on the sustainability of the institution itself (Etzkowitz et
al., 2000).
Organizational Context and Mission
The University of Nebraska – Lincoln (UNL) is Nebraska’s flagship public research
institution. Founded in 1869, UNL is a land grant university in the United States. The university
has had three parts to its mission over the last 150 years: teaching, research and service. UNL
supports a $300 million budget, with almost a third of that amount dedicated to research. In
2018, UNL enrolled approximately 24,000 students, which represents a 7% increase over the
past decade. Of the students enrolled in 2018, 16% are students of color, and a third are from out-
of-state. UNL supports approximately 1,700 faculty and 4,000 staff. The university is situated
6
near the center of Lincoln, a city of approximately 300,000 people (University of Nebraska –
Lincoln, 2018).
For its 150
th
anniversary in 2019, UNL created The Nebraska Commission of 150
(N│150), which involved a group of leaders engaging in a visioning and strategic planning
process throughout 2018. The purpose of the N│150 Commission was to think about the needs
of the students and the state over the coming 25 years, and how the university could best meet
those needs. The mission coming out of the N│150 process states: “The University of Nebraska
unites bold trailblazers from around the globe to positively transform lives, land, and society.
Our inclusive culture expects excellence and creates connections among learners within – and
beyond – the university” (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2018). UNL’s vision is “uniting
bold trailblazers to create a better life” (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2018). Part of the
N│150 report states that UNL will “support a campus-wide ethos of informed risk taking” as one
of the ways in which it will fulfill its role as a driver of economic development in the state of
Nebraska in pursuit of this mission and vision (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2018), which
directly relates to the organizational performance goal addressed in this study.
Organizational Performance Goal
By 2025, UNL will serve as a catalyst for growth and prosperity in Nebraska through a
10% increase in occurrence of UNL faculty engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behaviors. In
regards to entrepreneurial risk-taking behaviors, this study will use the functional definition put
forth by Ahwireng-Obeng (1993), “a type of activity or practice with implications for generating
jobs, fostering innovation and increasing productivity by means of which the creation of incomes
and wealth is enhanced” (p. 151). This specific definition was also highlighted by Sternberg
(2014) in his work related to land grant universities. Through the N│150 process, UNL
7
leadership determined that an ethos of informed risk-taking is a particular area in which the
university needs to improve in order to better fulfill its mission, its responsibility as a land grant
institution, and societal expectation in an increasingly knowledge-based economy.
Description of Stakeholder Groups
There are several key stakeholder groups related to a university-wide goal associated with
furthering an ethos of informed risk-taking. First, the administration at UNL, specifically the
senior leadership, are a key stakeholder in this organizational goal. The senior leadership
members are the group that initially recognized the responsibility for UNL to be an engine for
economic growth. This group also identified the need to advance an ethos of informed risk-
taking across the university to better fulfill this role in the state. The administration is also the
group that sets the organizational policies and practices that influence the culture of the
university as a whole. In other words, they set the high-level conditions that either encourage or
discourage informed risk-taking behaviors by faculty and staff. Second, the UNL faculty are a
key stakeholder in this organizational goal because they are the group that must actually change
behavior in order to achieve the goal. While faculty are impacted by the policies, practices, and
culture of the university overall, which is set by the administration, it is their behavior that the
goal directly impacts. Third, business and civic leaders are another group of stakeholders related
to this organizational goal because faculty need assistance from and partnerships with leaders
outside of UNL in order to engage in much of the entrepreneurial risk-taking behaviors that are
stated in the goal. Additionally, the goal is intended to directly impact business and society in
Nebraska external to UNL. Therefore, business and civic leaders must participate with UNL for
the university to be effective as an engine for economic growth in the state. Business and civic
8
leaders stand to benefit from UNL playing a deliberate role in regional economic development,
and they can help UNL achieve greater effectiveness in this role.
While there will be numerous other stakeholder groups involved in achieving the
organizational goal of increasing informed risk-taking behavior, these three groups have the most
direct impact on goal achievement.
Stakeholder Groups’ Performance Goals
The behavior of each of the stakeholder groups mentioned in the previous section feeds
into the organization’s ability to achieve the organizational goal, and in turn achieve its mission.
The following table shows how each of these elements build on each other.
9
Table 1
Organizational Mission, Global Goal and Stakeholder Performance Goals
Organizational Mission
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln attracts bold thinkers in the quest for knowledge and the
search for truths greater than ourselves. Nebraska provides one of the world’s premier learning
environments because we:
 Seek new ways of knowing, understanding, and improving our world;
 Empower our students to co-create their learning experiences;
 Instill a life-long desire to learn, inquire, and explore; and
 Ensure a diverse and inclusive culture where every person and every interaction matter.
Organizational Performance Goal
By 2025, UNL will serve as a catalyst for growth and prosperity for Nebraska through a 10%
increase in occurrence of UNL faculty engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behaviors*.

*For entrepreneurial risk-taking behaviors, this study will use the functional definition put forth
by Ahwireng-Obeng (1993), “a type of activity or practice with implications for generating jobs,
fostering innovation and increasing productivity by means of which the creation of incomes and
wealth is enhanced” (p. 151).
Administration Goal Faculty Goal Business/Civic Leaders Goal
By fall 2023, the senior
leadership at UNL will
integrate new policies or
practices that encourage
entrepreneurial risk-taking
behaviors by faculty.
By fall 2025, at least 10% of
UNL faculty who have not
previously done so will engage
in entrepreneurial risk-taking
behavior (as defined above).
By fall 2027, at least 50
additional business and civic
leaders in the state are
engaged in a partnership with
UNL faculty to advance
growth and prosperity in the
state. This number is in
addition to those leaders who
are currently engaged in
2020.

10
Stakeholder Group for the Study
While all stakeholders mentioned in the previous section play a role in achieving the
organizational goal of supporting entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, it is important to first
understand the behavior of faculty. Specifically, this study will help the leadership at UNL better
understand why those faculty who engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior do so, in order
to inform how the university can increase the number of additional faculty engaging in this
behavior. Understanding the faculty knowledge, motivation, and organization dimensions that
encourage the desired behavior will then help the administration set appropriate policies and
practices to advance an ethos of informed risk-taking. The faculty stakeholder goal that at least
10% of UNL faculty who have not previously done so will engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking
behavior was set as additive to current levels because there is a subset of faculty who already
engage in risk-taking behavior and will continue to do so regardless of UNL’s efforts. UNL will
need to get a baseline measurement of risk-taking behavior before implementing any changes in
order to track progress toward the stated stakeholder goal. The faculty stakeholder goal is set as a
10% increase over five years because the organizational goal and intended outcomes are
associated with a change in culture. Therefore, while the intention is that more faculty would
engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior over the long-term as the culture shifts, the goal
starts at 10% by 2025 and would increase in later years.
Purpose of the Project and Questions
The purpose of this project is to conduct an analysis to understand how UNL could work
to advance an ethos of informed risk-taking, which is in service of UNL’s larger goal to play a
greater role in catalyzing economic growth in the state of Nebraska. Specifically, this study
explored the areas of knowledge and skill, motivation, and organizational resources necessary to
11
spread a culture of informed risk-taking. The analysis began by developing a list of possible
needs and then moved to examining these needs systematically to focus on actual or validated
needs. This analysis focused specifically on the disposition and behavior of faculty, though
recommendations also address how the administration can implement organizational policy or
practices to influence faculty mindset and behavior. As such, the questions that guided this study
are the following:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that enable some
faculty to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior?
2. How can the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that support faculty
engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior be fostered to increase this UNL
faculty behavior by 10%?
Conceptual and Methodological Framework
This study used a gap analysis framework developed by Clark and Estes (2008). Gap
analysis provided a systematic method to define an organization’s performance goals and then to
identify gaps between an organization’s current performance relative to those goals. As an
innovation study, this project specifically concentrated on knowledge, motivation and
organization needs to create a desired change. This study employed a qualitative case study
methodology. A literature review generated potential knowledge, motivation and organization
needs to achieve the organizational goal. These needs were then assessed using a survey and
interviews with faculty. The study then laid out recommendations and solutions to achieve the
organizational goal.

12
Definitions
Economic development: The adoption of new technologies, increase in job opportunities, and
improvement of living standards in a geographic region.
Risk-taking behavior: Risk-taking is focused on behaviors that are different from traditional
behavior in a university setting, specifically those behaviors that may lead to entrepreneurial
activity, which in turn could lead to regional development. This study will use the functional
definition put forth by Ahwireng-Obeng (1993), “a type of activity or practice with implications
for generating jobs, fostering innovation and increasing productivity by means of which the
creation of incomes and wealth is enhanced” (p. 151).
Ethos: The general mindset and approach of a community as manifested in its attitudes and
aspirations. For the purposes of this study, ethos and mindset will be used interchangeably, and
are assumed to be influenced directly by an organizational culture.
Organization of the Study
This dissertation includes five chapters. Chapter One provides the background context
and rationale for pursuing this study. It also includes the organization’s mission, the
organizational and stakeholder goals that will be addressed in the following chapters, and the
frameworks used throughout the study. Chapter Two provides a review of current literature
related to the study. It includes topics related to organizational culture, entrepreneurship, and the
university’s role in regional economic growth. Chapter Three details the assumed knowledge,
motivation, and organization needs for this study, and lays out the study’s methodology,
including choice of participants, data collection and analysis. Chapter Four provides an
assessment and analysis of the data and results. Chapter Five delivers recommendations, based
13
on data and literature, for addressing the needs and closing the performance gap as well as
recommendations for an implementation and evaluation plan for the solutions.

14
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
This literature review explores research regarding the evolution of HEIs and their role in
society over the past century that has led to the problem of practice addressed in this study. The
chapter then examines the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in higher education to date.
Finally, the literature draws on the literature regarding entrepreneurship among HEIs, as well as
literature from the business field to lay the groundwork for how HEIs can incorporate
entrepreneurship into their culture. The latter section reviews the literature behind the
knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that affect faculty behavior in this study.
The Changing Role of Universities
Since as far back as early part of the 20th century, there has been a notion in the United
States that a university should go beyond transmitting knowledge to the next generation and
include research and serving the community. This idea was reflected in the Wisconsin Idea,
which was a commitment promulgated by the University of Wisconsin president in 1905,
believing that the benefits of the university should touch every resident of the state. Perkins
(1973) also called attention to this third wave of universities’ evolution in their mission and role
to society, from teaching and transmission of knowledge originally, next incorporating research
and the generation of knowledge along with teaching, and finally adding service to society as a
core element to the mission. Research has found that HEIs play an important role in regional
development (Etzkowitz et al., 2000; Goldstein & Glaser, 2012). As the demands on higher
education change and HEIs fight to adapt, they are increasingly recognizing and owning their
role in society as an integral part of their work.
15
Universities’ Struggle to Remain Relevant
Increasingly, HEIs are challenged to remain socially and economically relevant. A
Strada-Gallup consumer study found that “only 26% of working U.S. adults with college
experience strongly agree that their education is relevant to their work and day-to-day life”
(Strada-Gallup, 2018, p. 5). At the same time, a National Center for Education Statistics report
indicates that, though enrollment at all degree-granting post-secondary institutions has increased
overall since 2000, enrollment declined by seven percent in more recent years between 2010 and
2017 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). As early as 2006, the U.S. Department of
Education issued a report stating that, “American higher education has become what, in the
business world, would be called a mature enterprise: increasingly risk-averse, at times self-
satisfied, and unduly expensive” (U.S. Department of Education, 2006, p. ix). Christensen and
Eyring (2011) agreed with this assessment and highlighted that this phenomenon is an indication
that colleges are no longer offering what people find valuable, noting that higher education is
ripe for disruption. And yet, universities are notorious for their adherence to their traditional roles
of teaching and research and slow pace of change (Christensen & Eyring, 2011; Layne & Lake,
2015).
As HEIs are slow to adapt to the current context, they are increasing challenged to
explain how their educational offerings and degrees are relevant (Layne & Lake, 2015; Nelles &
V orley, 2011; Schmitz et al., 2017). As the creators and transmitters of knowledge, society
expects HEIs to play an ever-larger role in economic development at the regional and national
levels (Nelles & V orley, 2011). But, universities struggle to shed their adherence to traditional
ways of operating in order to take on this role, and therefore struggle to remain relevant in the
eyes of the public. Amidst these challenges, state tuition rates are also increasing. At public
16
institutions, the undergraduate tuition, fees, room, and board prices increased 31% after adjusting
for inflation between 2006–07 and 2016–17 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2017,
2018). As the stated tuition price of higher education increases at the same time that universities
are struggling to remain relevant, society’s perceived value of higher education diminishes. A
2018 Gallup poll found that U.S. adults with “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in
higher education dropped from 57% in 2015 to 48% in 2018 (Jones, 2018). This confluence of
factors leads to many colleges facing enrollment and financial challenges, forcing them to look
closely at their role in society.
Universities’ Growing Role in Fostering Regional Development
As HEIs begin to fight to remain relevant amidst changing societal expectations, they are
increasingly recognizing their impact on regional economic and social development and
incorporating this role as a part of their mission and work. Sternberg (2014) cited the original
language of the Morrill Act in 1862 that created land grant institutions, asserting that the original
intent of land grant institutions was to advance economic development.
In Nebraska, a state that relies heavily on the agriculture industry, the University of
Nebraska is seen as a critical institution to foster development, as evidenced by the creation of
the University of Nebraska Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR) at UNL,
established through Nebraska Legislature in 1973 (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2019). The
university has an impact on regional economic development. The President of the University of
Nebraska system reported that the return on investment in the university is 300% for university
as a whole, and the return on investment for IANR is 15 times (University of Nebraska –
Lincoln, 2019). Additionally, the statements in the first half of 2019 around the most recent state
budget approval, which included funding for the University of Nebraska, indicated that state
17
leaders believed the university should continue to play a key role in the development of
Nebraska and its residents. The President of the University of Nebraska system stated that the
funding for the university was a signal regarding “the state’s commitment to affordable,
competitive higher education that grows our economy and quality of life” (Lee, 2019). Both state
and university leadership clearly see UNL as a critical player tasked with contributing to regional
development.
Contributing to regional development is intimately related to the mission of service to
society. Similar to Perkins’s (1973) writings regarding the third wave of universities’ evolution,
Etzkowitz (1998) also noted that higher education is in the midst of a “second revolution,” where
the entrepreneurial university integrates economic development into the university as a third
mission, in addition to teaching and research. Etzkowitz (1998) then went a step further, stating
that this broadened mission establishes the HEI as an economic actor itself and links the
university more closely to the region that benefits from its knowledge.
In an increasingly knowledge-based society, universities, as the key creators and
generators of knowledge, are important players in regional economic development. Research
indicates that universities’ surrounding geographic areas show improved economic performance
(Etzkowitz et al., 2000). Birch (1987) highlighted that universities, especially research
universities, provide a “natural resource” for innovation in an economy that is based on constant
innovation. Universities contribute to local economies through research, which can lead to
inventions and innovations, which can then be connected to the world through entrepreneurial
methods such as faculty spinoffs and tech transfer (Chrisman et al., 1995). Because universities
are regional resources for knowledge, they act as an asset for competitiveness of the region in the
global economy (Goldstein & Glaser, 2012). Sternberg (2014) stated that, “the theoretical
18
foundation for entrepreneurial focus on economic development is based on the ever growing
body of research that shows that entrepreneurship is one of the foundations in building and
maintaining economies and societies and is key to the functioning of market economies and in
job creation” (p. 254). In this way, universities that embrace entrepreneurship can spur economic
development and job creation (Wood, 2011), leading to regional development.
The Association of University Technology Managers Licensing Activity Survey (AUTM,
2017) provided evidence that HEIs are increasingly embracing entrepreneurship. The 2017
AUTM Licensing Survey found that in 2017, 1,080 start-ups formed out of HEIs. Additionally,
HEIs received over $3 billion in revenue from licensing in 2017 alone (AUTM, 2017). These
data indicate that the potential for business creation from university entrepreneurship in
significant. The AUTM survey also found that 72.4% of the start-ups founded in 2017 were
based in the home state of the HEI associated with their formation, indicating that most academic
entrepreneurship benefits the geographic region.
In addition to economic development, some research has also focused on the social value
that universities contribute. Much of this social value is created through applying the knowledge
and inventions developed within universities to pressing social problems through
entrepreneurship. Urbano and Guerrero (2013) and Wood (2011) wrote about the entrepreneurial
university as a driver of regional development – both economic and social – by producing and
utilizing knowledge that can be applied in entrepreneurial opportunities through the creation of
new ventures or commercialization of research.
In this way, knowledge creation and entrepreneurship have become increasingly
consequential themes in higher education as universities fight to stay relevant, which improves
their ability to be competitive in the higher education market. “Just because things have always
19
been like this” (Layne & Lake, 2015, p. 3) is not sufficient anymore as their academic offerings
exist in a competitive market (Layne & Lake, 2015). And while many universities find it
challenging to break from tradition, there are positive models of entrepreneurship and innovation
transforming HEIs.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education
Entrepreneurship at a HEI can have an impact on many levels. Chrisman et al. (1995)
found that entrepreneurship could lead to substantial monetary gain for individual faculty
members. The AUTM Licensing Survey (2017) found that 7,459 patents were issued in 2017,
which was the highest ever reported in one year. Etzkowitz et al. (2000) noted the positive
impact that entrepreneurship could have for the sustainability of the HEI. Etzkowitz et al. (2000)
highlighted that tech transfer has become a substantial revenue source for some HEIs, which is
supported by the AUTM data on licensing revenues reported in the previous section (AUTM,
2017). Urbano and Guerrero (2013) reported on the impact of entrepreneurship on regional
socioeconomic development, noting that the majority of entrepreneurial activity from a
university is carried out in the home state (AUTM, 2017).
Evolution of the Entrepreneurial University
As the AUTM data indicates, innovation and entrepreneurship are playing an increasingly
prominent role in higher education over recent decades. There is a growing body of literature
regarding entrepreneurship and innovation in higher education settings globally. While some
authors focus on teaching and curriculum to foster entrepreneurship and innovation beyond the
university, others focus on institutional-level activities and models. As the research developed
over time, the study of and the definition of “academic entrepreneurship” (Wood, 2011) has
expanded and matured (Wright, 2014). Literature on entrepreneurship and innovation in HEIs
20
has evolved from focusing primarily on tech transfer and other specific activities at a university
to discussing the qualities and benefits of an entrepreneurial university. Regarding the dual
concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship, Schmitz et al. (2017) highlighted that innovation
refers to the knowledge while entrepreneurship applies to the process. Schmitz et al. (2017)
provided a robust review as to “the interrelatedness and complementary roles of innovation an
entrepreneurship in the academic setting” (p. 88), giving permission to link these concepts. This
literature review focused on the entrepreneurship and innovation at the institutional level.
Early literature on the topic of entrepreneurship and innovation in higher education had a
relatively narrow focus on activities that bring academic research to market, such as licensing,
tech transfer, and the formation of start-up companies (Abreu & Grinevich, 2013). Abreu and
Grinevich (2013) gave two reasons for this focus. First, bringing ideas to market is where the
wider, non-academic literature on entrepreneurship has focused, and second, these activities are
more easily observed and measured as evidence of entrepreneurial and innovative activities on
which an author can report (Abreu & Grinevich, 2013). In order to expand the research regarding
entrepreneurship at universities, a number of authors have sought to create a broader definition
for academic entrepreneurship that includes the entire university (Abreu & Grinevich, 2013).
Etzkowitz et al. (2000) introduced the idea of the “entrepreneurial university,” in which the
institution itself is fundamentally re-aligned to achieve economic development as a key part of
the mission, along with research and teaching. In this model, the three elements of research,
teaching and economic development are melded together and mutually reinforced, which stems
from the shift to a knowledge-based society, where the overlap between government, industry,
and academia becomes increasingly significant (Etzkowitz et al., 2000, p. 314). Urbano and
Guerrero (2013) also noted that entrepreneurship at a university “requires a supportive climate to
21
promote the drive for innovation and entrepreneurship in all members” (p. 44). These articles
therefore work to transition entrepreneurship and innovation in higher education from individual
actors or activities to an organization-wide paradigm.
Challenges to Building an Entrepreneurial University
There are a number of reasons why universities are resistant to change, and the literature
lays out some of the challenges that universities face. Additionally, outside of higher education,
there is an entire field of literature that addresses the challenges to organizational change. In the
current context, universities struggle with the need to adapt to shifting demands. Hamel and
Valikangas (2003) found that organizations face four challenges to adapting. First, organizations
lack the awareness of how the status quo is changing and the ability to think through how those
changes will impact the organization. Second, because they are unaware or unable to think
through the changes, they often lack the ability to create real alternatives to the current strategy
in order to adapt to those changes. Third, without a new strategy, organizations are unable to
reallocate resources from current priorities to the new capabilities needed. And finally,
organizations often seek static excellence, rather than continuous improvement and renewal.
Gino (2018) reinforced this point by noting that leaders tend to optimize for current operations
rather than being curious and exploring new ways that might be better.
One challenge specific to HEIs is that a university is one of the most complex
organizations that exist today (Marshall, 2011; Perkins, 1973). Within one university there are a
myriad of objectives, and each stakeholder desires change where it fits their own objectives and
resists change that upset their view of the university as an institution (Marshall, 2011). These
conflicting purposes represent a key barrier to change within the organization. Similarly, Perkins
(1973), who wrote about the evolution of the universities’ mission to include teaching, research
22
and service to society, noted that universities now have these three missions, yet the
organizational structure was set up only for the first mission, which was teaching. He noted that
the third mission of public service requires the institution to have a broad commitment to society,
which is difficult in the decentralized structure that developed around teaching different faculties.
This represents another way of showing that a shared purpose for change across the university is
a primary obstacle to achieving change. With disparate stakeholders and objectives, the best path
for HEIs to create change will be through building a general culture of innovation and
entrepreneurship.
Overcoming Challenges to Build a Culture of Entrepreneurship
The previous sections laid out why universities need to cultivate innovation and
entrepreneurship to spur regional development. Previous sections also highlighted how
universities are generally slow to take up this change. This section lays out what it would take for
HEIs to create a culture that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship.
Elements of a Culture of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
While individuals carry out innovative and entrepreneurial behavior, the organizational
setting in which these individuals operate has substantial impact on encouraging or suppressing
that behavior. The concept of entrepreneurship, as defined by innovation and new ways to solve
problems (Drucker, 1998), does not have to be confined to an individual acting alone, but it can
be placed within an organizational setting. Employees in corporate settings can be
entrepreneurial by identifying new opportunities or finding innovative ways to solve problems
within their organization. An individual’s ability to act as an entrepreneur in an organizational
setting is influenced by the organization’s context and management (Peris-Ortiz, 2009). In other
words, an organization’s culture impacts the entrepreneurial orientation of that organization
23
(Brettel et al., 2015). Several factors have been shown to influence entrepreneurial behavior in an
organizational setting, such as human resources management (Hayton, 2005), the characteristics
of social networks within the organization (Floyd & Wooldridge, 1999), and knowledge creation
(Zahra et al., 1999). Peris-Ortiz (2009) highlighted the importance of cooperative behavior
among employees, a finding supported by Gino (2018), who found that curiosity, in particular,
encourages engagement and collaboration while reducing external conflict, thereby leading to
increased innovative behaviors.
In thinking about new abilities required, Hayton (2005) asserts that corporate
entrepreneurship “involves organizational learning, driven by collaboration, creativity and
individual commitment” (21). By contrast, Akgün, Lynn, and Byrne (2006) focus on
“organization unlearning,” which is the ability for employees to alter their perceptions, problem
solve rather than follow directions, and alter bad behavior to make changes to operations. This
ability to unlearn can also help an organization be flexible and weather turbulent or changing
market environments (Akgün et al., 2006; Leal-Rodríguez, Eldridge, Roldán, Leal-Millán, &
Ortega-Gutiérrez, 2015). These two seemingly inverse assertions illustrate the complex nature of
organizational cultures and the subsequent impact on encouraging new activities and solutions, in
other words, entrepreneurial behavior.
Fostering a Culture of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education
Research specific to higher education settings has shown specific characteristics that
foster innovation and entrepreneurship in a university. Schmitz et al. (2017) provided a lengthy
literature review with a table comparing the “characteristics of entrepreneurial universities”
across numerous authors. The entrepreneurial university requires different organizational
capacity, mindsets, metrics and other elements (Goldstein, 2010). Chrisman et al. (1995) found
24
that a culture supporting entrepreneurial activity is critical for faculty to engage in these
activities.
Urbano and Guerrero (2013) offered a comprehensive list of 11 elements – both internal
and external – of an entrepreneurial university, various elements of which have been supported
by additional researchers. First, entrepreneurial universities tend to have an organizational
structure that minimizes bureaucracy and fosters coordination, rather than tension, across
departments. Second, the governance structure is designed such that “the policies and practices
within the entrepreneurial university are clearly oriented toward enabling the university’s
prospective entrepreneurs” (p. 45). This includes the budget, which can have an impact on
potential entrepreneurship via implications to workload, personnel support, and infrastructure
(Chrisman et al., 1995). This element is also particularly supported by Wright (2014). Third, the
university has a number of systems set up to support entrepreneurial activity. Chrisman et al.
(1995) found that while not many faculty utilize formal programs, they also found that the
university’s support of such programs sends a strong message to that fosters faculty behavior.
Fourth, the attitudes of individuals across the university are favorable toward entrepreneurship.
Fifth, role models who have been successful offer “‘possibility proof’ for the entire community”
(Urbano & Guerrero, 2013, p. 45). Sixth, the university offers both monetary and nonmonetary
rewards for entrepreneurial behavior. Seventh, the university recruits academics and other
personnel who are oriented toward innovation. Eighth, the university experiences financial
independence due to increased resources from entrepreneurial activity. Ninth, the university
benefits from a physical infrastructure that fosters innovation and connections with funding
sources. Tenth, the university has “status and prestige” to attract talent and funding. Eleventh, the
university has set up “transdisciplinary and heterogenous structures, as well as hybridizing
25
organisms for collaborating, networking and partnering with multiple industries, universities and
private and public institutions in both national and international contexts” (Urbano & Guerrero,
2013, p. 46).
While not directly related to higher education, Gino (2018) supports many of these same
elements in the case for curiosity to spur innovation and new behavior. Specifically, she
highlighted that leaders in an organization can bolster curiosity in an organization through hiring
for the desired propensity, modeling the desired behavior, emphasizing related learning goals,
and facilitating conversations about why this behavior is beneficial, all of which are reflected in
the list above. Clearly, to embrace entrepreneurship, a university must look beyond individual
actors and incorporate numerous elements to transform the institution.
Role of Faculty in University Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Fostering a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship is ultimately intended to impact
the behavior of faculty, who are the individuals who execute on the innovation and
entrepreneurship through drawing practical connections between their research, regional
development, and the world. Chrisman et al. (1995) found that the rate of faculty
entrepreneurship has been accelerating, with the newer activity more likely to have greater
impact on economic development. Chrisman et al. (1995) also found that much of faculty
entrepreneurship contributes to technology advancements applied in a region as well as the
diversification of industry in a region, which means the creation of new ventures outside of the
region’s dominant industry. This diversification improves the regional infrastructure, which in
turn leads to an increased pace of change and development in the region (Chrisman et al., 1995).
These findings connect the role of faculty and faculty behavior specifically with the regional
development that universities increasingly seek.
26
While a university may include entrepreneurship in its mission, individual skills and
proclivities are the primary predictors of entrepreneurial behavior (Khorrami, Farhadian, &
Abbasi, 2018; Van Dam, Schipper, & Runhaar, 2010). Specifically, two skills emerged as
significant predictors of entrepreneurial behavior in faculty. The first is networking skills, both
inside and outside of the university setting (Khorrami et al., 2018; Van Dam et al., 2010). The
need for networking skills are supported by Chrisman et al. (1995), who found that ventures
created by outside entrepreneurs with faculty assistance were larger than those created by the
faculty by themselves. The implication is that the ability to connect with networks outside of the
university is helpful for faculty to have greater success in their entrepreneurial endeavors. The
second key skill is career adaptability, defined as the inclination to change career strategies and
efforts based on evolving conditions. (Van Dam et al., 2010; Khorrami et al., 2018). In addition
to these two skills, Van Dam et al. (2010) found that teamwork skills increased the likelihood of
such behavior in faculty, though Khorrami et al. (2018) did not come to the same conclusion.
Finally, in addition to skills, the knowledge of what entrepreneurial behavior involves is
also an influence on faculty behavior (Van Dam et al., 2010). Khorrami et al. (2018) noted that
educators’ lack of knowledge regarding entrepreneurship, marketing, and market forces generate
uncertainty and unpredictability, making it harder for educators to be entrepreneurs. Collectively,
the literature shows that if the goal of university leadership is to increase entrepreneurial
behavior among faculty, focusing on the development of the necessary skills, inclinations, and
knowledge among faculty as individuals would be an integral part of a university’s efforts.
In addition to individual faculty members’ skills and interests, Sanberg, Gharib, Harker,
Kaler, Marchase, Sands, Arshandi, and Sarkar (2014) noted that in order for faculty to apply their
research for impact, they need a different mindset and ways of operating than those faculty who
27
simply aim to conduct research. Sanberg et al. (2014) noted that the shift in faculty mindset has
been slow and point to misaligned incentives within the tenure and promotion guidelines as a
root cause. These authors advocate for recognition of faculty commercialization efforts in career
advancement and point to a number of HEIs where this is already the case. For example, the
University of Arizona recognizes “integrative and applied forms of scholarship that involve
cross-cutting collaborations with business and community partners, including translational
research, commercialization activities, and patents” in its career advancement policies (The
Office of the Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, 2012). At some of Purdue University’s
colleges, the tenure and promotion guidelines include commercialization driven by faculty on
departmental committees, an illustration of how universities can use faculty as advocates for
change (National Academy of Inventors, 2013). Tenure and promotion guidelines represent and
organization-level influence on faculty behavior, in addition to the individual skills and
knowledge previously discussed.
Faculty Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Influences
Knowledge
The literature indicates a number of knowledge-related elements that directly influence
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior in faculty who have not previously engaged in this type of
behavior. Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) explain the four kinds of knowledge that are critical to
successfully achieve a goal: the basic information or skills associated with the goal (factual), the
more complex details and relationships to achieve the goal (conceptual), how to progress toward
goal attainment (procedural), and how to self-monitor and adjust based on performance
(metacognitive). Yet, Clark and Estes (2008) note that people are often not aware that they lack
knowledge or are unwilling to admit their lack of knowledge. This section explores the
28
knowledge influences that are assumed to be critical for faculty capacity to engage in
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.
Knowledge of the Potential Benefits of Entrepreneurship
Research shows that entrepreneurial activity in a university setting can have several
benefits for the individual, the institution and the geographic region. Chrisman et al. (1995)
concluded that faculty can accrue substantial monetary gain due to entrepreneurial activity.
Etzkowitz et al. (2000) wrote about how entrepreneurship can have a positive impact on the
sustainability of the university by bringing in revenue to fund additional research, creating a self-
generating cycle. Additionally, Urbano and Guerrero (2013) presented the university as a driver
of regional development through utilization of the knowledge created at the university and
connecting it to entrepreneurial activities, thereby leading to new companies, increased
competition and diversity in industry. Yet, if faculty are not aware of these benefits to themselves
personally, their institution, or their city and state, they likely will not see the value in pursuing
this type of behavior.
Knowledge of the Steps necessary to Engage in Entrepreneurial Risk-taking Behavior
There are a number of approaches to entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, some of which
are highlighted earlier in this chapter. Van Dam et al. (2010) found that possessing the knowledge
of behaviors that are involved in entrepreneurship enabled teachers to actually engage in these
behaviors. Regardless of the approach, one key step toward entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior
is for faculty to connect a research finding to a practical implication, which could be in the realm
of business, nonprofit, or civic life, among others. This step is about utilizing the knowledge
generated in the university setting. Goldstein and Glaser (2012) noted various ways that
universities play a role in regional economic development. This includes the universities’ role as
29
a generator of knowledge, which can be a source of increased competitiveness for the region.
However, for the knowledge produced from the research function of a university to be an
advantage, it must be connected to practical implications and commercialized (Urbano &
Guerrero, 2013). Therefore, faculty must know how to take the next step to make their research
findings usable outside of the university setting. The procedural knowledge of how to take their
research and develop practical implications is an important pre-requisite for faculty to engage in
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.
Another related step is to connect faculty with people and organizations external to the
university to develop partnerships that help operationalize the research findings. Chrisman et al.
(1995) noted that some of the biggest barriers to faculty engaging in entrepreneurship include a
lack of capital, business experience, and market research. External partners can help faculty
overcome these barriers. Because they often lack prior experience engaging in entrepreneurial
behavior, many faculty members need to learn necessary skills to pursue entrepreneurial
behavior. Without this knowledge, they may have ideas with no way to operationalize them, even
if they have the motivation to do so. These are two of the most fundamental steps that would lead
faculty toward a greater likelihood of pursuing entrepreneurial behavior.
Knowledge of Self to Reflect on One’s Own Effectiveness in Execution of this Behavior
Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) highlighted that self-knowledge is a key element of
metacognition. Particularly, these authors noted that individuals need to understand their own
strengths and weaknesses as well as the strategies on which they are likely to rely. Applying this
literature to the context of this study, faculty need the ability to recognize when their preferred
strategy is not proving effective and alter their behavior in order to adapt to the best approach for
30
the particular situation. This ability to recognize one’s own limitations and adjust course leads to
increased ability to reach a goal.
Table 2 presents each of these knowledge influences along with the category of
knowledge in which they fall.
Table 2
Assumed Knowledge Influences
Assumed Knowledge Influence
“Knowledge of…”
Knowledge Type
The potential benefits of engaging in entrepreneurship, such as significant
personal economic benefits and contributing to regional economic
development

Declarative
(Conceptual)

The steps necessary to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior,
including connecting scholarship to practical implications and building
relationships with external partners

Procedural

How to self-reflect on his or her own effectiveness in execution of this
behavior.

Metacognitive

Motivation
In addition to knowledge, motivation is the other psychological system that guides
individual behavior (Clark & Estes, 2008). Schunk, Meece, and Pintrich (2014) identified three
areas in which motivation influences behavior: active choice, persistence, and effort. Without
motivation, faculty may know how to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, but are
unlikely to decide to pursue it, persist at it, or put in the necessary effort. Specifically, higher
levels of perceived value are likely to motivate an individual to start an activity (Rueda, 2011).
Therefore, faculty will likely not choose to pursue the behavior if they do not perceive any value
in doing so or if they believe their professional standing in the university could be harmed if they
do not succeed. Additionally, Bandura (1986) found that without adequate self-efficacy, the
31
belief that one can be successful in a task, he or she will likely not persist at that task through
completion. Self-efficacy theory can be applied to faculty such that if they do not feel self-
efficacious in entrepreneurial risk-taking efforts, they will likely not persist at it. This section
further explains the underlying motivation influences on faculty likelihood to engage in
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.
Faculty Value Related to Engaging in Entrepreneurial Risk-taking Behavior
Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, and Norman (2010) noted that the importance of an
activity to an individual is a critical element of motivation. In the case of this study, faculty need
to understand the value of engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior in order to decide to
pursue it, which is directly related to the knowledge influence regarding potential benefits of
engaging in entrepreneurial behavior. Chrisman et al. (1995) found that monetary reward for
faculty entrepreneurship can be quite significant, which could provide utility value for faculty.
These authors also found that faculty entrepreneurship contributed to regional economic
development, which could provide utility as well as other kinds of value, such as importance
value. If faculty perceive the potential value associated with entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior,
they are be more likely to decide to engage in it.
Faculty Self-efficacy Related to Successfully Engaging in Entrepreneurial Risk-taking
Behavior
Rueda (2011) highlighted that self-efficacy is a particularly relevant motivational
influence when individuals face difficulty engaging in an activity. If individuals do not believe
that they will succeed at an activity, they are likely to stop engaging in it. In this way, self-
efficacy impacts a person’s likelihood to persist. Given the long-term and challenging nature of
engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, faculty need to believe that they can be
32
successful in order to continue to persist when they face challenges. Ambrose et al. (2010)
related individuals’ self-efficacy to whether or not they perceive their organization as supportive
of the activity, such that a supportive environment leads to increased self-efficacy. While this
study explores the role of the organization further in the next section, it ties into the overall
research-based theory that individuals who feel they can be successful at an activity are likely to
have higher motivation. Urbano and Guerrero (2013) supported self-efficacy theory specifically
in relation to entrepreneurial behavior in a university setting by noting the importance of role
models who have been successful and offer “’possibility proof’ for the entire community” (p.
45).
Faculty Cost Value Related to the Effort Involved in Entrepreneurial Risk-taking Behavior
As mentioned in the previous section, entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior is likely to
require substantial time and energy on the part of the faculty member. Rueda (2011) called this
time and energy required to pursue an activity the cost value of that activity, and that to increase
the likelihood that someone is motivated to do an activity, the utility and importance value must
be higher than the cost value of engaging in it. Therefore, faculty members must believe that the
cost of time and energy to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior will be less than the
expected value they will get out of it.
Faculty Cost Value Related to Professional Standing
Another element of cost value in the case of this study is the perception that an
unsuccessful attempt at entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior may impair the faculty member’s
professional standing, such as progress toward tenure. Similar to the cost value motivation
influence above, faculty need to believe that the potential benefits outweigh the risk. If faculty
have a minimal or non-existent perception that their professional standing is at risk based on the
33
outcomes of any entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, even limited perceived value would
outweigh the risk and lead to enhanced motivation to pursue such behavior.
To summarize all these motivational influences, Table 3 captures the assumed influences
and associated constructs.
Table 3
Assumed Motivation Influences
Assumed Motivation Influence
“Faculty need to…”
Motivation Construct
Perceive engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior as
beneficial, such as potentially significant personal economic
benefits and contributing the regional economic development.

Value (Utility,
Attainment, and
potentially other kinds)
Believe they are capable of being successful at effectively
engaging in application of research to practice through
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.

Self-Efficacy
Believe that engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior is
worth the effort that it will take (i.e., perceived positive cost-
benefit analysis).

Cost Value
Believe that their professional standing at the university, including
progress toward tenure, will not be harmed by unsuccessful
attempts at entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.

Cost Value

Organization
While knowledge and motivation influences focus on the individual, the organizational
context affects individuals’ knowledge and motivation. Research in behavioral theory found that
altering the environment changes individuals’ behavior (Daly, 2010). Clark and Estes (2008)
highlighted that assessment of organizational influences requires critical examination because
people generally prefer to blame the organization for problems, rather than attribute the problems
to their own lack of knowledge or motivation. However, these authors also noted that when the
34
data mentions a problem with organizational policies or resources, these are organizational
influences. These organizational influences can be further classified into two categories, cultural
models and cultural settings (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Cultural models include the
intangible culture and norms that people internalize within an organizational context and that
shaped their behavior. In contrast, cultural settings are the more concrete or tangible elements of
an environment (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Regardless of whether an influence is a
cultural model or setting, organizational influences are important to address for several reasons.
First, the organization is generally the entity setting the goals and identifying the gaps, therefore
the organization will likely be the entity to work to address the gaps in desired performance.
Then, the organization can make changes that have widespread impact on the behavior of the
individuals within the organization, and those individuals often need the support of the
organization to address the gaps in performance.
A Culture of Faculty Willingness to Take Risks
The purpose of this study is to explore what would be needed to support the item in the
N│150 report that states that UNL will “support a campus-wide ethos of informed risk taking”
as one of the ways in which UNL will fulfill its role as a driver of economic development in the
state of Nebraska (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2018, p. 7). As noted in the Chapter 2,
Urbano and Guerrero (2013) found that in an “entrepreneurial university” the attitudes of
individuals across the university are favorable to entrepreneurship. Additionally, Chrisman et al.
(1995) stated that a university culture that supports entrepreneurial behavior is critical. An
organization can go about changing organizational models through using more tangible changes
in organizational settings to influence more unconscious cultural elements. Therefore, the
35
organizational settings mentioned in later sections that are oriented toward openness to
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior may thereby affect the culture.
A Culture of Trust to Take Risks
This organizational influence is directly related to the cost value motivation influence that
faculty need to believe that their professional standing at the university will not be harmed if they
are to take risks and not be successful. Because the organizational culture impacts the
individuals’ beliefs and attitudes (Rueda, 2011), the organization must actively shape the culture
to increase the likelihood that faculty believe they are safe to take risks without undue harm.
Such a culture is likely to lead to increased motivation, which in turn is likely to lead to
increased likelihood of faculty deciding to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.
Faculty Incentive Structure
The faculty incentive structure is yet another step in the organization, motivation,
behavior chain. Behavioral theory states that rewards and punishments influence behavior (Daly,
2010). Applied to this study, university policies that reward entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior
may increase the likelihood that greater numbers of faculty would engage in this behavior.
Sanberg et al. (2014) asserted that faculty incentives are often misaligned with use-oriented
research and commercialization. This article advocated for career advancement policies to
include recognition of activities such as patents, commercialization, and even impact of research.
Additionally, Urbano and Guerrero (2013) highlighted that entrepreneurial universities have both
monetary and non-monetary rewards to incentivize entrepreneurial behavior. The most
comprehensive policies would include indicators of entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior in
tenure and promotion decisions, which would lead to both financial and status rewards for those
faculty who engage in the desired behaviors. Ensuring that tenure and promotion policies reward
36
entrepreneurial behavior is one significant way the university can send the message that the
leadership values entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior and would likely increase the value for
faculty members. Faculty will generally align their time and energy toward where it has the most
value for them, therefore changing the policies may lead to faculty members re-prioritizing their
time to include entrepreneurial activity.
University-provided Resources and Support
There are numerous ways that a university can offer resources and support for faculty
who wish to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior. Chrisman et al. (1995) found that
faculty usage of these resources was limited, but that these resources are still significant to
fostering entrepreneurial behavior. One key resource is a program or center that helps faculty
overcome the barriers related to the knowledge influences described earlier, such as helping
faculty to actively connect with external partners and develop working agreements. These
programs may also provide more concrete support, such as legal services to file patents, articles
of incorporation, or other legal documentation. Additionally, these programs or centers may
connect faculty with the tools or resources to overcome their lack of knowledge related to
industry as described in the knowledge influence regarding the steps necessary for faculty to
engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.
University Promotion of Resources and Support
Finally, the university can offer substantial resources and support to faculty to engage in
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, but if the faculty do not know about these resources, they
cannot engage with them. Promotion of these resources serves two purposes. First, it sends the
message to faculty that the university leadership values entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior such
that the they are willing to allocate university resources to support faculty. Second, it lets faculty
37
know that the resources are available for their use, should they decide to pursue such behavior.
Table 4 displays a compilation of all of the organization influences mentioned in this section.
Table 4
Assumed Organization Influences
Assumed Organizational Influence
“The university needs…”
Organization
Construct
A culture of willingness among faculty to take risks through adopting
new behavior.

Cultural Model
Influence 1

A culture of trust between the administration and faculty, such that
faculty feel comfortable engaging in this type of behavior without fear
of diminished professional standing.

Cultural Model
Influence 2
Faculty incentive structures that reward engagement in entrepreneurial
risk-taking behavior through guidelines and criteria for tenure and
promotion.

Cultural Setting
Influence 1
Resources to support faculty engagement in entrepreneurial risk-
taking behavior, such as connections to potential collaborations,
mentorship and role models, and funding, among others.

Cultural Setting
Influence 2

Communication and promotion of the services and resources it
provides faculty to support entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.

Cultural Setting
Influence 3

Conclusion
The role of universities has evolved over the past decades, beginning with teaching and
research to increasingly include service to society. Entrepreneurship is one approach to connect
HEIs’ key asset – knowledge – to solutions outside of the university, thereby stimulating regional
development. This incremental development is a part of the role of HEI fulfilling its service to
society. Entrepreneurial endeavors can also create benefits for the university via enhanced
reputation, increased relevance in society, and potential financial gain. “Academic
entrepreneurship” as a concept has been gaining traction in the past decade, and scholars have
38
increasingly studied what makes a university entrepreneurial. Research from the business
discipline can also inform HEIs’ endeavors to create a culture that encourages innovation and
entrepreneurship. Finally, the latter section of the chapter synthesized research from social
science, business, and the academic disciplines to assess the assumed knowledge, motivation,
and organization influences that will serve as the framework for inquiry throughout the research
methodology and data analysis in this study.

39
CHAPTER THREE: METHODS
The purpose of this study was to understand what would be required to increase
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior among the faculty at UNL to spur regional development in
the state of Nebraska. This chapter lays out the research methodology designed to address the
following research questions:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences dimensions that
enable some faculty to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior?
2. How can the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that support faculty
engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior be fostered to increase this UNL
faculty behavior by 10%?
The following sections outline the various elements of data collection and analysis for
this study. The chapter begins with a detailed description of the participant sampling strategy and
rationale for both a survey and interviews. The chapter then goes into the specific data collection
methods and instrumentation for this study. The following section outlines expected data analysis
on the data collected through these instruments. A section on credibility and trustworthiness then
lays out the various ways in which this methodology is designed to gather accurate and relevant
data, and the ethics sections lays out how this study prioritizes treatment of the participants.
Finally, the last section discusses the delimitations that bound this study as well as the study’s
limitations.
Participating Stakeholders
Because my research questions focused on changing the behavior of faculty at UNL, the
general stakeholder population of focus in this study was current tenured and tenure-track faculty
at UNL, across all schools and disciplines. The goal was to study this group in order to better
40
understand why they do and do not decide to pursue entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior and
what may increase their likelihood to do so.
Survey Sampling Criteria and Rationale
Criterion 1
The survey sample included all current, full-time faculty at UNL.
Criterion 2
The survey sample included the approximately 1,100 tenured and tenure-track faculty
only and excluded the approximately 575 special appointment faculty members.
Survey Sampling Strategy and Rationale
I used a comprehensive sampling strategy and sent the survey to all UNL tenured and
tenure-track faculty, making this a census rather than a survey (Johnson & Christensen, 2017).
This means that I sought total population participation, approximately 1,100 faculty, who fit the
criteria laid out above (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2019). This broad sample allowed for a
picture of faculty perspectives across the university on the knowledge, motivation, and
organization influences outlined in Chapter Two. Additionally, this relatively comprehensive set
of criteria included both those who have and have not exhibited entrepreneurial or risk-taking
behavior. Through asking whether or not faculty have engaged in this type of behavior on the
survey, as well as questions pertaining to the assume knowledge, motivation, and organization
influences, I was able to validate or invalidate the influences and better identify gaps.
The survey was administered before the interviews in the data collection process. The
survey was open five weeks and aligned with when faculty were most likely to have availability
to fill it out during the fall semester, beginning October 28, 2019. The final question on the
survey asked participants if they would be willing to volunteer for an interview. This list of self-
41
identified volunteers was intended to be utilized as a back-up if the desired number of interviews
is not attained as defined in the following section, but it was not needed.
Interview Sampling Criterion and Rationale
Criterion 1
All participants selected for this study were current faculty at UNL.
Criterion 2
Participants were screened to purposively select faculty who have previously engaged in
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior as defined by this study.
Interview Sampling Strategy and Rationale
For interviews, a collaborator who recently served in an executive leadership role at the
university level and who has deep, institutional knowledge of UNL selected 13 faculty members
based on the specific criteria listed above. This collaborator ensured alignment on qualities to
look for in faculty who have exhibited entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, which this study
defines as, “a type of activity or practice with implications for generating jobs, fostering
innovation and increasing productivity by means of which the creation of incomes and wealth is
enhanced” (Ahwireng-Obeng, 1993, p. 151). Specifically, I worked with this collaborator to
identify faculty who have engaged in connecting their work to practical applications outside of
the university or creating a business venture or non-profit outside of the university. I also worked
with this collaborator to seek faculty from across disciplines, to the extent possible. Overall,
purposefully selecting faculty who exhibited the desired behavior in the past, whether they have
been successful or not, led to more information-rich interviews (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I was
able to interview 12 of the 13 faculty members selected by the collaborator.
42
I started with 12 participants in the sample, so that I confidently reached saturation of
themes. While the number of participants to reach saturation of themes cannot be known
beforehand (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016), past experience told me that I would likely reach that
point before approximately 10 interviews total. I did hear repetition of information with my
original sample and did not need to request additional introductions for interviews in order to
reach saturation.
Recruitment began with an email from my collaborator to introduce me to the faculty
member and explain the purpose of the study. I then followed-up with the faculty members with
additional information and requested to schedule a time for an interview. I made every attempt to
schedule these interviews in person during two periods of time when I traveled to Nebraska. I
conducted 11 interviews in person and one interview by video due to the scheduling constraints
of the faculty member. I completed the interviews during November and December 2019.
Data Collection and Instrumentation
This section details how I collected the data for this study. I started by reviewing
documents for context, conducted the survey next, and finished with interviews shortly
thereafter. Each data collection method connected to the research questions and the conceptual
framework. Each element in the survey and interview instruments derived directly from the
knowledge, motivation, and organization influences outlined in Chapter 2.
For this study, I reviewed documents to provide context for the data collection and
findings from the survey and interviews. I used the UNL website to acquire a baseline
understanding of the resources and support that UNL offered regarding entrepreneurial risk-
taking behavior in advance of the interviews to better understand participant responses and probe
where appropriate. Additionally, the UNL website contained the current tenured and promotion
43
guidelines, which I downloaded and reviewed to provide context regarding the organization
influence related to faculty incentive structures. These documents helped inform the portion of
the research questions pertaining to organizational needs to support increased faculty
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.
Surveys
I administered the survey portion of this study online, via Qualtrics, an online survey
software. I sent an introductory email containing a link to the survey to all tenured and tenure-
track from the leadership at UNL. I was unable to get an official faculty list from UNL
administration, so I compiled the list based on publicly available resources online. The survey
was open for five weeks, and I sent two reminder emails during that period to encourage a higher
response rate.
I created the survey instrument format based on literature guiding effective survey
writing (Robinson & Leonard, 2019). The survey instrument contained 19 items related directly
to the knowledge, motivation, and organization conceptual framework, including 15 closed-
ended and four open-ended items that were voluntary. Additionally, the survey included one
question regarding willingness to volunteer, and four demographic questions. The demographic
questions included current title, college affiliation, number of years of employment at UNL, and
gender. The instrument contained three items related to the three factual and procedural
knowledge influences, using a “select all that apply” response format. The motivation influence
related to value used a ranking response format. And remaining items covering the motivation
influences as well as all the organization influences used a six-point Likert scale response format.
The survey did not collect data related to the metacognitive knowledge element, as surveys are
44
not effective means to measure this element. Appendix A includes the survey instrument
designed for this study.
I increased the reliability and validity of the survey through a number of approaches.
Each knowledge, motivation, and organization influence had more than one item to increase
reliability. The clarity and focus of each item also ensured that the survey is closely aligned with
the conceptual elements I examined. I worked to achieve content validity through ensuring that
the survey reflected prior research conducted on the topic, which I explored in the literature
review. Overall, I worked with my dissertation committee chair and a faculty advisor at USC
who is an expert on the content to utilize their expertise to help achieve validity.
Interviews
Interviews served an important role in data collection to get deeper information regarding
faculty members’ perspectives on entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior in the UNL setting.
Specifically, due to its long-term nature, I could not observe entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior
in the course of this study. Therefore, interviewing was required to better understand the faculty
members’ points of view (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). My goal was to conduct 12 one-on-one
interviews. Due to the time constraints of this study, I conducted one interview with each
participant. I scheduled the hour-long interviews over a time period in the fall and traveled to
Lincoln, Nebraska to conduct them in person. Only one participant was not available during that
period, so I used video conferencing to conduct that interview.
For the in-person interviews, I worked with a UNL staff member to set up a private room
to conduct the sessions. The interviews lasted up to an hour in duration. I conducted the
interviews myself, which meant that I am inherently part of the research instrument and data
collection. I conducted semi-structured interviews based on an interview protocol, which allowed
45
me to explore answers to my research questions while also allowing open-ended exploration into
the faculty members’ unique perspectives on the topic, seeking richer information (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). I probed topics when I did not fully understand the participant’s response and in
situations where it seemed the participant has more depth to share. I conducted a pilot interview
with a staff member from a different university who is not a part of this study to test the
instrument questions in advance and make edits in an attempt to get the most rich data from the
participants in this study. Each of these elements laid out are based on the guidance of Merriam
and Tisdell (2016) regarding conducting effective interviews.
This interview protocol included 13 questions directly related to the knowledge,
motivation, and organization influences. These questions combined four of Patton’s (2002) six
question types, including experience and behavior questions, opinion and value questions,
feeling questions, and knowledge questions. Appendix B includes the interview protocol
designed for this study. I gathered background and demographic data on the participant via their
biography on the internet, and only asked clarifying questions regarding this information if
needed. However, I began the interview with a general, descriptive question. Merriam and
Tisdell (2016) noted that this approach is effective to aid the recall and set the frame of mind for
the participant in the interview.
Data Analysis
For survey responses, I calculated descriptive statistics after the survey closed and all
responses were finalized. I calculated frequencies and percentages for questions with a multiple-
choice selection response format. For all questions that utilized a Likert scale response format, I
calculated the mean and standard deviation to analyze averages among the items. For the two
questions that asked participants to select all items that apply, I analyzed how often each choice
46
was selected. I coded the responses to the four open-ended survey questions using the same
coding process described below for interviews.
I began data analysis for the interviews during the data collection phase. After each day
of interviews, I re-read my notes and wrote analytic memos to capture themes, emergent
observations, and initial conclusions from the data. In this way, I had a process to methodically
link my data collection and analysis to the research questions and conceptual framework. At the
end of each day of conducting interviews, I sent the interview recordings to be professionally
transcribed.
After receiving the transcriptions and returning from traveling to conduct the interviews,
I began the process of coding the interviews. While I read and coded each interview transcript
manually, I used Atlas.ti software to help me organize and keep track of the codes across the
transcripts. Initially, I used open coding, utilizing both a priori codes based on the conceptual
framework as well as looking for empirical codes in the data. For the second level of coding, I
categorized these open codes into analytic codes. In the third phase, I identified patterns and
themes, based on the analytic codes and using my conceptual framework and research questions
to guide the analysis. These patterns and themes directly led to the findings and assertions in
Chapter Four.
Recognizing that I am inherently biased as the human researcher, I incorporated a number
of analytical tools into my data analysis process in order to distance myself from and more
deeply analyze the data. In addition to this distance, analytical tools have the benefit of inducing
new ways of thinking about the data to reveal novel findings (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Asking
questions of the data helped me to get started digging into the data on a deeper level than simply
reading what the participants said. This tool helped me mentally probe what the participants
47
meant. I also looked for emotions in the data and what topics brought on these emotions. Given
that entrepreneurial behavior is inherently risky, emotions such as fear or exhilaration are
examples of what arose. Finally, I looked throughout the data for the negative case, or an
experience that does not fit the others. Understanding areas of difference helped uncover
alternative hypotheses or new facets in the data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).
Validity and Reliability
I used the information from the survey to triangulate the data in the interviews, as well as
understand the more widespread trends across the faculty at UNL. In these ways, I utilized the
survey data in conjunction with the data from the interviews to validate the gaps in what the
participants reveal as important to support entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior and what the
general faculty population experienced in terms of knowledge, motivation, and organizational
factors.
In addition, I worked to ensure the accuracy and relevance of the data and findings of the
quantitative portion of this study through various methods. As mentioned in the Data Collection
and Instrumentation section, I worked to achieve a strong response rate by sending a reminder
email halfway through the three-week survey window. The online data collection method and the
limited number of questions also increased the response rate. After the survey is closed, I ran
descriptive statistics on the respondent demographics to verify the representative nature of the
sample. Chapter 4 provides an overview of these demographics. I encouraged truthfulness from
the respondents through offering anonymity in their responses. I reduced confusion through the
simple format of the survey, with only a few question types, and all Likert scale questions using
the same scale.
48
Credibility and Trustworthiness
Throughout this study, I used a variety of approaches to increase the credibility and
trustworthiness of the data and research findings. Maxwell (2013) noted that bias is inherent in
qualitative research, and he lists a number of methods to minimize bias. As the researcher, I
recognized that I had inherent bias based on my background in business, and that I had a
generally positive perspective on entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior in universities. As such, I
was reflective of this position and careful to re-read my data and findings with a critical lens,
searching for where this bias may have arisen. I used triangulation between the different data
collection methods to reduce the potential bias inherent in any one data collection method. I also
used triangulation amidst the interview data, looking for any discrepant evidence across the
accounts of the interviewees.
Finally, due to my background in business and personal relationships, I recognized that I
had an inherent bias that entrepreneurship and innovation generally have a positive influence on
an institution. Also, because the desire to create an “ethos of informed risk-taking” comes
directly from UNL’s strategic plan, I was generally accepting the strategic planning process and
trusting that this ethos would be positive for the UNL community overall. I made every effort to
be cognizant of this bias when interacting with participants, especially those participants who
may not believe that the university should encourage entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, and
worked to avoid visible signs of judgement related to their attitudes or beliefs.
Ethics
I had no prior relationship with UNL as an institution nor the participants of this study. I
had no power or authority over the faculty at UNL in general nor the participants of this study.
49
However, I did receive minimal assistance from university staff, including those in the Provost’s
Office.
A key component of ethical research is gaining informed consent (Rubin & Rubin, 2012).
I asked for and received verbal consent from all interviews participants after going through the
Information Sheet. This sheet notified the faculty participants about the purpose of this research,
that their participation was voluntary, and that they were able to withdraw at any time without
penalty. The sheet also informed faculty participants that they would not receive any
compensation for participating in the study. The sheet included my contact information as well as
Institutional Review Board (IRB) contact information in case the participant had any concerns in
the future. Appendix C contains the information sheet used for this study.
During this consent process, I also asked for participant consent to record. I recorded the
interviews for accuracy and credibility of the data. To protect the data and the participants, I
transferred the recordings from my table to my computer as soon as possible. I kept the
recordings on my password protected computer, did not share them, and deleted them after I
successfully defended my dissertation and graduated. To protect their confidentiality, I created
pseudonyms for each interview participant, and did not attach their real names to any quotations
that I used. Because I only interviewed 12 participants, some anecdotes may make it clear with
whom I spoke, though I made every effort to de-identify them with the use of pseudonyms and
not using identifiable characteristics in reporting. In these ways, I seriously adhered to the
principle of avoiding harm to participants (Glesne, 2011; Rubin & Rubin, 2012).
Limitations and Delimitations
One key limitation of this study was which faculty members chose to complete the survey
and participate in interviews, which created an inherent bias in the data. Additionally, because
50
the survey and interviews collected self-reported data, the data was shaped by the awareness of
the individual and their honesty regarding the context and their own knowledge and motivation.
While these elements were generally outside of my control, the sections regarding credibility and
trustworthiness, as well as reliability and validity, outline the steps I took to minimize these
limitations.
I initially delimited this study to tenured and tenure-track faculty at UNL, which means
that this study will not reveal the voices of the adjunct faculty and staff. However, interview
participants did include Professors of Practice. While this creates a discrepancy, these non-
tenured faculty provided information-rich data with baring on the findings. I defined
entrepreneurship and risk-taking behavior by faculty broadly in this study, including activity
beyond the traditional definition of entrepreneurship that primarily includes tech transfer and
spinoffs. However, I bounded this study to include only faculty behavior applying their research
to practical implications toward the end of regional development, and not included their behavior
as it relates to using entrepreneurship in the curriculum or risk-taking behavior within the
university setting that will not be applied outside of the university. These delimitations were
reflected in the assumed knowledge, motivation, and organization influences that I identified for
this study, as well as the methodology.

51
CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS
The purpose of this chapter is to report the findings from the interviews and surveys outlined
in the last chapter. This study collected qualitative data via 12 interviews conducted on campus
at UNL, as well as 1,476 surveys. Data were coded and analyzed to identify faculty knowledge,
motivation, and organizational influences that impacted faculty participants’ entrepreneurial,
risk-taking behavior. The survey data was then assessed and used along with the interview data
to identify key themes.
In this chapter, the findings are organized by theme and based on the knowledge, motivation,
and organization conceptual framework used throughout this study. Because this is an innovation
study, assumed influences were validated when there was evidence that changes need to occur in
the future to achieve the stakeholder goal. Influences were not validated when there was
evidence that the influence was already supported among faculty at UNL. Therefore, UNL would
not need to make substantial changes to these influences to achieve the stakeholder goal of 10%
increase in faculty who engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. If the data related to an
influence was neither strongly positive nor negative, the influence was partially validated,
indicating that innovation or an intervention related to this influence could increase faculty
engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. This chapter presents survey and interview
results together to report key themes that emerged from the data as they relate to the research
questions. As stated in Chapter 1, the research questions that guided this study include:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that enable some
faculty to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior?
52
2. How can the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that support faculty
engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior be fostered to increase this UNL
faculty behavior by 10%?
Overall, the data indicated that changes to organizational influences to remove organizational
barriers to faculty engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity, would be the first and
most effective step to changing faculty behavior. Specifically, altering faculty tenure and
promotion incentives and time allocations would influence faculty motivation to engage in such
behavior. Additionally, improving resources to support faculty who want to engage in
entrepreneurial behavior can help overcome the validated need for faculty procedural knowledge
regarding how to go about engaging in such behavior. Generally, interview participants believed
there was a cadre of faculty interested in engaging in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior, and
that organizational changes would encourage many of them to do so. Then, hiring for people
who are inclined toward this type of activity would be the next, longer-term step to further
increase faculty behavior. At the same time, many participants recognized that while it is
desirable to create a campus-wide “ethos of informed risk-taking,” these activities will always be
limited to a subset of faculty, and not applicable across all faculty.
Participating Stakeholders
Interview Participants
A collaborator with deep, institution-wide knowledge of UNL contacted 13 faculty
members that they believed had exhibited entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. Twelve of these
faculty members agreed to participate. Interview participants represented six different academic
departments, including biochemistry, journalism, business, computer science, journalism, and
arts. Eight interview participants were male; four were female. Six interview participants were
53
tenured or tenure-track faculty and five were Professors of Practice. Table 5 displays interview
participants’ pseudonyms and faculty rank to help keep their identities confidential.
Table 5
Interview participants (n = 12)
Pseudonym Faculty Rank
Charles Pickering Professor
Elizabeth O’Leary Professor
David Hunt Professor
Wendell Qin Professor
William Brown Professor
James Lehrer Professor
Josh Gibbons Professor of Practice
Samuel Lyon Professor of Practice
John Santos Associate Professor of Practice
Susan Baker Assistant Professor of Practice
Molly Jones Assistant Professor of Practice
Taylor Harris Other

Ten interview participants engaged in behaviors that fall into the entrepreneurial, risk-
taking definition used in this study. The other two participants were faculty members within the
Center for Entrepreneurship, UNL’s primary resource on campus to support this type of behavior.
In this way, the faculty members interviewed represent outliers among faculty who engage in or
interact with faculty who engage in this behavior already. The purpose was to better understand
why and how they engage in this behavior and how those learnings may be applied to other
faculty members to achieve the goal of 10% increase in the number of faculty who engage in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking activities.
54
Survey Participants
The survey email went to 1,476 email addresses. The list of email addresses was
compiled via public sources online due to the lack of direct access from the university, and the
actual number of tenure and tenure-track faculty was 1,100, so the list may have had invalid
additions. To address this discrepancy, surveys for respondents that did not fit the desired criteria
in the demographic questions were terminated. There were 198 tenured and tenure-track faculty
members who participated in the survey, while 164 completed it. This represents an 11%
completion rate. Respondents reported an average of 13.5 years of employment at UNL, with a
mean of 11 years and range of less than one to 44 years. This expansive range reflects
participation across newer and longer-standing faculty, also likely spanning a wide age range.
Participants were 65% male, 34% female, and 1% nonbinary. In this way, respondent gender
demographics closely represented the actual split between male and female tenured and tenure-
track faculty at UNL, which was 67% and 33% respectively in the fall of 2019 (UNL, 2019).
Participants represented 11 of the 12 colleges, as shown in Figure 1.

55
Figure 1
Survey Participants by College

The survey included a filtering question to understand the proportion of faculty
respondents who have previously engaged in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior as defined by
this study. Using a Likert scale of 1 to 6 from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree,” in
response to the statement “I have engaged in entrepreneurial activity as defined by this study,”
the participant average was 3.51 (n=172, standard deviation=1.74), as shown by Figure 1. Figure
2 also illustrates the breakdown of respondents by gender.

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
Graduate Studies
Public Affairs and Community Service
School of Comp Sci and Mgmt
Journalism and Mass Comms
Business
Law
Architecture
College of Fine and Performing Arts
Education and Human Sciences
Engineering
Arts and Sciences
Agricultural Sci. and Natural Resources
56
Figure 2
I have Engaged in Entrepreneurial Activity as Defined by This Study

These results indicate that participants were relatively evenly split between those who self-report
that they have engaged in entrepreneurial behavior and those who have not. The results of this
survey item were also useful to filter additional survey items to understand differences between
those faculty respondents who engaged in this type of behavior.
Findings
The data validated five and partially validated three out of 12 a priori influences;
validated and partially validated influences will require innovation to accomplish the stakeholder
goal. Additionally, two emergent themes arose from data analysis that span across the
knowledge, motivation, and organization categories. Table 6 summarizes the a priori influences
discussed in Chapter 2 and the two emergent themes, along with their validation status.
Mean: 3.51
Std.D: 1.74
Total: 55.2% Total: 44.8%

57
Table 6
Influences and validation status
Gap Analysis
Component Validated
Partially
validated
Not
Validated Assumed Influence
Knowledge
X
The potential benefits of engaging in entrepreneurship, such as significant personal
economic benefits and contributing to regional economic development.
X
The steps necessary to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, including connecting
scholarship to practical implications and building relationships with external partners.
X How to self-reflect on his or her own effectiveness in execution of this behavior.
Motivation
“Faculty need
to…”
X
Faculty perceive engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior as beneficial, such as
potentially significant personal economic benefits and contributing the regional economic
development.
X
Faculty believe they are capable of being successful at effectively engaging in application of
research to practice through entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.
X
Faculty believe that engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior is worth the effort that
it will take (i.e., perceived positive cost-benefit analysis).
X
Faculty believe that their professional standing at the university, including progress toward
tenure, will not be harmed by unsuccessful attempts at entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.
Organization
“The university
needs…”
X

A culture of willingness among faculty to take risks through adopting new behavior.
X
A culture of trust between the administration and faculty, such that faculty feel comfortable
engaging in this type of behavior without fear of diminished professional standing.
X
Faculty incentive structures that reward engagement in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior
through guidelines and criteria for tenure and promotion.
X
Resources to support faculty engagement in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, such as
connections to potential collaborations, mentorship and role models, and funding, among
others.
X
Communication and promotion of the services and resources it provides faculty to support
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.
Emergent
influences
X

The university needs to hire people inclined to engage in this behavior.
X

NUtech needs to be considered a resource, rather than a barrier.
Running head: FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHA VIOR 58
58
Knowledge Findings
As discussed in Chapter 2, knowledge influences were categorized using Krathwohl’s
(2002) classifications, including factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive elements.
The three assumed influences correspond with the latter three types of knowledge: conceptual
knowledge of the benefits, procedural knowledge of how to go about entrepreneurial, risk-taking
activity, and metacognitive knowledge to reflect on and adjust one’s efforts as needed. In general,
that data indicated that faculty possess the conceptual and metacognitive knowledge needed;
therefore, these influences do not require change and were not validated. However, the data
indicated that faculty lack the procedural knowledge, as well as the skills necessary to execute on
the action steps required, so this influence was validated as requiring change to achieve the
stakeholder goal.
Conceptual Knowledge of the Benefits of Entrepreneurial Behavior
Overall, data show that faculty conceptually know about the potential benefits associated
with entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. Therefore, the need for change associated with this
influence to achieve the stakeholder goal was not invalidated. Interview participants highlighted
a range of benefits of engaging in entrepreneurial behavior, indicating that they understand this
can have broad impact. Some benefits noted by interview participants included those accrued to
themselves individually, such as personal interest and advancing their work, ideas and research.
Interview participant Wendell Qin said, “I am a better engineer because of it. Then that’s a
benefit.” Interview participants also underscored benefits to their students through enhanced
learning experiences, the ability to work on real-world problems, and connection to jobs.
William Brown explained, “The benefits to faculty are also the benefits to their students, which
is they're working on real problems… starting early with getting them to learn what the problems
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 59
59
are and learn how to start solving them.” Interview participants also reported benefits to the
university’s reputation, relevance, and fulfillment of the land grant mission. These findings
reflect ideas from Christensen and Eyring (2022), who wrote that HEIs are no longer offering
what people find valuable. Layne and Lake (2015) also wrote about how HEIs are challenged to
explain how their educational offerings and degrees are relevant. Interview participant James
Lehrer said,
That's actually one of our motives… to enhance the reputation of the university in the
community. We want people thinking when they need an unbiased stack of research, to
come to UNL. So, definitely enhancing the name of the university throughout the state is
part of our ethos when we're developing [this type of work].
Interview participants also noted benefits to the state or region through economic advancement,
job creation, and community engagement. These findings mirror much of the research regarding
the role of universities in fostering regional development, including Birch’s (1987) assertion that
HEIs, especially research universities, provide a local resource for innovation, which is useful in
a knowledge-based economy. At UNL, Charles Pickering talked about his own entrepreneurial
endeavor by explaining, “And here in Nebraska…our goal is to build something that is big
enough that we now have 30, 40 people that now work for a company.” The survey results
corroborated the finding that faculty know about a range of potential benefits. In the survey item
that asked faculty to select the benefits that they see associated with engaging with
entrepreneurial activity, faculty respondents each selected 3.08 benefits on average. This mean
indicates that faculty conceptually linked multiple benefits with this behavior (see Figure 5 in the
motivation section for the benefits selected). While the data showed that most faculty know
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 60
60
about the benefits, the benefits that motivate them were different between those who do exhibit
this behavior and those who do not, a finding explained further in the motivation section.
Lack of Procedural Knowledge for the Necessary Steps to Engage in Entrepreneurial Activity
The need for additional procedural knowledge to engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking
activities was validated. The steps necessary to engage in this type of behavior were generally
not clear to faculty. Interview participants who had engaged in this behavior reported a range of
different steps, though no two interviewees had the same overall procedure. Interview
participants reported an idea or exploration phase, following by a connection phase that includes
networking and finding partners. They also highlighted the need to determine the path they want
to take to apply their research outside of the university, but noted they had to learn these paths on
their own. Finally, interview participants reported engaging in several business-related steps such
as patenting, licensing, and attracting funding, among others, but said that generally faculty do
not know how to do these things. These findings corroborate a study by Khorrami et al. (2018),
which reported that educators’ lack of knowledge regarding entrepreneurship creates uncertainty,
and ultimately acts as a barrier to their being entrepreneurs. Susan Baker said that faculty are
generally “…wrapped up in the whole idea of what they've produced, and not thinking ahead to
the commercialization of the idea to launch… they have zero clue about what was to be the next
step.” The survey data triangulated the interview data: 31.2% of interview participants agreed or
strongly agreed that they understood the steps necessary to engage in entrepreneurial activity, as
illustrated in Figure 3 below.
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Figure 3
I Understand the Steps Necessary for Me to Engage in Entrepreneurial Activity

One emergent theme related to this influence was the skills needed to engage in each of
these steps. Susan Baker noted that faculty could collaborate with external partners who had the
skills that they lack, saying,
There's some things that you can look to others to help you with. You don't necessarily
need to be good with the finances. Find someone else to do that. You don't have to be a
good salesperson, again, you find partners who can do it.
Other interview participants believed that faculty needed to learn basic industry skills, such as
sales. As David Hunt said,
We have to push our idea. We have to communicate with our potential customers… One
thing, I think we need to learn how to do sales talk, because it's not a confrontation…how
to make a pitch in a very simple and short way, so can we show off our skills, solutions,
technology in one or two minutes because no one wants to listen to us for 10 minutes.
Interview participants overall reported that, through their individual doctoral work in pursuit of a
Ph.D., faculty simply do not gain experience with the skills needed in industry, which was why
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly agree Agree Strongly agree
Mean: 3.66
Std.D: 1.37
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 62
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they do not possess them naturally. Therefore, in addition to the knowledge of the steps
necessary to engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior, faculty need to gain the knowledge
of how to engage in these steps.
Metacognitive Ability to Reflect on One’s Effectiveness While Pursuing Entrepreneurial, Risk-
taking Behavior
The data indicated that faculty believe they have the metacognitive ability to engage in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. Therefore, this influence was invalidated. One interview
participant stated that he had no issues with changing course and adjusting when problems came
up. Interview participants reflected on their metacognitive abilities in various ways. Three
interview participants reported on their ability to recognize when they have an idea worth
pursuing. Two participants noted the metacognitive ability to identify their own strengths, and
then partnering with others to fill in the areas that they are less strong, as indicated by the quote
from Susan Baker in the previous section. Almost all interview participants also recognized that
engaging in this type of behavior is hard work and roadblocks will come up. Wendell Qin stated,
“I don’t know that I can be successful. If you look at the numbers, the odds are not in our favor.”
Yet, Wendell Qin was also the faculty member most noted by other interview participants as a
success story, and he had received the “Innovator of the Year” award, indicating that he
recognized how hard it is, and chose to do it anyway. Participants also talked about persistence
and resetting after setbacks. As William Brown recounted,
One part of the [entrepreneurial] lifecycle is you think you're on the same page, and then
you find out you're not. How do you reset? Sometimes you find, “I thought I was
communicating clearly, but I wasn’t,” or they didn't understand. And sometimes you find
you have to just do some reset work, reeducation. But you've got to be able to adjust and
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say, "Well, this wasn't a failure." See, and that's the problem, I think people will
immediately say, "Oh, my god. I've spent six months on this, and now it's six months
wasted, and I've failed at this." Neither is true. It's not wasted time, and you haven't
failed.
The survey data similarly indicated that faculty felt they could generally figure out how to apply
their research to practical solutions even when it proves difficult, with 80.8% agreeing to some
extent, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4

When it Proves Difficult to Apply My Research to Practical Solutions, I Can Figure Out How To
Do It

In this case, the interview data and survey data converge and together illustrate that
metacognitive ability was not a barrier to faculty engagement in entrepreneurial activity.
Summary of Knowledge Findings
Faculty participants – both interview and survey – identified numerous benefits
associated with entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity, indicating that they have the conceptual
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly
agree
Agree Strongly
agree
Mean: 4.42
Std.D: 1.27
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 64
64
knowledge of these benefits. The motivation findings explore further how these benefits impact
individual behavior. Additionally, faculty generally feel confident in their ability to self-reflect
and adjust course in the midst of an entrepreneurial endeavor, should they choose.
Table 7
Assumed Knowledge Influences and validation status
Assumed Knowledge Influence
“Knowledge of…” Validated
Partially
validated
Not
validated
The potential benefits of engaging in entrepreneurship, such
as significant personal economic benefits and contributing to
regional economic development

X
The steps necessary to engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking
behavior, including connecting scholarship to practical
implications and building relationships with external partners

X

How to self-reflect on his or her own effectiveness in
execution of this behavior.

X

Therefore, the one knowledge influence that would need to be addressed to change faculty
behavior going forward to achieve the stakeholder goal would be procedural knowledge to
engage in such behavior. The procedural knowledge required includes both understanding the
steps necessary and acquiring the skills to effectively take those steps.
Motivation Findings
The motivation influences laid out in Chapter Two represent the value, self-efficacy, and
cost value constructs that affect motivation. Without perceiving the benefits as greater than the
costs and without the belief that they can be successful, it is unlikely that faculty will choose to
pursue, persist, or put in the effort required for entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity. The data
indicated that intrinsic motivation constructs were more of a driving force toward action than the
external benefit of financial gain. Generally, faculty identify feeling self-efficacious in risk-
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 65
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taking behavior, so this influence was not validated as requiring change to achieve the
stakeholder goal. When thinking about barriers to entrepreneurial behavior, faculty identified
time as the greatest cost to engaging in entrepreneurial activity, along with a number of other
barriers. However, faculty did not perceive risk to their reputation as a key barrier to motivation,
thereby not validating this influence. Overall, it seems that the benefits were known and can be
motivating, but barriers need to be reduced to encourage additional faculty to engage in such
behavior.
Connecting Perceived Benefits to Motivation
While the knowledge data showed that faculty have the conceptual knowledge of
potential benefits associated with entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior, the data also indicated
that the intrinsic benefits motivate a faculty member to engage in entrepreneurial behavior more
than extrinsic benefits. Therefore, the influence regarding perceiving this behavior as beneficial
was validated. Throughout the interviews, those faculty members who had engaged in
entrepreneurial or risk-taking behavior were most likely to talk about benefits rooted in helping
others and advancing science. One interview participant, Elizabeth O’Leary, responded when
asked about the benefits to engaging in such activity, “It's the purpose of science, to benefit
mankind and the human condition.” Interview participants also noted the personal fulfillment
associated with this type of work, including the satisfaction of taking on new challenges, pride,
and personal interest. Six interview participants said that entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior
could benefit the university’s reputation and relevance as well as fulfill UNL’s land grant
mission and advance development in Nebraska. Josh Gibbons stated about his activities, “I
believe fiercely in the land grant mission… I believe strongly in our role of giving this
knowledge that we develop here back to the citizens of the state.” The survey data supported
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 66
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these primary motivations. The top three benefits most selected by survey respondents were
finding solutions for problems, personal interest, and regional economic development, which
aligned clearly with the interview data. Figure 5 shows 509 responses because the question asked
participants to “select all that apply.”
Figure 5
Faculty Perceived Benefits Associated with Entrepreneurial, Risk-Taking Behavior

The benefits that actually motivate faculty to engage in such behavior were the intrinsic
benefits, rather than the extrinsic benefits. Interview participants who had participated in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior did not indicate that financial gain was a perceived benefit
for them. They generally did not mention financial benefit initially, and when asked about
financial gain, tended to dismiss it as a perceived benefit but not one they cared about. As
Elizabeth O’Leary stated in an interview, “I did not go into it to provide financial gain for the
university. And I figured that financial gain for myself was probably a far shot.” However,
interview and survey participants who had not engaged in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior
were more likely to point to financial gain as a perceived benefit. One interview participant, who
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
Financial gain for the university
Deeper understanding of my research findings
Personal financial gain
Regional economic development
Personal interest
Finding solutions for problems
Faculty Percieved Benefits (n = 509)
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 67
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was an expert in entrepreneurship but had not engaged in that work stated “clearly, that's
incentive because you can make some money” regarding a tech transfer deal through NUtech,
UNL’s tech transfer office. These findings appear to be the opposite of those reported by
Chrisman et al. (1995), who found that monetary reward could influence faculty behavior. The
survey data from UNL faculty mirrors the interview data dynamic. Taking the survey data of
perceived benefits and filtering it by those who self-reported that they had actually engaged in
this type of behavior, versus those how have not, revealed stark differences in perceived benefits.
Those survey participants who “strongly agree” that they had engaged in this behavior were
more likely to select intrinsic benefits. Alternatively, those who “strongly disagree” that they had
engaged in entrepreneurial behavior were more likely to select financial gain both for themselves
and the university. Figure 6 illustrates these data.
Figure 6

Faculty Perceived Benefits Associated with Entrepreneurial, Risk-Taking Behavior Filtered by
Self-Reported Engagement in Entrepreneurial, Risk-Taking Behavior

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This chart illustrates that while the data indicated that faculty who engaged in
entrepreneurial behavior are more likely to be intrinsically motivated, those who are not
engaging in entrepreneurial behavior are more likely to perceive financial gain as the benefit to
such activity. This data pointed to a significant gap in understanding of the benefits associated
with and motivations for engaging in entrepreneurial behavior among those faculty who have not
engaged in such activities.
Perceived Ability to be Successful in Entrepreneurial Risk-taking Behavior
The data indicated that the majority of faculty believe that they can be successful in this
behavior, and therefore this influence was not validated. Among interview participants who had
engaged in this type of behavior, two stated that self-efficacy was never an issue for them and
one stated that it was not an issue if they had the time to do it well. James Lehrer simply stated,
“I wasn't worried about it at all.” Five participants said that they were not sure they could be
successful, but they were willing to try. These participants highlighted their persistence,
willingness to take risks and fail, curiosity, and enjoyment in tackling new challenges.
Of survey participants, 78.6% agreed that they believed they could be successful at engaging in
entrepreneurial activity, as shown in Figure 7.
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Figure 7
I Believe That I Could Be Successful at Engaging in Entrepreneurial Activity

The survey data confirmed the relationship between self-efficacy and engagement in such
behavior another way: only two survey participants who did not believe they could be successful
said that they had engaged in such behavior. However, the relatively small portion of faculty
who do not feel self-efficacious (~20%) was not a significant concern when considering the goal
of a 10% increase in faculty who engage in this behavior. Bandura (1986) noted that without
self-efficacy, individuals are unlikely to persist at a difficult task. Because faculty participants
report feeling efficacious, this influence does not appear to be a barrier to achieving the
stakeholder goal.
Belief that Entrepreneurial, Risk-taking Behavior is Worth the Effort
The interview data and survey data related to this influence partially validated this
influence. Because the data did not positively say that this influence supported entrepreneurial,
risk-taking behavior among faculty at UNL, innovation in the future would be useful to make
this influence a stronger contributor to faculty behavior. Therefore, this influence was partially
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly agree Agree Strongly
agree
Mean: 4.46
Std.D: 1.28
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 70
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validated. Only two interview participants, David Hunt and Josh Gibbons, spoke about the
positive return on investment from this behavior. All other interview participants highlighted the
costs of engaging in this behavior, including time pressures, tenure and promotion incentives,
organizational rules, and the need to do funded research, without discussing that it was worth the
effort. Yet even while they highlighted the costs, these were the participants who engaged in this
behavior; therefore, they act as if they believe the activity was worth the effort.
Interview participants also said that they perceived that other faculty view the cost value
of engaging in this behavior as high, particularly because it is hard work and not incentivized for
faculty. Interview participant Taylor Harris recounted her experience with faculty generally,
“they don't need to do it… I mean, they would much rather just work their 12 hours a week and
go and watch Netflix than to do anything more engaging. I'm being really honest.” As noted in
Chapter Two, individuals need to perceive that the utility and importance value of an activity
must be higher than the cost value in order to pursue it (Rueda, 2011). However, as Figure 8
illustrates, only 32.4% of survey participants responded that it was not worth their time, leaving
67.6% who indicated to some extent that it was worth their time.
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 71
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Figure 8
Engaging in Entrepreneurial Activity Is Worth My Time

This influence examined the internal cost-benefit analysis for faculty time and effort to engage in
entrepreneurial activities. Survey data showed that approximately two-thirds of faculty believed
it was worth their time to some degree (Figure 8). At the same time, survey data previously
shown in Figure 6 also indicated that the benefit side of the cost-benefit equation could be
improved by addressing the gap in understanding the intrinsic benefits of entrepreneurial
behavior among those faculty who have not done so previously. However, Figure 9 indicates the
drivers behind the cost side of this cost-benefit analysis. When survey participants identified the
key barriers to their engagement in entrepreneurial activity, the largest response category was
insufficient time, which received 26.1% of all responses. The following figure shows the
perceived barriers. This item had 268 responses because the item asked participants to “select all
that apply.”
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly agree Agree Strongly
agree
Mean: 4.28
Std.D: 1.46
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 72
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Figure 9
Faculty Perceived Barriers Associated With Entrepreneurial, Risk-Taking Behavior

The interview and survey data indicated that faculty believed engaging in entrepreneurial, risk-
taking behavior was worth the time, yet they do not feel they have enough time to do so.
Additionally, they named a number of other barriers to engaging in this behavior that required
more effort to engage in such behavior such as insufficient resources, not considered a part of
their job responsibility (related to tenure and promotion guidelines) and lack of knowledge, all of
which are corroborated by findings associated with other influences. Because they already have
the belief that engaging in such behavior was valuable enough to warrant their time, it appears
that reducing the barriers, or decreasing the cost value such that the benefits outweigh the costs,
would be critical to changing behavior. This assessment was corroborated by interview findings,
as Elizabeth O’Leary stated, “It’s more reducing the barriers.”
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
Other, please specify
Do not think I would be successful at it
Believe could hurt my reputation
Believe could hurt chances at promotion
Do not believe it is worth the effort
Lack of skills needed
Lack the knowledge how to go about it
Not part of my job responsibility
Do not have sufficient resources
Do not have sufficient time
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Beliefs Regarding the Impact of Entrepreneurial, Risk-taking Behavior on Professional
Standing
Faculty reported that they were not concerned about unsuccessful attempts at
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior impacting their reputation at UNL, so this influence was not
validated. Three interview participants commented on ways in which they perceived engaging in
this behavior could hurt their reputation, specifically as it related to fewer publications and
riskier advancement along tenure track. However, this influence was specifically related to one’s
reputation, not professional standing and advancement with tenure and promotion, which is an
organizational influence. Interview participants provided mixed perspectives in regard to
university messaging that supports entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity. Two participants stated
that the university communicates nothing at all that encourages entrepreneurial behavior nor
discourages it, three stated the university was supportive of this behavior, and three had a
negative view. Additional findings associated with university messaging are in the organization
section. In the survey, Figure 10 below shows that 64.3% of participants disagreed that
unsuccessful attempts at entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior will have a negative impact on
their reputation at the university; Figure 10 above shows that only 3.61% of survey respondents
saw reputation concerns as a key barrier.
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 74
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Figure 10

If I Attempt Entrepreneurship and It Is Not Successful, It Will Hurt My Reputation Within the
University

Risk to one’s reputation was not a perceived barrier to engaging in entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior for a majority of respondents, so this influence was not validated.
Summary of Motivation Findings
The majority of faculty participants reported that there are various benefits associated
with entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity, and believe it was worth their time. Faculty see the
value of this behavior. However, faculty identified a number of barriers that make the cost side of
the cost value equation higher, including time demands associated with their positions, especially
when time demands do not prioritize this type of behavior. Lack of resources required to pursue
such behavior was also a key barrier that faculty identified.

0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly
agree
Agree Strongly
agree
Mean: 2.98
Std.D: 1.37
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75
Table 8
Assumed Motivation Influences and Validation Status
Assumed Motivation Influence
“Faculty need to…” Validated
Partially
validated
Not
validated
Perceive engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior as
beneficial, such as potentially significant personal economic
benefits and contributing the regional economic development.

X
Believe they are capable of being successful at effectively
engaging in application of research to practice through
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.

X
Believe that engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior is
worth the effort that it will take (i.e., perceived positive cost-
benefit analysis).

X
Believe that their professional standing at the university,
including progress toward tenure, will not be harmed by
unsuccessful attempts at entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.

X

Therefore, reducing the barriers, specifically related to time constraints and resource
requirements, would positively influence future behavior. Both of these barriers are discussed
further in the next section.
Organizational Findings
While knowledge and motivation affect an individual’s behavior, organizational
influences impact the knowledge and motivation of the entire group of individuals. While the
stakeholder goal calls for increased risk-taking behavior among faculty, it is through innovation
at the organizational level that UNL can encourage faculty behavior and ultimately achieve the
stakeholder goal of a 10% increase. The data reflected writing by Gallimore and Goldenberg
(2001) cited in Chapter Two, indicating that changing organizational settings, including altering
faculty incentives and improving resources available to support entrepreneurial, risk-taking
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activities, could impact the organizational models, including a culture of willingness to adopt
new behavior and trust between administration and faculty, such that faculty feel comfortable
engaging in such behavior. These findings reflect those reported in Chapter Two that altering the
environment can change individual behavior (Daly, 2010). Overall, the data revealed that
innovation in the organizational influences would be critical to shifting faculty behavior to
achieve the stakeholder goal.
A Culture of Willingness Among Faculty to Adopt New Behavior
The data indicated that faculty did not believe there was a widespread culture of faculty
willingness to take risks through adopting new behavior, so this influence was validated. As
noted earlier in this chapter, the study collaborator identified and selected interview participants
because they were positive outliers and examples of faculty who exhibited entrepreneurial, risk-
taking behavior. Yet their perspectives on this influence was primarily negative. Four interview
participants discussed the existence of a small subset of faculty who were interested in this type
of activity and work, in contrast to the vast majority of faculty who were not interested.
Interview participants said that this cadre of faculty who engaged in this behavior did so despite
the university culture. As Susan Baker said about the university setting, “I think entrepreneurship
especially is characterized by a philosophy of seek forgiveness later, don't ask for permission.”
This sentiment was mirrored by other interview participants. Findings from Chrisman et al.
(1995) support this idea, that university culture is critical to support entrepreneurial behavior.
Interview participants said that often the personality of someone who chooses academia
for a profession is not one that seeks risk. Therefore, rather than trying to create a culture of risk-
taking across faculty, four interview participants suggested that UNL identify, encourage, and
support those faculty who are inclined to engage in this type of behavior. These participants
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77
thought that additional faculty would inherently be interested in engaging in this behavior if the
culture supported it. Two interview participants speculated on the potential size of this cadre,
ranging from 10% to 20% of all faculty. Interview participant John Santos reflected, “I think
there's more than I thought… still going to be less than 10%... But think about how many people
that is. If you've got 1,100 faculty, I mean, if we can just get 110, that would be huge.” In
general, interview participants talked about their entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior in contrast
to the general faculty culture. Yet, four interview participants believed there was a cohort of
faculty who are inherently driven to engage in this type of behavior and would do so if they felt
it were encouraged by the university.
The survey revealed what initially looked like inconclusive data. Fifty-five percent of
faculty participants agreed to some extent that UNL supports a culture of willingness to take
risks and adopt new behavior specifically related to entrepreneurship. The mean (3.42, standard
deviation of 1.3) was almost exactly in the middle. Yet, the strength of the responses skewed
negative, such that 10.2% strong disagreed and only 1.8% strongly agreed, as depicted in Figure
11.
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Figure 11

UNL Supports a Culture of Willingness to Take Risks and Adopt New Behavior, Specifically
Related to Entrepreneurship

The combination of the interview data and weight of the survey data combined to show a
relatively negative view of this influence, indicating that the university would need to address its
culture of willingness to take risks to increase faculty behavior in the future.
A Culture of Trust, Without Fear of Diminished Professional Standing
The data related to this influence was neither strongly positive nor negative, so the
influence was partially validated, since innovation related to this influence could move it more
toward being a contributor to entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. Sixty-one percent of survey
participants did not agree that unsuccessful attempts at entrepreneurial behavior would hurt their
professional standing, including progress toward tenure, indicating a level of trust among a
majority of faculty. Yet, the comments from most interview participants did not align with the
survey data. Three interview participants reported that they had engaged in this behavior because
they were already tenured, but non-tenured faculty would be less likely to take such risk.
Interview participant James Lehrer said, “You would probably never get untenured Assistant
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly agree Agree Strongly
agree
Mean: 3.42
Std.D: 1.30
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Professors to do it. And an Associate Professor would face real hard decisions, because it may
mean not getting promoted.” Because the survey data and interview data were not aligned, this
influence was not fully validated. However, the interview data indicated that some junior faculty
may fear that engaging in risk-taking behavior would hurt their chances at promotion. The
university may need to address this perception, so the influence is partially validated.
Related to trust is communication, because faculty are more likely to trust that
entrepreneurial endeavors will not hurt their professional standing if the message comes clearly
from university leadership. Interview participants had mixed responses regarding university
communications regarding this behavior. Two participants stated the university’s messaging
related to engaging in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior was positive, two said it was
negative, and one reported that university leadership gives this behavior positive lip service but
does not really encourage it. Two interview participants said that nothing had been
communicated regarding this behavior, including James Lehrer, who said “It hasn't been clearly
stated from the top university policy description so that faculty are comfortable.” However, one
interview participant said that the university communications department often utilized him in
promotional materials due to his entrepreneurial, risk-taking activities:
Oh, they love it. The number of times that I have been used for commercials, social
media content, admissions recruiting videos ... literally, my office is part of the
admissions pitch that is given to every incoming student in here. They talk about what
great things are going on in the university, they talk about me and my office...
Besides this one participant, no other interview or survey participants reported positive
messaging from the university. Overall, in the absence of a clear message from administration,
interview participants generally felt it was safer not to engage in such behavior.
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To create a culture of trust that encourages faculty to engage in entrepreneurial, risk-
taking activity, a theme from the data was that there must be support from university leadership.
Three interview participants reported different ways that leadership at various levels –
chancellor, dean, and department chair – have an impact on their specific domain. Charles
Pickering reflected on faculty who engaged in this type of behavior in his own department,
“Leadership must create an environment that allows it to happen. And I don't know what I've
done to make it happen in this unit, but I do know that what we see in this unit comes organically
now.” Four interview participants said that leadership at various levels had discouraged this
behavior. Molly Jones reflected on the chair of her department, stating, “I just didn't trust that
that would be looked upon as like a positive thing at all.” Generally, at the highest, university-
wide level, interview participants communicated that it was not encouraged by leadership, but
this was a necessary condition for increased incidence of risk-taking activity. Samuel Lyon stated
it particularly strongly: “It's got to be encouraged. [The chancellor] doesn't encourage it, but he
might think he encourages it. But if the Deans don't encourage it, it's not going to happen.”
Among the data from interview participants, leadership support emerged as a strong theme
regarding what needs to change to increase faculty engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior.
Faculty Incentives Need to Reward Risk-taking Behavior
The interview and survey data clearly indicated that current faculty incentive structures at
UNL do not support entrepreneurial, risk-taking activities, and that this would need to change to
get more faculty to engage in such behavior. Therefore, this influence was validated. These
findings were aligned with findings related to both general behavioral theory (Daly, 2010) and
more specifically to university incentives (Sanberg et al., 2014; Urbano & Guerrero, 2013).
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Among the five a priori organizational influences, this one had the strongest reaction from both
interview and survey respondents. Seventy-one percent of survey participants agreed that they
would engage in entrepreneurial activity more often if it would be rewarded through faculty
incentive structures, as shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12

I Would Engage in Entrepreneurial Activity More Often if I Would be Rewarded Through Faculty
Incentive Structures

Additionally, interview participants, as well as survey participants in open-ended responses,
offered ideas for different types of incentives to reward entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior.
These incentives fell into four categories: tenure and promotion, time, money, and recognition.
While interview and survey participants noted various forms of incentives, the driving
incentive structure for faculty members was tenure and promotion. As indicated in the previous
influence, four interview participants reported that engaging in entrepreneurial behavior was
risky for non-tenured faculty members who sought tenure. William Brown said, “Tenure doesn't
reward risk taking.” Other interview participants mirrored this thought and added more nuance.
David Hunt said, “I think the problem is we have very simplistic or… inflexible way of
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly agree Agree Strongly
agree
Mean: 4.19
Std.D: 1.44
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evaluating the young faculty for tenure promotion.” Additionally, tenure and promotion received
the highest number of comments from survey respondents in opened-ended questions about what
UNL could do to incentivize entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. The primary suggestion from
interview and survey respondents to encourage this behavior was to make it a part of the tenure
and promotion evaluations.
At the same time, the data uncovered institutional barriers to changing the tenure and
promotion guidelines, underscoring their entrenched nature. One challenge in the data was a lack
of understanding of how to value such behavior. Interview participant William Brown noted,
There is nobody on the tenure committee who knows how to evaluate this work for
tenure, and/or if you do it and publish in a journal that is a multi-disciplinary journal,
number one, they've never heard of it, and number two, they don't know how to accord it
any value.
Even after achieving tenure, one interview participant stated that there is no post-tenure incentive
to engage in such behavior. Taylor Harris said, “[tenured faculty] don't have to do anything
because they have a job for life and… there is no real post-tenure review.” The university would
need to think carefully about the complex factors associated with adjusting the tenure and
promotion process to include entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior, even though, it appears that
this is the single most important factor that the university can impact to shift the behavior of
faculty toward achieving the stakeholder goal.
The second-most reported incentive, from both interview and survey data, that
participants reported would be important to encourage more faculty to engage in entrepreneurial,
risk-taking activities was time. Time was related to tenure and promotion guidelines in the data
in that faculty will allocate their time based on the incentive structure, and the long-standing
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structure encourages traditional research and publication. Time allocation was also a factor
because the university has guidelines for what proportion of time must go to teaching, research,
and other activities. If time for entrepreneurial, risk-taking activities is not accounted for in those
apportionments, it is unlikely faculty will engage in such behavior. One interview participant,
Josh Gibbons, suggested a method to encourage this behavior: “…carving out time for people,
protecting that time for people, rewarding people for that time is critical.” While it was clear
tenure and promotion is the key incentive that needed to change, time is another type of incentive
that the university would need to align with tenure and promotion to further encourage this
behavior in faculty.
Related to both tenure and promotion and time allocation, three interview participants
said that the Professor of Practice structure could be a way to incentivize risk-taking behavior.
Because they are not on the tenure track and do not have the same publication expectations as
tenure-track faculty, there is more flexibility for UNL to structure the role in a way that
incentivizes entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. This structure could entice new faculty in the
role to be more engaged in this type of behavior. Other interview participants also reported that
those individuals who choose the traditional academic path are generally not interested in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior, which was why they chose the tenure track initially. As
Wendell Qin stated, “there are not really incentives when you think about promotion and
tenure… Though if you’re worried about promotion and tenure, its counter to this
[entrepreneurial] thinking and you probably won’t do it anyway.” Two of the interview
participants who were Professors of Practice noted how that role helped them engage in the
behavior defined by this study. One interview participant made a comment that illustrated the
alternate mindset of a Professor of Practice, “I'm a Professor of Practice, so I don't have to care
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about the publish or perish idea.” However, interview participants also noted that the Professor
of Practice route would need restructuring to play this role well. As another interview participant
explained,
I think [a Professor of Practice appointment] is a significant thing that takes away the
tenured professor pressure and allows people to do exactly the sorts of things we're
talking about. But the Professor of Practice route then, in my opinion, needs more
protection and security than it currently has. Like seven-year contracts, renewable, as
opposed to one or three-year contracts where you just don't know what your future's
going to be beyond that. But I think that the Professor of Practice route totally encourages
this sort of entrepreneurial behavior and different behavior because they don't have to be
worrying about the publishing.
Interview participants also reported that the expectations for Professors of Practice are unclear. A
Professor of Practice interview participant recounted, “for about the first five years that I was
here, I didn't even know what I was really being evaluated on, other than I was expected to be a
good teacher because I was a Professor of Practice.” Another interview participant also said that
Professor of Practice evaluation criteria needed to be clear from hiring date. There could be
additional ways to structure non-tenure-track roles, as one survey participant suggested an
“entrepreneur in residence” role that he had seen at other universities. While the university
leadership can innovate on the structure of non-tenure-track roles, department chairs also need to
think about Professor of Practice personnel as a part of the unit’s needs, incorporating this type
of role into the overall mix in addition to tenure-line faculty. Interview participants said the
Professor of Practice role would be a positive way to encourage and increase additional faculty
to engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior, but it would need to be considered among the
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mix with tenured faculty in every department, and the role itself would need to be structured to
optimally encourage the desired behavior.
In addition to tenure and time, interview and survey participants reported on various
types of financial incentives that would help encourage entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior.
One category was university funding support for the entrepreneurial work or the venture. A
subset of both interview and survey participants noted that funding from the university could
help get new activities started. Twenty-two open-ended responses from survey participants
mirrored this theme: “Have a seed grant program that would provide funds to develop ideas.”
This type of financial support can also be considered a resource, rather than a financial incentive,
as discussed in a later section of this chapter.
A second type of financial incentive reported by participants was structuring deals
through NUtech to be more lucrative for the faculty member. Samuel Lyon stated, “our office of
tech transfer is punitive in the deals that they insist on.” This comment was corroborated by
survey participants, including this open-ended response: “…reorganize royalties structure so
inventors capture a larger percentage than they do currently.”
Finally, a third category was financial compensation through salaries or bonuses that
reward this type of behavior. This last type of financial incentive was only said rarely among
survey participants, and not at all by interview participants. While interview and survey
participants reported that these various financial incentives could help encourage entrepreneurial,
risk-taking behavior, this line of thought was curious when compared to the motivation finding
that indicates that financial incentives do not motivate the faculty members who actually do
engage in this behavior. Because of this related finding, increased salaries and bonuses may not
be the most effective organization approach to change faculty behavior. However, given the lack
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of procedural knowledge to gain funding for a venture, university support to fund the risk-taking
behavior could be viewed as a resource needed for faculty to engage in such behavior. The
upcoming section on resources explores this idea further.
Finally, study participants said that recognition for entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior
could be a motivating incentive for more faculty to engage in such activities. This finding
emerged primarily from survey participants’ open-ended responses. One survey participant
wrote, “Recognition in publicity and at faculty events would be helpful.” Two interview
participants named the “Prem S. Paul Innovator of the Year” award, which provides recognition
for one faculty member a year. This award was also published on the UNL website. Yet, even
with the existence of this award, a survey participant said that “university-level awards for such
activity” would incentivize more faculty to engage in such behavior. This discrepancy indicated
that the award either was not well known or only known among those who did engage in this
type of behavior, since interview participants were a part of the subset that do engage in this
behavior. Regardless, this award honors one person per year, and survey participants indicated
that recognition more generally, at faculty meetings, in publicity, etc., would help incentivize the
desired behavior. Plus, recognition for the behavior the university wants to encourage would not
only be an incentive for those recognized but would have the additional benefit of calling out
role models for other faculty to witness how their peers have been successful.
Resources to Support Faculty Exist but Need to be Improved
Data from both the interviews and survey showed that faculty participants know that
resources exist, but that these resources were either not useful or not sufficient to help faculty
engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity. Therefore, this influence was validated as an
organizational need where the university should implement changes to achieve the stakeholder
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goal. The two interview participants who teach entrepreneurship were also a part of delivering
one of the key resources on campus but had not engaged in entrepreneurial risk-taking activities
as faculty at UNL. Of the 10 interview participants who had engaged in this behavior, two stated
that they had used the university resources and six clearly stated that they had not. Among
survey participants, 75.8% agreed that UNL offers dedicated services to support faculty
entrepreneurial activity, and, at the same time, 68.1% agreed that they would like more support
connecting their research to industry, as shown in Figures 13 and 14 respectively.
Figure 13
UNL Offers Dedicated Services to Support Faculty in Entrepreneurial Activity

0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly
agree
Agree Strongly
agree
Mean: 4.07
Std.D: 1.14
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 88
88
Figure 14
I Would Like More Support Connecting my Research To industry

Participants reported resources that included both formal, such as the Center for
Entrepreneurship or NUtech, and informal resources, such as the ability to tap interdisciplinary
knowledge across the university’s departments. Together, Figures 13 and 14 revealed that while
faculty know that UNL provides some resources to support faculty in entrepreneurial behavior,
these resources are not sufficient for what faculty feel they need to actually connect their
research via entrepreneurial behavior. This finding relates directly to data referenced in the last
section that which showed that insufficient resources was the second largest barrier to faculty
engagement in entrepreneurial behavior (Figure 9). Additionally, faculty members’ reported
desire for additional support shown above relates to the gap in procedural knowledge for faculty
to actually go about entrepreneurial activities. While this data does not conclude whether the
current university resources are not relevant, not informative, or simply have insufficient
capacity, it is clear that the majority of faculty perceive the need for further resources. Providing
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly
agree
Agree Strongly
agree
Mean: 4.01
Std.D: 1.44
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enhanced resources would help reduce barriers to faculty engagement in this behavior, as
discussed in the previous section.
Based on the data, one key resource on campus for engaging in entrepreneurial, risk-
taking behavior was the Center for Entrepreneurship, which is housed within the business school.
Two interview participants reported using the Center for Entrepreneurship. One interview
participant reported positively on the help they received from the Center for Entrepreneurship.
One of the positive comments included the new “Initial Customer Discovery Training” workshop
that helps faculty with an entrepreneurial idea define their target audience and understand that
audience’s needs, which were skills that were reported as lacking in the knowledge section of
this chapter. Yet, at the same time, other interview participants stated that they did not think the
Center for Entrepreneurship was helpful. Three interview participants noted that they did not
think the resource was relevant for their situation. Two interview participants simply stated that
the Center for Entrepreneurship staff were not talented. One interview participant who was
particularly negative regarding the Center for Entrepreneurship said they had been improving in
recent years, but overall, it seems that while the Center for Entrepreneurship offers some support,
it was not sufficiently useful. One of the interview participants who was a part of the Center for
Entrepreneurship highlighted that they would like to be doing more, but that they would need
additional funding to expand their efforts. It was unclear from the data if the Center for
Entrepreneurship simply needs to expand or if it needs different structure and expertise, though
the data leans toward the latter based on the additional resources participants thought would be
useful.
In addition to the existing units within UNL, participants outlined several other desired
resources that they thought would be helpful to faculty to increase engagement in
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entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. First, interview participants reported wanting additional
support creating connections, which corresponds to the knowledge influence regarding procedure
and how to go about this work. Participants wanted additional support in both building
interdisciplinary relationships across the university and making connections to external
businesses that could utilize their research or expertise. Related to this desire to make
connections, two interview participants and survey participants reported the need for what one
interview participant coined a “front door” to the university. These two interview participants
said that there was no dedicated place at the university that people – both within the university
who were interested in this type of activity and external people looking to make connections to
expertise or research – know that they can go for those connections. Therefore, the “front door”
is both internal and external facing. Internally, James Lehrer noted that, “there's got to be a
plethora of ideas out there university-wide, but there's no way to communicate those things.” The
interview participant who coined the term, Molly Jones, described the concept as external facing,
…when people are motivated, they don't understand how it is set up. And so one of the
things that came out of our strategic planning was this idea of this front door, some place
that people could call or email … to the extent, the university does not have a good
reputation with industry people, I think part of it is that they just don't know how to get
in... We say we really want to work with them, but we do not do a very good job of
actually doing it and receiving them and connecting them in a way that's meaningful.
Molly Jones went on to explain that, in the absence of this resource, external people may make a
cold phone call to a faculty member they think is relevant and not hear back because that faculty
member was not interested. The result is that the potential external partner is discouraged and
looks elsewhere, when there may have been someone else in the university who was interested in
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connecting. At the same time, faculty members often simply do not know where to go to
establish these connections.
Another desired resource that emerged from the data was mentorship and role models.
This data directly reflected that of Urbano and Guerrero (2013), who found that role models are a
key element in an “entrepreneurial university” because they demonstrate to other faculty that it is
possible to be successful, thereby increasing others’ self-efficacy. Two interview participants at
UNL who had engaged in this behavior noted that mentors had helped them. As Wendell Qin
said, “I had a mentor that helped me get here.” Additionally, eight interview participants said that
role models would help. David Hunt said,
I think the best thing is when they see someone who is good or who is successful…
through mentorship probably is the best way. I think probably there are no better ways to
train the younger faculty to do that.
David Hunt highlighted throughout his interview that role models and mentors can impact all
three of the categories of influences – knowledge, motivation, and organization – by helping the
next generation of faculty learn the skills and processes needed for the knowledge influences,
feel motivated through seeing success, and understanding that the organization supports this
behavior.
One more resource that interview and survey participants said would be useful was
financial resources. This idea was linked to financial incentives, though some interview
participants discussed money as an incentive for a faculty member to engage entrepreneurial,
risk-taking behavior and others talked about money as a resource that the university needs to
invest if it wants to see an increase in faculty engagement. In the context of the latter,
participants reported needing money to invest in the activities necessary to pursue
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entrepreneurial, risk-taking endeavors, such as drug trials. In this way, participants saw
investment in start-up ventures in two ways, either as an incentive or as a resource needed to
pursue certain paths associated with entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. Additionally, financial
resources would be required to improve other support mechanisms outlined in this section. In
this way, money works as both a personal incentive and an organizational resource depending on
how it was used, but some financial investment will likely be needed to improve university
resources.
Partially Validated Evidence Regarding Communication and Promotion of the Faculty
Resources
The data partially validated the final organizational influence, since the data was not
strongly positive nor negative, such that future innovation could make this influence a stronger
contributor to faculty entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. Among the 12 interview participants,
two were a part of the resources and were responsible for communication and promotion. These
interview participants reported that faculty utilization of support programs was minimal, though
it was unclear if this was because faculty did not know about the programs or the programs were
not considered helpful. These findings mirrored those of Chrisman et al. (1995) who reported
limited faculty usage of resources but noted that these resources were significant to fostering
entrepreneurial behavior regardless of usage. Two interview participants clearly knew about the
resources, even though they had not used them. The one person who had used the Center for
Entrepreneurship said they learned out about it from a source external to UNL. Interview
participants reported that the resources were hard to find, and at least four interview participants
thought that UNL needed to do a better job of promoting the resources available. The survey data
were also inconclusive, with 55.01% of survey participants agreeing to some extent that UNL
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has promoted the resources available to support faculty entrepreneurial activity, as shown in
Figure 15.
Figure 15
UNL Has Promoted the Resources Available to Support Faculty Entrepreneurial Activity

This evidence that a majority of faculty respondents reported that UNL has promoted resources
aligns with the data in that showed the majority of respondents perceived that UNL provides
resources (Figure 13). Together, these findings, along with the data that showed that the majority
of faculty would like more support (Figure 14), further corroborates the finding that if UNL
wants to improve faculty utilization of its resources, it may need to first improve the resources
themselves.
Summary of Organization Findings
While there were influences in the knowledge and motivation sections that need to be
addressed to increase faculty engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior in the future,
the data indicated that the organization influences were the most critical to change behavior and
achieve the stakeholder goal. As previously discussed, organizational settings and models
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Strongly
disagree
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly agree Agree Strongly
agree
Mean: 3.54
Std.D: 1.33
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influence knowledge and motivation influences. Table 9 displays a summary of organizational
influences and their validation status.
Table 9
Assumed Organizational Influences and Validation Status
Assumed Organizational Influence
“The university needs…” Validated
Partially
validated
Not
validated
A culture of willingness among faculty to take risks through
adopting new behavior.

X
A culture of trust between the administration and faculty, such
that faculty feel comfortable engaging in this type of behavior
without fear of diminished professional standing.

X
Faculty incentive structures that reward engagement in
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior through guidelines and
criteria for tenure and promotion.

X
Resources to support faculty engagement in entrepreneurial
risk-taking behavior, such as connections to potential
collaborations, mentorship and role models, and funding,
among others.

X
Communication and promotion of the services and resources it
provides faculty to support entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior.

X

Altering organizational settings, specifically the tenure and promotions guidelines and the time
requirements associated with different faculty roles, would change faculty incentives and also
impact how faculty perceive the culture at the university. Additionally, enhanced resources could
help faculty address the knowledge gaps that stand in the way of their ability to pursue
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior.
Emergent Themes Beyond the Anticipated Influences
While the interview and survey questions linked directly to the knowledge, motivation,
and organization influences detailed in Chapter Two, two additional themes emerged from the
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data that span across the influences. First, because the data indicated that engaging in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior was often an individual, inherent quality, hiring for people
who have this internal drive would be a way to increase the desired behavior. Second, while this
study did not directly investigate NUtech, the tech transfer office emerged as a key influence that
was a barrier but could be an enabler if structured differently. This section reports the findings
related to these two emergent themes.
The University Needs to Hire People Inclined to Engage in these Activities
A strong emergent theme revealed that there was a cadre of faculty who have a
predisposition to engage in the entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior defined by this study. These
faculty will do so regardless of the organizational influences. The data indicated that faculty who
engaged in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior often have internal traits that make them
inherently inclined to engage in such behavior, which aligned with previous literature cited in
Chapter 2 (Khorrami et al., 2018; Van Dam, Schipper, & Runhaar, 2010). Therefore, the
university would need to hire for people with those traits if they want to expand the cadre who
engage in entrepreneurial endeavors. This conclusion was also corroborated in the literature
review, which reported that leaders can bolster the desired behavior by hiring for it (Gino, 2018).
When asked about skills required to engage in such activities, interview participants
overwhelmingly described personality traits that they did not believe could always be learned.
Susan Baker summed it up when she said, “Much of that is innate and comes from the sort of
person that you are. But I know from my own experience that you can cultivate some of these
[traits].” Interview participants reported persistence most often as the characteristic needed to
successfully engage in risk-taking endeavors. Persistence included concepts like the ability to
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take criticism and a positive inclination toward risk, failure, and experimentation. As Charles
Pickering stated,
It's internal. It's a drive. If you don't have the sense of urgency to discover, and to work
hard, and to fail, and to succeed, and to fail, and fail, and fail, and succeed, it won't work.
It will never work. We get knocked down a lot, whether it be a funding agency, whether
it be a paper not accepted for publication, whether it be multiple failures in the lab, you
have to take it in stride. It's part of the process.
Additional traits that interview participants discussed as inherent included curiosity, people
skills, interest in engaging in this behavior, interdisciplinary thinking, and scrappiness. Interview
participants talked about faculty needing the ability to think outside of the traditional rules of
academia and requiring a certain comfort with uncertainty. These interview participants noted
that these traits were not common among tenure-track faculty currently. Molly Jones stated,
“You have to be willing to just ignore some of the bureaucracy and the rules and maybe not
necessarily bend the rules but be comfortable with some ambiguity around the rules.” This
attitude was similar to a theme noted earlier in this chapter regarding faculty who engaged in
these activities despite the university barriers. The interview participants who did engage in the
behavior identified in this study tended to refer to themselves as non-traditional academics.
Across the board, interview participants highlighted ways in which they felt a certain type of
person would engage in this type of behavior more naturally than others.
Because interview participants saw engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior
as a natural inclination, many participants noted that the university would need to look for these
people internally and hire for them if they really wanted to change the ethos around risk-taking.
As noted earlier in this chapter, four interview participants reported that there was a small cadre
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of faculty who already have a tendency toward this type of behavior, and that increased
identification and encouragement of these existing faculty members would be a strong place to
start. Additionally, the majority of interview participants said that the university would need to
hire for people who want to engage in this type of activity to increase its incidence. Yet,
interview participants also said that hiring for faculty with this inclination would take
overcoming barriers. One barrier was the break from traditional hiring. As Taylor Harris stated,
“I saw in my first hiring process that people just wanted to hire people like them because then
they were not threatened by them.” Another barrier was the university’s desire to keep up with
other research institutions. John Santos said, “We've just mirrored the big 10, and I think that's
where all the focus has been. And what you're potentially doing is discouraging the creativity.
You're expecting everyone to fit the mold of...what a big 10 university looks like.” The ability to
hire for faculty members who would be more likely to engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior would also be tied to tenure and promotion evaluations, such that faculty who desire to
engage in this behavior would be less interested to join an institution that discourages it in annual
evaluations. Therefore, the university culture would need to change via innovation associated
with each of the validated influences in this study, including incentivizing the desired behavior,
before hiring changes could occur. While it was a clear theme among interview participants that
one way to increase entrepreneurial, risking-taking behavior among faculty is to hire for it, it was
also evident that hiring practices need to be a later phase in a series of changes that to support
this behavior.
NUtech is Currently a Barrier but Could be a Resource
NUtech Ventures (NUtech), UNL’s tech transfer office, was the university department
that was noted most among participants. It is a nonprofit affiliate of UNL that works to license
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intellectual property and commercialize technology developed on the Lincoln and Kearney
campuses. NUtech’s mission states, “to promote economic development and improve quality of
life” and the website states that “we also promote entrepreneurship through programming and
sponsored events” (NUtech Ventures, 2020).
Yet interview participants primarily discussed NUtech as a barrier to entrepreneurial
activity, rather than a resource. The previous section included the finding that participants
believe NUtech deals do not allow for adequate financial incentives for faculty members. Samuel
Lyon suggested changing the deal structure to encourage risk-taking:
The Tech Transfer Center then owns it, so [faculty] only have one choice. That's to go
negotiate to license it back from the Tech Transfer Center. And at least in the past, the
deals were a percent of revenue, not a percent of profit. So, a percent of revenue is a deal
killer, because that's going to kill risk-taking. Silicon Valley doesn't work on, ‘I'll give
you 10 million dollars for a percentage of your revenue.’ So perhaps… looking at tried
and true models that address risk-taking and follow those processes.
In addition to the financial element, two interview participants noted that NUtech does not do a
good job of licensing the technology because they do not have the appropriate capacity or
capabilities. As Charles Pickering said,
In some ways NUtech needs to be a bit more aggressive. So you get to the point of
having a provisional or a patent, and then it gets stuck on a shelf… really what faculty
that are going down this road need is the liaison with the community and with the
investors to see how this is going to be impactful in its own right. Otherwise it gets
shelved.
Another interview participant, Elizabeth O’Leary said,
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My understanding is that [NUtech] is very good on agricultural things. So, if you have a
new cultivar of wheat or corn or soy… then they know what to do. If you are trying to do
something medically oriented, they have no idea.”
As the earlier motivation data indicated, faculty who engage in this behavior are doing so to help
people, advance science, and apply their research. Therefore, having a patent that nobody can
apply because the university owns it and the tech transfer office does not know how to execute
on it was de-motivating for those faculty who would engage in this type of behavior. As a result
of the unfavorable deal structures and the inability to use the intellectual property once its
patented, interview participants reported that some faculty choose to pursue this type of endeavor
outside of the university. While there are rules prohibiting this behavior outside of the university,
there are gray areas that faculty will find to pursue their work elsewhere because they find
NUtech so challenging. This finding indicated that more faculty may be interested in engaging in
entrepreneurial behavior than currently do so at the university but choose not to due to
organizational barriers. Therefore, transforming NUtech to be a resource, rather than a barrier,
would help increase entrepreneurial behavior among faculty.
Conclusion
Data collected from 12 interview participants and 188 survey participants validated five
and partially validated three of the 12 influences detailed in Chapter 2. Additionally, two
emergent themes surfaced from the participant data. Overall, while participants demonstrated
that they understand the benefits of entrepreneurial behavior, they reported lacking the
procedural knowledge required to engage in such activity. Additionally, the data indicated that
the barriers to engaging in such endeavors need to be minimized, therefore tipping the cost-
benefit analysis to be more positive. Finally, the data showed that organizational influences were
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the primary area where innovation would need to occur to increase faculty engagement in
entrepreneurial activities.
Chapter Two cites research in behavioral theory that found that altering the environment
changes individuals’ behavior (Daly, 2010), thereby drawing the connection between
organization influences, which impact the faculty environment, and the potential impact on
individual knowledge and motivation influences. Innovating to advance on the five
organizational influences that the data validated or partially validated, and the two emergent
influences would likely have an impact on the individual-focused knowledge and motivation
influences as well. Chapter Five outlines four recommendations, focusing specifically on
organizational changes, that together address each of the validated and partially validated
influences.

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CHAPTER FIVE: RECOMMENDATIONS
This innovation study explored what UNL would need to do to increase the incidence of
faculty engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. The literature review indicated that
applying knowledge and research to practical solutions in the community could help spur
regional social and economic development and increase the relevance of the university. Data
collected through interviews with faculty who have engaged in this behavior and a survey sent to
all faculty either validated or partially validated eight knowledge, motivation, and organizational
influences laid out in Chapter Two and two emergent influences. In an innovation study, data
validation means that those influences would need to be addressed and shifts would need to
occur in the future to achieve an increase in faculty engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior.
This chapter briefly reviews the validated and partially validated influences and provides
recommendations to address them. The recommendations include:
1. Defining and communicating the desired entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior.
2. Building a university-wide unit to identify and support faculty who want to engage.
3. Revamping NUtech.
4. Adapting faculty incentives and reward structures.
The chapter then lays out implementation considerations and an evaluation framework to
assess progress. It concludes with an overview of limitations and ideas for future research to
further address how universities can enhance innovation and entrepreneurship for long-term
relevance and sustainability.
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Discussion of Key Findings
The majority of the validated and partially validated influences related to the organization
construct in the framework used in this study. Additionally, as discussed in Chapter Two,
organization settings and models often influence individuals’ behavior. Therefore, the
recommendations relate specifically to what the university can do as an organization to
encourage a shift in faculty behavior. The following table provides an overview of the influences
that were validated or partially validated. The table includes partially validated influences
because there was not convincing evidence that these influences were currently working well,
and some changes may help to improve on these dimensions as well. Table also links the
recommendations, detailed in the next section, to the relevant influences.
Table 10
Validated Influences
Gap
Analysis
Component
Vali-
dated
Partially
validated Influence Associated Recommendation
Knowledge X
The steps necessary to engage in
entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior,
including connecting scholarship to
practical implications and building
relationships with external partners.
2. Build a university-wide unit
to identify and support faculty
who want to engage.
Motivation
“Faculty
need to…”
X
Perceive engaging in entrepreneurial
risk-taking behavior as beneficial, such
as potentially significant personal
economic benefits and contributing the
regional economic development.
3. Revamp NUtech.
4. Adapt faculty incentives
and reward structures.
X
Believe that engaging in entrepreneurial
risk-taking behavior is worth the effort
that it will take (i.e., perceived positive
cost-benefit analysis).
3. Revamp NUtech.
4. Adapt faculty incentives
and reward structures.

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Table 10, continued
Gap
Analysis
Component
Vali-
dated
Partially
validated Influence Associated Recommendation
Organization
“The
university
needs…”
X

A culture of willingness among faculty
to take risks through adopting new
behavior.
1. Define the desired
entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior.
2. Build a university-wide unit
to identify and support faculty
who want to engage.
3. Revamp NUtech.
4. Adapt faculty incentives
and reward structures.
X
A culture of trust between the
administration and faculty, such that
faculty feel comfortable engaging in this
type of behavior without fear of
diminished professional standing.
1. Define the desired
entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior.
4. Adapt faculty incentives
and reward structure.
X
Faculty incentive structures that reward
engagement in entrepreneurial risk-
taking behavior through guidelines and
criteria for tenure and promotion.
4. Adapt faculty incentives
and reward structure.
X
Resources to support faculty
engagement in entrepreneurial risk-
taking behavior, such as connections to
potential collaborations, mentorship and
role models, and funding, among others.
2. Build a university-wide unit
to identify and support faculty
who want to engage.
3. Revamp NUtech.
X
Communication and promotion of the
services and resources it provides faculty
to support entrepreneurial risk-taking
behavior.
2. Build a university-wide unit
to identify and support faculty
who want to engage.
Emergent
influences
X

The university needs to hire people
inclined to engage in this behavior.
1. Define the desired
entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior.
2. Build a university-wide unit
to identify and support faculty
who want to engage.
4. Adapt faculty incentives
and reward structure.
X
NUtech needs to be considered a
resource, rather than a barrier.
3. Revamp NUtech.

As the table shows, the four recommendations address all validated and partially
validated influences. The following section explains each of these recommendations in detail and
why it is important to take these actions.
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Recommendations
Table 10 lays out how the four recommendations that address the validated and partially
validated influences identified in Chapter Four, both a priori and emergent influences from the
data. The first recommendation, defining the desired behavior, would be sequenced first so
faculty better understand that the university supports risk-taking. The second recommendation,
creating a university-wide unit, would allow for the university to integrate interdisciplinary
efforts across colleges and establish a conspicuous place for anyone interested in these activities
– both inside and outside of the university – as a place to go for support. The third and fourth
recommendations, revamping NUtech and adjusting faculty incentives and rewards, would
improve the incentives for faculty to engage in the desired behavior. Generally, the sequencing
would need to occur in this order, such that faculty know what is desired and the enhanced
resources are in place when the adjusted incentives begin to impact faculty behavior. The
following sub-sections further describe each of these recommendations.
Recommendation 1: Define and Communicate the Desired Entrepreneurial, Risk-Taking
Behavior
The first step toward creating “a campus-wide ethos of informed risk-taking” is to define
what the organization means by “informed risk taking.” This recommendation relates to the data
in Chapter 4 that faculty interview participants did not feel there was clear support from
leadership to engage in entrepreneurial behavior, and that it could even be risky for non-tenured
faculty. This recommendation also takes into account the research by Perkins (1973) and
Marshall (2011) indicating that HEIs are extraordinarily complex organizations, with an
extensive web of stakeholders and objectives. This initial step would gather feedback from each
of these stakeholder groups to better understand their perspectives, with the goal of greater buy-
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in. Taking this step would also help build a culture of willingness among faculty to take risks by
laying the groundwork so that faculty understand what behavior leadership encourages. The
definition will then form the basis for all other solutions listed below.
Defining UNL’s interpretation of “informed risk taking” would start with facilitating
conversations across UNL stakeholders, primarily with faculty from all departments and
colleges, to ensure their perspectives are aligned with the definition. These conversations could
spotlight more of the entrepreneurial work being done currently to share the experience with
faculty who do not currently engage in this behavior and draw out those who currently do so
without the knowledge of university leadership. Discussions could lead to more insight into how
faculty would like to engage in this type of work and be supported in the future. Some of this
work may have occurred during the N│150 process and now needs to be fleshed out in a more
concrete manner. After creating a clear definition, leadership will need to communicate the
definition throughout the university, utilizing the leadership structure of the Deans to
communicate with each college, so that all faculty understand that entrepreneurship and risk-
taking will be supported.
Recommendation 2: Build a University-Wide Unit to Identify and Support Entrepreneurial
Faculty
Next, UNL could create a unit – office, department, or center – on campus that is not
associated with specific college. This unit would ultimately be accountable for achieving the
performance goal defined in Chapter 1, increasing the occurrence of UNL faculty engaging in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. As noted in the findings, interview participants indicated
that there are a cadre of faculty members who are inherently driven toward entrepreneurial, risk-
taking behavior, and who will do it regardless of the institution’s support. However, interview
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participants who currently engage in this behavior commented that this cadre of faculty are not
currently well identified, supported, and connected to create an encouraging and motivating
atmosphere. This unit would be responsible for identifying those faculty who have the propensity
to engage in this type of work from across all colleges and departments and offer the support
needed to encourage faculty entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. This unit would act as the
central UNL hub for faculty to go for support, including both making connections with similarly
motivated faculty across UNL and making connections to external partners who can help faculty
apply their research in practical settings. Helping with these external connections link directly to
findings from the faculty interviews and survey indicating that this is an area where faculty could
use additional support.
While the Center of Entrepreneurship (CEL) serves some of this purpose currently, there
are a number of reasons to create a new, separate unit to carry out this function. The Center for
Entrepreneurship is currently located within the business college, which is a siloed academic
unit. Perkins (1973) noted that as universities were originally structured to serve the original
mission, to teach. The mission has now evolved to include service to society, but the structure
has not yet adapted, making it more difficult to carry out that mission (Perkins, 1973). Therefore,
creating a unit responsible for supporting university-wide that is outside of a traditional,
academic unit, would allow for a new structure to better carry out the intended purpose.
Christensen and Overdorf (2000) wrote that when an organization requires new capabilities and
processes, leaders must establish new organizational structures to build up those capabilities.
They assert that it is difficult for traditional organizational structures to begin thinking and acting
differently to address new challenges: “Managers need to pull the relevant people out of the
existing organization and draw a new boundary around a new group. Often, organizational
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boundaries were first drawn to facilitate the operation of existing processes, and they impede the
creation of new processes” (Christensen & Overdorf, 2000). Additionally, the Center for
Entrepreneurship is led by faculty members who studied entrepreneurship but have not
necessarily engaged in it, as reported in Chapter Four, and their primary goal is to teach the
discipline. Interview data indicated that faculty had the impression that the Center for
Entrepreneurship was not intended to support their entrepreneurial activity, and they were
unclear about the mission for the Center for Entrepreneurship. A university-wide unit that is not
intended for teaching could execute on a more clearly defined mission to support faculty who
wish to engage in this type of behavior. This university-wide unit would then replace the Center
for Entrepreneurship, or partner with a re-purposed Center for Entrepreneurship that would focus
exclusively on students studying entrepreneurship. Finally, because colleges are quite siloed,
some faculty participant data indicated they not all faculty felt comfortable going to the business
college. A university-wide unit could operate across these siloes, thereby encouraging faculty
from all colleges to engage and spurring interdisciplinary collaboration.
This focus on interdisciplinary activity links directly to the n2025 Strategic Plan, which
lays out the strategy for the first five years of the 25-year vision put forth in the N│150 Report.
The n2025 Strategic Plan specifically mentions “to foster innovative, interdisciplinary endeavors
and solve challenges critical to Nebraska and the world” (UNL, 2020). This recommendation
aligns with the research of Urbano and Guerrero (2013) who stated that the “entrepreneurial
university” has set up “transdisciplinary and heterogenous structures, as well as hybridizing
organisms for collaborating, networking and partnering with multiple industries, universities and
private and public institutions in both national and international contexts” (p. 46). This unit
would partner with other resources across the campus, including NUtech, UNL’s tech transfer
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office, to funnel people to resources as needed. The unit could also work with and support
colleges or departments that seek to hire for these skills, including in Professor of Practice roles.
It could also partner with the Extension Office to the extent that the goal of entrepreneurial, risk-
taking behavior is intended to spur regional social and economic development. Because the
Extension Office is a long-standing office with a specific mandate and engrained ways of
operating within the IANR, it is likely not the best implementation location for new thinking.
Nonetheless, the Extension Office has a lot of applicable and valuable experience to share and a
future partnership could be to the advantage of both units. Finally, this interdisciplinary unit
would act as the “front door” for the Nebraska community outside of UNL for external people
who would like to connect with expertise and find partners within the university. This need for a
“front door” stems directly from the comments from interview participants in Chapter 4.
To create a unit that is accountable for increasing entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior,
the first step is to create a line item for this unit in the university-wide budget. This
recommendation is also supported by published research, which found that an “entrepreneurial
university” has policies and a budget that enable potential entrepreneurs to develop within the
university (Urbano & Guerrero, 2013). Additional details about this budget is in the next section,
“Resource requirements.” Tied to budget allocations, UNL leadership would need to develop a
formal mandate for the unit, including responsibilities and expected outcomes, many of which
are included in this chapter. This mandate will drive the next action step: hiring a leader. The new
leader will need to take the mandate and turn it into a strategic plan for the unit, which they then
implement over the coming years.
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Recommendation 3: Revamp NUtech
In order for the unit described above to successfully collaborate with NUtech, the next
solution would be to revamp NUtech to be a positive resource to faculty who wish to utilize their
research findings toward practical applications, to help them with the process knowledge and
skills needed to execute on entrepreneurial behavior.. This study did not include an in-depth
analysis of NUtech’s current expertise, capacity and operations, so the information is primarily
based on the experiences and perceptions of interview participants who have engaged in
entrepreneurial activity. Data from interview participants indicated that NUtech’s efforts focused
primarily on agriculture. Given the prominence of the agriculture sector in Nebraska, this focus
may be warranted. However, two interview participants stated that their patents were not utilized
and were wasted “sitting on the shelf.” Because faculty interview participants were primarily
motivated by helping people and advancing their field, participants expressed frustration that
they perceived their research was stuck within NUtech and not utilized via licensing. Two
interview participants also noted that licensing deals through NUtech are not financially
favorable for faculty, leading some faculty to pursue deals outside of the university structure.
Revamping NUtech may require staff with expertise in additional sectors. Also, a greater
orientation toward faculty perceptions, including improving the incentives and reducing the
barriers could support more faculty to engage, potentially leading to a stronger program and
university. It could be useful for NUtech to expand its scope and seek out staff to go beyond
agriculture innovations and restructure its agreements with faculty. Even if each individual patent
or licensing deal balances incentives more to the faculty member than the university, more deals
going through NUtech overall means more incentives for UNL. NUtech can then work with the
interdisciplinary unit described above to identify faculty with ideas that could go through
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NUtech and encourage them to apply their research. A revamped NUtech could also increase its
efforts to create partnerships with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, and others
to create a network to support new solutions coming out of UNL research. This recommendation
comes directly from the survey data that showed that the majority of faculty agree with the item
“I would like more support connecting my research to industry” (Figure 14).
The action steps required to revamp NUtech would begin with a research phase to
investigate how other universities that have a strong ethos of entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior structure their tech transfer offices and policies. Interview participants noted Stanford,
MIT, and Arizona State as potential forward-thinking universities to study. Gathering best
practices and lessons learned from universities that are positive outliers in this capacity can help
inform the capacities, processes and procedures that could help NUtech support faculty usage of
the office. NUtech could then revise their policies and operations and collaborate with the
university-wide unit from Recommendation 2 to identify and support promising faculty to
engage.
It is possible the NUtech and the interdisciplinary unit described in the previous sub-
section could end up being a part of the same overall unit together. However, NUtech is a legacy
office that has established ways of operating and its role is to provide only a portion of the
support needed for entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior. Therefore, it will likely not be effective
to expect NUtech to carry out overall solution without the university-wide unit from
Recommendation 2. As noted previously, this study did not directly research NUtech, so these
recommendations are based on the perceptions of faculty and what influences they reported
could better support them to engage in entrepreneurial behavior.
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Recommendation 4: Adapt Faculty Incentives and Reward Structure
Finally, while it would likely be the most difficult solution to implement, it is clear from
the findings in Chapter 4 that UNL will need to adapt tenure and promotion guidelines to align
with the N│150 stated priority to “support a campus-wide ethos of informed risk taking”
(University of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2019). Based on the findings, interview participants noted
that the current incentive structure at UNL does not adequately support the desired ethos of risk-
taking. This recommendation aligns with the work of Sanberg et al. who wrote that universities
must “change from recognizing only basic research to rewarding use-oriented research,
development, and commercialization as well” (p. 6547). It is important to note that the tenure
and promotion system can continue to acknowledge the traditional path of research and
publishing, while adding in elements that reward faculty who spend time applying that research.
The intended outcome is that faculty feel comfortable engaging in this behavior knowing it is
based on their research and it, too, will be considered and rewarded in promotion decisions. After
realigning the incentive structure, the promotion evaluation processes must be reworked to align
with the new structure.
Opening the incentive and reward structures to this type of mentality can also lead to
changes in hiring practices, such that the university purposefully brings in people who value
entrepreneurship and risk-taking. These people can then be a part of the cadre who engage in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity, recognizing it will likely never be all faculty. However,
having a group of these faculty who are encouraged in their entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior
spreads the ethos that it is supported, and therefore creates a more welcoming environment for
others to engage.
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Finally, adjusting tenure and promotion guidelines will likely be a longer-term process.
This process will start with an internal research phase that includes listening to faculty from
across UNL. This may be done in conjunction with the listening process associated with defining
“informed risk-taking.” Given that tenure and promotion guidelines are fundamental to faculty
positions, it will require a serious participatory process to gain buy-in. Interview participants
noted that faculty often choose the academic career path because they are inherently risk-averse
and the path from Ph.D. to tenured professor does not generally encourage risk-taking.
Therefore, it is natural that many faculty members would not want to change the system that
rewarded them on their own career trajectory. This challenge is the reason the tenure and
promotion guidelines solution does not call for eliminating the traditional incentives but creating
an additional pathway to reward those who do engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior.
Given that over 70% of survey participants agreed to some extent that they would engage in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior more often if it were incentivized, there is potential that
enough faculty see the benefits of altering the primary incentive structure at UNL to reward this
behavior. However, due to the faculty committee structure and need for buy-in, it will likely be a
challenge to change such fundamental policies.
UNL leadership will need to amend or develop new overarching priorities and guidelines
for the tenure and promotion process to communicate with the Deans of each of the colleges.
Next, the Deans will need to work with their faculty committees to workshop the tenure and
promotion guidelines that are in effect in each college. Along with changing the guidelines,
faculty committees will need to adjust how faculty evaluations are performed in alignment with
the new guidelines. Finally, if necessary, various colleges may need to re-orient hiring practices
to align with the new priorities, tenure and promotion guidelines, and evaluation practices.
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Faculty participants had specific suggestions on how incentives and reward structures
could be adjusted. First, both interview and survey participants highlighted the barrier of time
allocations, so one suggestion was to adjust time requirements to allow for faculty to engage in
this work, applying their research and developing connections outside of the university. Second,
incentives could expand the service to society portion of the tenure and promotion guidelines,
rather than focusing as heavily on publication. Finally, the guidelines could incorporate a way to
value research that may have been published in a more interdisciplinary or practice-focused
journal, though those journals may currently be considered less prestigious. With respect to
maintaining current tenure and promotion incentives while including incentives for
entrepreneurial behavior, these new incentives do not necessarily represent a separate, alternative
path, but a widening of promotion behaviors that are encouraged. While these concrete
suggestions emerged from this study, additional research that assesses the tenure and promotion
guidelines of HEIs with exemplary models would be useful to understand best practices.
Because the intent of encouraging entrepreneurial behavior is to connect research and
knowledge from within the university to the region, it is conceivable that a faculty member
would spend some years focused on research and knowledge generation, followed by a period of
applying their work through entrepreneurial activities. The same faculty member could then
move on to new research and repeat the cycle or continue research while simultaneously finding
external partners to apply past work. In this way, the tenure and promotion guidelines that
incentivize the spirit of entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior would value both the generation of
knowledge and the application of it.
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Implementation Considerations
Implementation of these four recommendations would require careful planning from
university leadership. This section lays out a number of factors to take into account for
implementation planning. Specifically, the following sections address resource requirements,
timeline, and implementation constraints and challenges.
Resource Requirements and Timing
The initial work of creating a clear definition of “ethos of informed risk taking” will
require leadership and staff time to engage with stakeholders and craft a clear definition, along
with the time required from stakeholders across the university to share their input. It will also
take time during leadership meetings to communicate the results of this work. Creating a
university-wide unit will require funding to hire a qualified leader and offer programming to
support faculty who participate. Additional human resource requirements in future years would
likely be needed and would be contingent on the success of the unit. The initial phase of
revamping NUtech, the research phase, will take leadership time and funding for travel to study
other universities that have strong tech transfer offices. Out of this research phase, there is likely
to be a need for additional funding to hire differently qualified leadership and improve
operations. Depending on the findings of the research phase, over the long-term it may be a goal
for this office to fund itself while also contributing to UNL’s revenue. The resource requirements
here are less informed because this study did not include an in-depth analysis of NUtech’s
leadership, budget, or operations. Finally, adjusting faculty incentives, including tenure and
promotion guidelines, will require extensive faculty and leadership time over the course of a few
years, which means extensive human capital investment.
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As noted in the previous paragraph, faculty and leadership time is a primary resource
requirement for these solutions overall. Considering the time it takes to gather input across the
varied stakeholders a UNL, including staff across colleges, the work of creating a definition will
likely take four to six months to complete. This definitional work must be completed before
future steps can begin. Creating a new unit that is accountable for this initiative from the N│150
report will likely take up to two years, inclusive of a year to build funding into the university-
wide budget or get grant funding and define the mandate, up to four months to get a new leader
onboarded, and another six to eight months for that leader to develop a strategic plan and move
toward implementation and action. Revamping NUtech can likely occur simultaneously to
developing the new unit. This solution will also likely take about two years, one year to do the
research, around four months to hire and onboard a new leader, and another six to eight months
to rewrite the policies and operations of this department. Finally, adjusting the tenure and
promotion guidelines will likely be longer-term, based on the decentralized structure of UNL. It
will likely take a year to listen to faculty across UNL followed by a year for university-wide
leadership to synthesize the input, change university-wide guidelines, and communicate changes
to all Deans. Then it will likely take two years for faculty committees to adjust the guidelines
within each college, and finally another year or two to adjust evaluation practices. These steps
sum to a total of five to six years. Table 11 summarizes the resource requirements and timeline to
implement these recommendations.

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Table 11
Summary of recommendation resource requirements and timeline
Recommendation Resource Requirements Timeline
1. Define and communicate
the desired behavior.
 Leadership and faculty time
 Time for additional university stakeholders
to share perspectives
4 – 6 months
2. Build a university-wide
unit to identify and support
faculty who want to engage.
 Funding to hire a qualified leader
 Funding for programming to support faculty
2 years
3. Revamp NUtech.  Leadership and staff time initially for
research
 Funding for enhanced operations
 Potentially, additional funding for different
leadership
2 years

4. Adapt faculty incentives
and reward structure.
 Leadership and faculty time
 Based on changes, funding shifts based on
time allocations or other incentives /
rewards
5 – 6 years

Implementation Constraints and Challenges
While the N│150 vision report, which was developed and endorsed by leadership, states
that it is a priority for to UNL to “support a campus-wide ethos of informed risk taking,” there is
no concrete evidence that current leadership prioritizes this specific initiative within the report.
Therefore, for any of these solutions to be implemented, the senior leadership at UNL, including
the chancellor, must recognize its importance and decide to act on it. While interview
participants stated that leadership needs to show support for entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior
for it to happen, it is also critical in this case because the solutions are university-wide, not
specific to individual colleges. Therefore, for the necessary budget and time to be devoted to
these solutions, the senior leadership will need to prioritize this initiative among the many others
in the N│150 report.
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Another constraint is the university budget. Funds will need to be reallocated from other
priorities, which is difficult in any organization. Additionally, the costs associated with these
solutions will not immediately and visibly lead to increased revenue. Therefore, the leadership
will need to take a long-term view when considering allocating budget to these solutions, taking
into account the future impact on the state of Nebraska, including perceived relevance of UNL to
the community and advancements in social and economic development in the state through
innovation and entrepreneurship coming out of UNL. As the findings in Chapter 4 indicate,
faculty noted that increased entrepreneurial and risk-taking behavior among faculty can have a
positive impact on the university’s reputation. An enhanced reputation in turn could positively
impact UNL’s enrollment, advancement, and state appropriations. Also, if executed successfully,
these solutions could lead to additional application of research and patents through
entrepreneurship in Nebraska, potentially benefiting UNL financially.
Specific to adjusting tenure and promotion guidelines to encourage an “ethos of informed
risk taking” among faculty, the key constraint will be faculty buy-in, discussed in the previous
section. Finally, a key challenge will be getting past the inertia of how things have always been
done. This challenge is not unique to UNL but widespread across HEIs in the United States
(Christensen & Eyring, 2011; Layne & Lake, 2015). Changing an organizational culture is a
gradual process that takes time. The solution regarding creating a new university-wide unit to
support entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior targets getting those who are inherently more risk-
oriented to feel encouraged and supported. Incentives then change attitudes and behaviors more
gradually over time, especially as the adjusted incentive structure may attract new hires that
embody the desired ethos. Eventually, as more faculty exhibit entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior and feel supported, more faculty will be successful in these endeavors and others will
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see them as models, just as several interview participants highlighted the success of one
prominent model currently on campus. Changing cultural settings, the concrete elements of an
organizational culture, like its incentive structure, can have widespread changes on the intangible
norms, or the culture models, that shape the behavior of those within the organization. It is
through this process that UNL could create the desired “ethos of informed risk taking” as laid out
in the N│150 vision.
Evaluation Plan
This study employs the evaluation framework developed by Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick
(2006) to assess the progress of each recommendation. This framework uses four levels of
evaluation to track the advancement from initial perceptions to long-term results. Each level
builds on the outcomes of the previous level. The first level is reaction, which assesses how the
intended stakeholders respond to the intervention. For example, if their opinion of the
intervention is favorable or not. Tracking this level is important because it will impact the
likelihood of stakeholders to be motivated to act. The second level of evaluation according to
Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick’s (2006) framework is learning. This level assesses if the intended
stakeholders “change attitudes, improve knowledge, and/or increase skill” because of the
intervention (p. 22). People must understand what needs to be different before they can alter their
behavior. Learning then leads to the third level, which evaluates changes in behavior as a result
of the intervention. And finally, the fourth level seeks to assess the results that occurred due to
the intervention. Results can only occur if behavior changes, finishing the progressive nature of
each level building on the previous. This tiered evaluation framework can help leadership
understand at which of the four levels implementation of the recommended solution breaks down
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and hinders ultimate success. With this information, leadership can adjust implementation to
address that specific gap (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006).
The Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2006) evaluation framework can then be applied to
each of the four recommendations proposed in this chapter. To assess progress associated with
these recommendations, it will be useful for UNL to develop survey items that assess certain
elements in the evaluation plan in the following tables. These items could be aggregated into one
survey and potentially combined with another campus climate survey that faculty already
complete. In general, a regular, baselined research tool designed to measure individual and
university-wide openness to and engagement in entrepreneurial behavior would be valuable
going forward to integrate annually with other data currently tracked by UNL. As highlighted in
Chapter 1, this study relates directly to UNL’s N│150 report and the university’s strategic goals.
Therefore, many of the evaluation criteria in the fourth level, results, are taken directly from
UNL’s N│150 report and its n2025 Strategic Plan. This ensures alignment between the
recommendations and the university’s overarching priorities. The evaluation plan associated with
each recommendation contains a combination of new survey items, elements that the university
already tracks, and elements that the university has already committed to tracking in either the
n2025 Strategic Plan or the N│150 report.
Evaluating Recommendation 1: Define and Communicate the Desired Entrepreneurial,
Risk-Taking Behavior
The key measure of success for this effort will be the development of a clear definition
and faculty and staff awareness of this definition. Once leadership establishes a definition of
desired behavior and carries out a comprehensive communications plan, evaluation of the
recommendation according to the Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2006) four-level framework can
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begin. UNL leadership can evaluate each level through survey items, specifically looking at
change in faculty responses to those items over time as faculty become more familiar with and
clear about the definition. Additionally, leadership can track behavior through engagement with
university units that support entrepreneurship, such as the unit in the second recommendation.
Media mentions, both quantity and tone, regarding faculty engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-
taking behavior can also reveal how much traction this initiative receives in the broader
community. In this way, media mentions could act as a proxy indicator of the university
connecting to the community in Nebraska, which is one intended outcome of the desired
behavior. The level four results also tie into the N│150 report call to “track annual increases in
faculty, staff, students, and alumni involved in mentorship, entrepreneurial ventures, and job
creation” (University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Office of the Chancellor, 2020). Table 12 lays out
the evaluation plan for this recommendation based on Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick’s (2006)
framework.
Table 12
Evaluation Plan for Recommendation 1
Evaluation Levels
(Kirkpatrick, 2006) Evaluation Plan
Level 1: Reaction –
How do participants
react to the
intervention?
 Include survey item regarding staff reactions to the desired
behavior of engaging entrepreneurial, risk-taking activities
 Monitor Deans’ reactions during faculty meetings regarding this
topic
Level 2: Learning –
Do participants
“change attitudes,
improve knowledge,
an/or increase skill”
(p.22) as a result?
 Include survey item regarding faculty awareness and
understanding of UNL leadership’s support of entrepreneurial,
risk-taking behavior
 Include survey item regarding faculty members’ own attitude
toward engaging in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior
Level 3: Behavior –
Do participants
change their behavior
as a result?
 Include survey item to track self-identified behavior in alignment
with UNL’s definition of entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity
 Track number of faculty who engage with the university-wide
unit that supports these activities (see Solution 2 below)
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Table 12, continued
Evaluation Levels
(Kirkpatrick, 2006) Evaluation Plan
Level 4: Results –
What are the results
that occurred due to
the intervention?
 “Track annual increases in faculty, staff, students, and alumni
involved in mentorship, entrepreneurial ventures, and job
creation” (N150 Report)
 Include a survey item regarding a campus-wide culture of
willingness to take risks and adopt new behavior
 Track media mentions and tone regarding UNL faculty engaging
in the defined behavior

Evaluating Recommendation 2: Build a University-Wide Unit to Identify and Support
Entrepreneurial Faculty
The key measure of success for this university-wide unit will be the stakeholder goal of
this dissertation stated in Chapter 1: “By fall 2025, at least 10% of UNL faculty who have not
previously done so will engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior, using the functional
definition put forth by Ahwireng-Obeng (1993), ‘a type of activity or practice with implications
for generating jobs, fostering innovation and increasing productivity by means of which the
creation of incomes and wealth is enhanced’ (p. 151).” Leadership could use process measures to
ensure progress along the way, such as the creation of a budget line item at the university-level
and onboarding a leader of this unit.
Indicators to evaluate the success of the unit itself will again use a four-level framework.
While survey items are a part of this evaluation plan, the behavior measures relate primarily to
the number of faculty who engage with this unit and partnerships created with external resources.
All of the evaluation elements associated with the fourth level, results, link back to the n2025
Strategic Plan and N│150 report. Specifically, one of the aims identified in the n2025 Strategic
Plan states: “Focus research, scholarship, creative activity, and student experiences to foster
innovative, interdisciplinary endeavors and solve challenges critical to Nebraska and the world”
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(University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Office of the Chancellor, 2020). Many of the metrics
associated with this aim will be directly impacted by implementation of this recommendation to
build a university-wide unit to identify and support faculty who want to engage in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior. Table 13 lays out the four levels of the evaluation plan for
this recommendation.
Table 13
Evaluation Plan for Recommendation 2
Evaluation Levels
(Kirkpatrick, 2006) Evaluation Plan
Level 1: Reaction –
How do participants
react to the
intervention?
 Include a survey item regarding faculty perception of this unit
 Include a survey item regarding faculty perception of the
resources available to engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking
behavior
 Track the number of faculty who engage with this unit in any way
(e.g., events, mentorship, etc.)
Level 2: Learning –
Do participants
“change attitudes,
improve knowledge,
an/or increase skill”
as a result?
 Include a survey item regarding faculty understanding the steps
necessary to engage in entrepreneurial behavior through their
interaction with this unit
 Track the number of faculty who identify themselves as wanting
to connect with the cadre of faculty interested in entrepreneurial
activities
Level 3: Behavior –
Do participants
change their behavior
as a result?
 Track the number of faculty who connect with an external partner
though this unit
 Include survey item to track self-identified behavior in alignment
with the definition of entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity (same
as earlier solution)

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Table 13, continued
Evaluation Levels
(Kirkpatrick, 2006) Evaluation Plan
Level 4: Results –
What are the results
that occurred due to
the intervention?
 “Measuring the impact of our research and creative activity on
society through the number of solutions to grand challenges and
major societal problems; the number of improved practices; and
number and diversity of people and communities helped” (N150
report)
 “All faculty, post-doctoral fellows, staff and students have a
mentor or advisor and all evaluations include reporting of
mentorship activities” (n2025 Strategic Plan) (Note: linked to
specific finding on need for mentorship to increase
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior)
From the n2025 Strategic Plan aim: “Focus research, scholarship,
creative activity, and student experiences to foster innovative,
interdisciplinary endeavors and solve challenges critical to Nebraska
and the world”
 “Increased number and diversity of individuals, teams (faculty,
staff, post-doctoral fellows, and students), and centers working on
high priority [interdisciplinary] challenges”
 “Increased investments (financial resources and facilities) in
successful [interdisciplinary] teams and centers”
 “Evaluation system developed and implemented to ensure
continued productivity of successful interdisciplinary centers and
units”
 “Increased number of national and international collaborations in
Grand Challenge areas”
 “Increased number of interdisciplinary scholarly products
(proposals, grants, publications, creative works)” (emphasis
added)
 “Increased number of tenure-track faculty apportioned to
interdisciplinary centers and units”
 “Grand Challenge topics for Nebraska established and resources
committed to them”
 “Structures and systems established to support research and
creative activities aligned with Grand Challenges”

Evaluating Recommendation 3: Revamp NUtech
Initial measures of success associated with a revamped NUtech would involve process
steps, such as completing of the research phase and altering the policies and guidelines that
NUtech uses in its work with faculty. Similarly to the previous recommendation, while the first
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two levels of the evaluation plan would rely on survey items, levels three and four will rely more
on tracking the level of activity of faculty engagement with NUtech and subsequent outcomes of
that engagement, such as patents filed, licensed, or IP otherwise applied to external endeavors.
The fourth level also relates to specific metrics identified by the n2025 Strategic Plan. Long-
term, UNL leadership could set ambitious revenue targets. Table 14 lays out the evaluation plan
for the third recommendation to revamp NUtech.
Table 7
Evaluation Plan for Recommendation 3
Evaluation Levels
(Kirkpatrick, 2006) Evaluation Plan
Level 1: Reaction –
How do participants
react to the
intervention?
 Include a survey item regarding faculty perception of NUtech
overall
 Track the number of faculty across colleges and departments
(especially outside of agriculture) who engage with NUtech
Level 2: Learning –
Do participants
“change attitudes,
improve knowledge,
an/or increase skill”
as a result?
 Include a survey item regarding faculty perception of NUtech’s
ability to support the use of their research
 Include a survey item regarding faculty understanding that
NUtech is one potential step in the process of connecting their
research to the community
Level 3: Behavior –
Do participants
change their behavior
as a result?
 Track the number of faculty who contact NUtech to assist with
filing a patent or otherwise commercializing their IP
 Assess changes that NUtech staff make to their protocol for
making deals with faculty IP
Level 4: Results –
What are the results
that occurred due to
the intervention?
 Track the number of deals completed with external partners
through NUtech that utilize UNL faculty IP
 “Increased number of patents, copyrights, licensing, and research-
based start-up companies” with the specific target to “Increase the
number of U.S. patents issued by 70% and the number of licenses
executed by 50%” (n2025 Strategic Plan)
 “Form seven research-based start-up companies annually, based
on university technologies” (n2025 Strategic Plan)
 Increased revenue for faculty and the university from IP
applications

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Evaluating Recommendation 4: Adapt Faculty Incentives and Reward Structure
Regarding overall implementation of this recommendation, the primary success metric
for accomplishing this solution would be approved tenure and promotion guidelines that provide
a path to reward entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior among faculty. Intermediate success could
be tracked as university leadership and each college change relevant tenure and promotion
guidelines. Long-term, the adjusted incentives are intended to impact the overall performance
goal of increasing faculty engagement in entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior.
Given that implementation of this recommendation may be particularly delicate, the four
levels of Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick’s (2006) evaluation framework will be critical to help
identify where and when a breakdown occurs to develop an appropriate solution. While
evaluation of levels one and two include just two survey items each, faculty perception and
attitudes will be important to track to successfully move forward. Like the other
recommendations, the higher levels of evaluation link directly to the n2025 Strategic Plan and
N│150 report, ensuring close alignment with UNL’s stated long-term goals. Table 15 lays out the
evaluation plan for the fourth recommendation, to adapt the faculty incentives and reward
structures to incentivize the desired entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior identified through
implementation of the first recommendation.

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Table 85
Evaluation Plan for Recommendation 4
Evaluation Levels
(Kirkpatrick, 2006) Evaluation Plan
Level 1: Reaction –
How do participants
react to the
intervention?
 Include a survey item regarding faculty perceptions of the amendments
to faculty incentives and rewards to encourage entrepreneurial, risk-
taking behavior
 Include a survey item regarding faculty perception to the added element
related to entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity in their annual activity
report completed for tenure and promotion
Level 2: Learning – Do
participants “change
attitudes, improve
knowledge, an/or
increase skill” as a
result?
 Include a question during annual review discussions with faculty to
gauge if faculty understand on what they are measured and how they are
measured regarding this behavior
 Include a survey item to assess faculty members’ likelihood to engage in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity based on the adapted incentives and
reward structure
Level 3: Behavior – Do
participants change
their behavior as a
result?
 Include survey item to track self-identified behavior in alignment with
the definition of entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity (same as earlier
solution)
 “Increase the number of faculty participating in extramurally-funded
research, scholarship, and creative activity by 5% annually on a three-
year rolling average” (n2025 Strategic Plan) (emphasis added)
 “Documenting year over year increases in mutually beneficial
partnerships with our community partners” (N150 Report)
Level 4: Results – What
are the results that
occurred due to the
intervention?
 The completion of “Annual review and promotion documents that value
and reward collaboration and interdisciplinary work” (n2025 Strategic
Plan)
 The completion of “UNL apportionment guidelines and staff position
descriptions and evaluation criteria revised to include engagement”
 Track increase in “the number of opportunities our students have for
experiential learning within the community” (N150 Report)
 “Increase the number of faculty apportioned to do research, scholarship,
and creative activity by 5% annually on a three-year rolling average”
(n2025 Strategic Plan) (emphasis added)
From the n2025 Strategic Plan aim: “Broaden Nebraska’s engagement in
community, industry, and global partnerships”
 “UNL apportionment guidelines and staff position descriptions and
evaluation criteria revised to include engagement” with the target of a
“10% annual increase in percentage of faculty members with an
engagement apportionment”
 “Increased number of and impact on community, industry, and global
partners”
 “Carnegie Community Engagement achieved”
 “Improved infrastructure and professional development to promote
communication, applied research, and sharing of knowledge”

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While this evaluation plan may seem daunting, much of it relates directly to UNL’s
previously stated goals and metrics and relies heavily on survey items that could be included in
an existing annual faculty survey. Additionally, as UNL achieves success on many of these
dimensions, university public relations and communications can use the metrics to demonstrate
to the community and the state government the extent to which UNL contributes to the region.
Limitations and Future Research
One key limitation of this research was restricted engagement from the university
regarding access to faculty names and email addresses for the survey list. Therefore, the survey
list came from public, online faculty lists that may be outdated or otherwise not accurate.
Second, the original design of the study focused on tenured and tenure-track faculty, so the
survey did not collect data on Professors of Practice and other faculty who were not tenured or
tenure-track. However, the interview participants identified by the collaborator did include non-
tenure-track faculty, and those faculty indicated that the Professor of Practice role did lend itself
to more entrepreneurial work. Therefore, another limitation is the lack of Professor of Practice
data specifically from the survey, given the value of the interview data from Professors of
Practice.
The scope of this study included influences that could increase faculty engagement in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior at a land grant, research-based university. Future research
could examine the efficacy of these recommendations, both short-term in increasing the
incidence of faculty risk-taking behavior and long-term in how increased entrepreneurial
behavior impacts regional development and university sustainability. Additionally, future
research could examine the factors that influence a culture of willingness to take risks in other
types of higher education settings, such as private colleges, public, non-research-based
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institutions, and others. The recommendations outlined in this chapter also suggest research on
the policies and operations of tech transfer offices and the incentive and rewards structures at
other universities, such as MIT and Stanford, that seem to encourage faculty engagement in
entrepreneurial activity. Similarly, a study that examines the tenure or promotion guidelines of
other universities that encourage entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior to understand how they
differ would be a next step to understand best practices on that dimension.
Conclusion
This innovation study sought to understand how UNL could address the initiative stated
in the N│150 report, to “support a campus-wide ethos of informed risk taking” (University of
Nebraska – Lincoln, 2019). To that end, the study identified a specific stakeholder goal that by
2025, UNL will serve as a catalyst for growth and prosperity for Nebraska through a 10%
increase in occurrence of UNL faculty engaging in entrepreneurial risk-taking behaviors. For
entrepreneurial risk-taking behaviors, this study used the functional definition put forth by
Ahwireng-Obeng (1993), “a type of activity or practice with implications for generating jobs,
fostering innovation and increasing productivity by means of which the creation of incomes and
wealth is enhanced” (p. 151). The research included interviews with faculty members who are
positive examples of those who engage in entrepreneurial, risk-taking and a survey sent to all
faculty members. Through this data, 12 influences emerged as gaps where innovation would
need to occur at UNL to successfully achieve the stakeholder goal, and ultimately the initiative
from the N│150 report. Chapter 5 then laid out four recommendations, relating primarily to
organizational factors, to address these gaps, along with an evaluation plan to track progress.
Overall, approximately half of faculty survey respondents reported that they engage in
entrepreneurial, risk-taking activity as defined by this study. Yet interview participants indicated
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that they engage in this type of behavior despite the ethos on campus, not because of it. While
faculty generally understand the benefits of engaging in such behavior, many lack the procedural
knowledge of how to engage in it. They also feel that organization policies, such as tenure and
promotion, hinder such activity, but that should these policies be adjusted, they would engage in
this behavior more often. As interview participants noted, there will never be a time when all
faculty choose to engage in such behavior. However, there is a cadre of faculty that orients
toward this behavior, and the university can grow that cadre by identifying and supporting those
who want to engage, as well as changing incentives to support faculty engagement in the desired
entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior.
While improving incentives for faculty can increase individual behavior, the ultimate
intention for increased entrepreneurial, risk-taking behavior is a positive impact on social and
economic develop in Nebraska. Achieving the stakeholder goal of this study over time will help
UNL better fulfill its mission, its responsibility as a land grant institution, and societal
expectation in an increasingly knowledge-based economy. An enhanced reputation can lead to
positive benefits, such as increased enrollment or research funding. As many universities face
challenges of sustainability and public perception, not working toward the innovations outlined
in this study could have dire long-term consequences. Ultimately, catalyzing regional
development can prove UNL’s importance and be a strong case for investment in the institution
for generations to come.

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APPENDIX A: SURVEY INSTRUMENT
1. Please indicate your current position at UNL (check all that apply):
□ Professor
□ Associate Professor
□ Assistant Professor
□ Professor / Associate / Assistant of Practice (terminate survey)
□ Adjunct Professor/Lecturer/Instructor (terminate survey)
□ Other non-tenure-track faculty position (terminate survey)
□ Departmental Chair
□ Administrative staff – manager (terminate survey)
□ Administrative staff – non-manager (terminate survey)

2. How many years have you worked at UNL? ________

3. In which of the colleges do you work? (check all that apply)
□ Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources
□ Architecture
□ Arts and Sciences
□ Business
□ Education and Human Sciences
□ Engineering
□ Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts
□ Graduate Studies
□ Journalism and Mass Communications
□ Law

4. What is your gender?
□ Female
□ Male
□ Transgender
□ Nonbinary

This study focuses on entrepreneurial behavior related to applying innovation and taking risks.
This definition includes traditional entrepreneurial activities, such as tech transfer and starting
companies, as well as a broader set of behaviors related to operationalizing research and utilizing
expertise beyond the university toward the fulfillment of the university’s mission to “positively
transform lives, land, and society” in Nebraska. In other words, this study includes any behavior
on the part of a faculty member who seeks to connect their work to:
- Spur development in Nebraska (e.g., generate jobs, increase productivity, foster
innovation)
- Advance company, nonprofit, or government work, which in turn advances regional
development
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 140
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Illustrative examples of this behavior could include a faculty member from any discipline:
- Applying research evidence to help a company improve technology or streamline
operations
- Utilizing research evidence to help a non-profit improve its work
- Providing expertise to government officials to shape policy decisions

Conversely, this study does not include innovations and risk-taking behavior intended to have
impact within the university, such as designing new curriculum or creating a new course.

For the following items, please indicate to what extent do you agree with the following
statements:
1. Strongly disagree
2. Disagree
3. Slightly disagree
4. Slightly agree
5. Agree
6. Strongly agree

5. I have engaged in entrepreneurial activity as defined by this study.

6. I believe that I could be successful at engaging in entrepreneurial activity.

7. I understand the steps necessary for me to engage in entrepreneurial activity.

8. When it proves difficult to apply my research to practical solutions, I can figure out how
to do it.

9. Engaging in entrepreneurial activity is not worth my time.

10. If I attempt entrepreneurship and it is not successful, it will hurt my reputation within the
university.

11. The university supports a culture of willingness to takes risks and adopt new behavior,
specifically related to entrepreneurship.

12. If I try to engage in entrepreneurial behavior and it is not successful, it will hurt my
professional standing at the university, including progress toward tenure.

13. I would engage in entrepreneurial activity more often if I would be rewarded through
faculty incentive structures.

14. The university offers dedicated services (e.g., a Center, workshops, patent or legal
support, etc.) to support faculty in entrepreneurial activity.

FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 141
141
15. The university has promoted the resources available to support faculty entrepreneurial
activity.

16. I would like more support connecting my research to industry.

17. Engaging in entrepreneurial activity is not part of my job as a faculty member.

18. What are the benefits to engaging in entrepreneurial activity? (select all that apply)
□ Personal interest
□ Finding solutions for problems
□ Deeper understanding of my research findings
□ Personal financial gain
□ Financial gain for the university
□ Regional economic development
□ Other, please specify (open-ended)

19. What do you see as the key barriers to your engagement in entrepreneurial activity?
Faculty… (select all that apply)
□ Lack the knowledge regarding how to go about it
□ Lack of skills needed
□ Do not see it as part of their job responsibility
□ Do not believe it is worth the effort
□ Do not think they could be successful at it
□ Believe that an unsuccessful attempt could hurt their chances at promotion
□ Believe that an unsuccessful attempt could hurt their reputation
□ Do not have sufficient resources
□ Do not have sufficient time
□ Other, please specify (open-ended)

20. What is the cost-benefit analysis to pursuing entrepreneurial behavior? (open-ended)

21. What can UNL do to encourage entrepreneurial activity? (open-ended)
22. What additional support would be useful to help you engage in entrepreneurial activity?
(open-ended)

23. What might it look like for UNL to incentivize entrepreneurial behavior? (open-ended)

24. Would you be willing to participate in an interview regarding entrepreneurial behavior at
UNL? If so, please provide your email address.

FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 142
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APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What do you think are the potential benefits to faculty to engaging in entrepreneurship?
o [If needed, probe on:
 Personal interest
 Personal financial gain
 Financial gain for the university
 Finding solutions to problems
 Regional economic development
o Based on your response, tell me about why you engage in entrepreneurial activity,
if at all.
o [If he/she doesn’t] Tell me about why you do not engage in entrepreneurial
activity.

2. From your experience, what are the barriers to pursuing entrepreneurial activity among
faculty?

3. What skills do you believe are needed to engage in entrepreneurial behavior?
o Where did you learn these skills, if anywhere?

4. Tell me about a time that you applied your research findings outside of the university, if any.
o [If yes] How did you go about that?
 How did you decide on what finding to apply?
o [If no] If you were to apply your research findings outside of the university, how
would you go about that? Walk me through the steps.

5. Tell me about a relationship that you have outside of UNL that is related to your research.
o [If yes] How did you connect with that person?
 How did you initially develop the relationship?
 How did you advance the relationship to a collaboration or partnership?
 How successful has that partnership been? Why?
 If a colleague wanted insight into how to build similar relationships with
an external partner, what would you advise?
o [If no] If you were to develop an external partner for your research, how would
you go about that?

6. Let’s say a colleague came to you and asked how to go about engaging in entrepreneurial
activity, what would you tell them they need to do first?
o What would you tell them to do next? (etc.)

7. How do you feel about your ability to be successful engaging in entrepreneurial activity?
o [Potential probe:] Tell me about a time when you thought to yourself “I know
how to do this!”

FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 143
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8. Have you ever been in a situation when your entrepreneurial endeavor was not progressing as
you would hope, and you had to change course? If so, what did you do in that situation?

9. What do you see as the cost-benefit analysis to pursuing entrepreneurial behavior?
o [Probe on cost value: effort, reputational risk]

10. What, if anything, has the university communicated about faculty taking risks with
entrepreneurial activity?
o Do faculty trust that pursuing entrepreneurial behavior will not diminish their
professional standing?
o What would it look like for the university to create an environment that supports
entrepreneurial activity?
o Given this [answer above], What do you think UNL can do to better to cultivate
an environment where faculty take risks with entrepreneurial activity?

11. Tell me what organizational incentives exist for faculty to engage in entrepreneurial
behavior, if any.
o What might it look like for the university to incentivize entrepreneurial behavior?
o What changes to the current incentive structure would be necessary?

12. [Document analysis in advance to know what resources UNL offers] Which of the
university’s resources related to entrepreneurship do you utilize, if any?
o [If yes:] How useful are these resources for you?
 What additional support would be useful to help you engage in
entrepreneurial activity?
o [If none:] Why do you not use any of these resources?
 What resources do you think the university could offer that you would use,
if any?

13. Thinking more generally, what do you think could help increase entrepreneurship or risk-
taking among faculty at UNL?

FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 144
144
APPENDIX C: INFORMATION SHEET FOR INTERVIEW PARTICIPANTS
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
Waite Phillips Hall
3470 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089

Increasing Faculty Engagement in Entrepreneurial Risk-taking
Behavior to Advance Regional Economic Development: An Innovation Study

You are invited to participate in a research study. Research studies include only people who
voluntarily choose to take part. This document explains information about this study. You should
ask questions about anything that is unclear to you.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This research study aims to understand how to foster entrepreneurial risk-taking behavior among
faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). The study is intended to support the
initiative from the N150 Final Commission Report to address how UNL can effectively “support
a campus-wide ethos of informed risk taking.”

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
If you agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to participate in an hour-long, audio-
recorded interview. You do not have to answer any questions you don’t want to answer.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
You will not be compensated for your participation; however, if you are interested, the
researcher will share with you the results of the study once completed.

CONFIDENTIALITY
The data will be stored on a password protected computer until after the study has been
completed and the researcher has graduated, at which point the data will be destroyed.
Additionally, your responses will be aggregated with other participant responses and your name
will not be attached to any quotations used in the final report. In general, your responses will be
made anonymous through pseudonyms and removing identifiable characteristics.

The members of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects
Protection Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research
studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.

When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable
information will be used.

INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
Principal Researcher, Allison Fry via email at allisocf@usc.edu or phone at (713)882-1122
Faculty Advisor, Tracy Tambascia via email at tpoon@rossier.usc.edu or phone at (213) 740-9747
FACULTY ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOR 145
145

IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
University of Southern California Institutional Review Board, 1640 Marengo Street, Suite 700,
Los Angeles, CA 90033-9269. Phone (323) 442-0114 or email irb@usc.edu.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Boxer, Allison Catherine (author)

Core Title Increasing faculty engagement in entrepreneurial behavior to advance regional economic development: an innovation study

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Global Executive

Publication Date 07/21/2020

Defense Date 07/06/2020

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag entrepreneurial university,entrepreneurship,faculty,Higher education,innovation,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Tambascia, Tracy Poon (committee chair), Plowman, Donde Ashmos (committee member), Robison, Mark Powers (committee member)

Creator Email allisocf@usc.edu,allisoncboxer@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-335627

Unique identifier UC11663620

Identifier etd-BoxerAllis-8722.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-335627 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-BoxerAllis-8722.pdf

Dmrecord 335627

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Boxer, Allison Catherine

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA