JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION THEORY AND PRACTICE

The Changing Role of the Entrepreneurial University in Developing

Countries: The Case of Latvia

Author(s): Natalja Jarohnovich, Chem. Valdis Avotiņš

Citation: Natalja Jarohnovich, Chem. Valdis Avotiņš, (2013) "The Changing Role of the Entrepreneurial University in Developing Countries: The Case of Latvia," Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, Vol.13, Iss. 2, pp. 121 - 148

Article Type: Research paper

Publisher: North American Business Press

Abstract:

The role of knowledge creators and accumulators like universities and their research institutions are

consistently growing and obtaining new forms of operation. Recently the traditional university model

considering importance of new knowledge flows in regional innovation systems tended to contribute to

external knowledge absorption readiness thus requiring new roles for regional knowledge centres in less

developed countries. In essence, today the model of interaction with the commercial sector has a much

more complex mode. The primary aim of this paper is to systemize industry-university-society linkages,

and emerging concepts of the entrepreneurial university in catching-up a country into the proper model

scheme to catalyse a much easier and faster assessment of effectiveness factors for any university on its

way to introducing top-down, or better bottom-up approaches of an entrepreneurial university. In the

first part of this paper we analyse the concept of academic entrepreneurship and technology absorption

readiness, the second part is devoted to entrepreneurial university models, and the third section analyzes

the case of a small regional College and a national university in the capital city of Latvia.