Sustainability, Technology and Innovation 4.0

Zbigniew Makieła, Magdalena M. Stuss, Ryszard Borowiecki, Zbigniew Makieła, Magdalena M. Stuss, Ryszard Borowiecki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000439632
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

Sustainability, Technology and Innovation 4.0 is a holistic perception and analysis of innovation at the level of public organisations, innovation in industry and innovation in HR. Its chapters collectively present a thesis that Innovation 4.0 signals a technological revolution that has the opportunity to prevent environmental degradation and, in particular, to stop climate warming, the effects of which may disrupt the process of sustainable development.

Uniquely, this edited book offers a comprehensive and multi-faceted examination of Innovation 4.0, fulfilling methodical, empirical and utilitarian goals. The methodological objective is to present tools that allow the identification, analysis and assessment of the relationship between Innovation 4.0 and inspiration that will carry society towards a new economic and social order. Its empirical aim is to enable the analysis and evaluation of the role of public organisations, innovation in industry and innovation in HR in the process of building sustainable development of the global environment. The book's utilitarian goal is a recommendation for global organisations of Innovation 4.0 as an instrument to stimulate an innovative economy.

This is a high-level research book aimed at postgraduates, MBA students, researchers and academics from business colleges and universities, and may also provide a valuable strategic perspective for business executives.

Part 1

Innovations in the public sector

1 Innovative university 4.0

The academic entrepreneur in an innovative university

Zbigniew Makieła

DOI: 10.4324/9781003184065-1

Introduction

The contemporary model of society encourages universities to change the model of the concepts of education and upbringing used so far, while also the transfer and marketisation of knowledge. The development of science, techniques and universality of IT technologies has accelerated the transformation of social structures and the IT society being shaped that expects educational changes. The processes of globalisation have accelerated the progress in scientific research, which forces the immediate transfer of innovations to the market, which is followed by a change in the management of the university. The employees, students, PhD students and graduates of the university are the authors and participants of the new product solutions, while process, organisational, marketing and ecological solutions are also transferred to the economy. The new management of the university has encompassed the commercialisation of knowledge, whereby the aforementioned actors, together with the university, participate in business activities and successfully create an innovative enterprise. The educational process is changing, and the preparation of students for conducting business activities and professional work is gaining high importance. There is a necessity for the constant enhancement of the quality of education with a focus on practices, whereby a student participates in discussion classes, tutorials and professional practices to a higher degree.

Literary review and preparation of hypotheses

In the Polish academic environment, there is a constant discussion about the future model of the university, which is described as innovative, or as the University of the Third Generation. There is a conviction among researchers that the Humboldt model, based on didactic functions and scientific/research activities, deviates from the expectations of the business and scientific environments, while also failing to meet the expectations of students in particular. There is a justified expectation of an innovative university, which would execute interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity (the departure from the rigid division of sciences, which favours creativity) and intensified contact with society, including the business world, private firms, corporations and other research and educational centres (Kwiek, 2010; Leja, 2013; Gorzelak, 2009; Apple, 1989).

In the new model of the innovative university, the added value is the consistent building and participation in network structures, while also the implementation of new methods of management and the transfer of research results to the economy (Makieła, 2017, p. 24). The networking of the university constitutes strong and long-lasting ties with social entities, business organisations, enterprises, corporations and research centres, but also educational and local government centres. Network structures open a network space of the commercialisation of knowledge, which favours the autonomy of the financial activities of the university and by way of consequence, financial independence. This signifies the fact that capital-intensive scientific research in its prevalent scope shall be financed by entities that are legally bound to the university (e.g. spin-off firms). The strategies of an entrepreneurial university are oriented towards scientific activity and the entrepreneurship of the scientific employees, PhD students, students and graduates. The university is becoming a centre for the flow of know-how, while also a place for arousing academic entrepreneurship and technology transfer (Lichtenthaler, 2012, pp. 851–859; Varga, 2009, p. 129; Park et al., 2015, p. 329).

The fulfilment of the criteria for the functioning of the innovative university is the acceptance of the leading priorities based on the universality of academic entrepreneurship (Kwiotkowska, 2011, pp. 158–171). University entrepreneurship is conditioned by a multitude of factors, of which the level of autonomy is particularly important, as well as the awareness of that environment with regard to the benefits of common entrepreneurship as the prerequisites of the level of competitiveness of the university in question (Andrzejczak, 2015, p. 123–125; Popławski et al., 2013, p. 60; Andretsch, 1995).

Contemporary social and economic phenomena, but also technological innovations, entrepreneurship and the role of territorial local government all have an impact on the level and quality of research in terms of the science of management (Czakon, 2013). In this process, the most significant role is played by universities that both compete and cooperate in their search for innovative resources. The effects of these ties are symptomatic for all the stakeholders, which change the principles of their functioning, while also shaping their new functions and changing the features attributed to them. Simultaneously, the fulfilment of the expectations of all the groups of recipients of academic services would seem to be impossible even if the requirements of the methodological rigour were to be reduced (Audretsch, 1995, pp. 3–5). At the same time, one of such dilemmas is the occurrence of cooperation and competition between these same organisations, which is termed competition (Ritala, 2012, pp. 307–324). The level of significance of competition in terms of network cooperation may be found in the deliberations of Czakon (2013, p. 13), who indicates that “competition as a dynamic weave of cooperation and competition is an appreciative, while also promising research subject. It brings both intellectual challenges associated with the paradoxical nature of the phenomenon and indicates significance for business practices” and should be utilised in research on the management of an innovative university (Buenstorf, 2009; Trow, 2003).

As previously mentioned, the flow of knowledge from the university to the economy takes on various forms, ranging from formal cooperation in the field of research to consulting and informal personal ties (Varga, 2009, p. 382). A particularly important entity in this process is that of an academic enterprise of the spin-off type, which is an important channel in the flow of knowledge that is commonly accepted by the college environment, enterprises, local government, social entities and the inhabitants themselves (Bonacccorsi, 2005).

The academic executive entity for the formation of this type of enterprise is the form of the “academic entrepreneurs” that have inspired, supported and created the entrepreneurial activities of the academic community for many years in the American culture and British universities (Etzkowitz, 1983, pp. 198–233). The notion of the American entrepreneur is the core of the American university research system (Franzoni and Lissoni, 2009, pp. 163–190). The American and British research systems have been shaped by many centuries of traditions of entrepreneurship, whose meaning is not only based on involvement in scientific research but also, perhaps first and foremost, in terms of activities that are typical of entrepreneurial managers (Audretsch and Stephan, 1989).

Academic scientists/entrepreneurs must acquire the funds in order to create and maintain their laboratories and finance the employment of assistants, while also becoming involved in network cooperation with the aim of acquiring additional resources. The network cooperation is an attractive channel of know-how, the exchange of knowledge with scientific entities and the transfer/“sale” of innovative “products” (licences, inventions, expert opinions, etc.). Academic entrepreneurs “sell” their products at conferences and in scientific magazines by way of striving towards gaining renown in the scientific environment, positioning their accomplishments while strengthening them by means of holding high positions in editorial boards in order to gain influence on the direction of scientific research. They create excellent contacts with politicians and managers of business units, while also holding positions there in management boards of firms with the aim of ensuring recognition of the science represented by them, as well as the particular research area (Goldstein, 2007, pp. 14–16).

Laboratories managed by academic entrepreneurs are defined as quasi-enterprises, as their development and existence depend on their ability to acquire financing, while also on the attraction of the most talented personnel, as well as the fact that the main researchers (project leaders) must undertake activity and display skills that are required from businessmen who manage enterprises (Etzkowitz, 1998; Stuss, 2018; Clark, 1993).

In order to execute the new aims, an innovative university is obliged to intensify the associated features of the university and the inherent knowledge (Wysocka and Leja, 2018, pp. 4–9). The most significant features involve servant leadership, strong and ancillary with regard to the community of the governing academic centre (Clark, 1986, p. 5), the flexibility of the university in the sphere of didactic and research activities (Krupski, 2005, p. 22), fuzzy structures (Morgan, 2005, p. 89), team teaching (Morgan, 2005, p. 102), sharing knowledge, supporting creativity (Evans, 2005, pp. 61–62), the fluidity of roles and the range of duties, culture encompassing knowledge (Jabłecka, 2004, p. 16) and openness to variety (Andrews and Tyson, 2005, p. 26; Lawton Smith and Bagchi-Sen, 2008).

The transformation of the function and the features of the university with relation to the economy and local government/government administration (triple helix) occurs when each of the entities indicated may – to an increasing degree – take on the role of another. The theory of the triple helix states that the knowledge infrastructure may be explained with the aid of the variable relations mentioned. The agreements and the network between the three entities ensure a long-lasting contribution and sustainable development of science based on innovative processes. In this new configuration, the academic environment plays a leading role, while also supporting entrepreneurship, creating institutional entities of support (career offices, academic incubators and pre-incubators of entrepreneurship, technology transfer centres, science and technology parks, clusters), innovative enterprises (spin-off firms), as well as being a centre for the development of innovative technologies and provider of qualified personnel (Etzkowitz, 2001, p. 1; Feldman et al., 2002).

An innovative university, which is termed the “university of the future,” facilitates good talent management – that is, better management of talented students by indicating to them their professional career paths with particular mention of the development of the ability to perceive opportunities and combine theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge (Franklin et al., 2001).

The key to the dynamic development of the universities of the future is becoming an efficient system of education (Pawłowski, 2004, pp. 92–96). The university of the future constitutes the most significant link of the network of innovations, open innovations (Bucic and Ngo, 2012), while also the links to global innovations built (Lee et al., 2013, pp. 30–41; Lichtenthaler, 2012, pp. 851–861;...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Lists of Figures
• List of Tables
• Contributors
• Introduction
• PART 1 Innovations in the public sector
• PART 2 Innovation in the industrial sector
• PART 3 Regional innovation systems
• PART 4 SME innovations
• PART 5 Human innovation
• PART 6 Knowledge and innovation
• PART 7 Quality in innovation
• Index