Understanding university-society engagement for innovation : the role of individual actors in institutionalizing the regenerative medicine research field in University of Tampere (Finland), 1986-2017
Ahmad, Ijaz (2018)
2018
MDP in Research and Innovation in Higher Education
Johtamiskorkeakoulu - Faculty of Management
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2018-04-24
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:uta-201811192864
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:uta-201811192864
Tiivistelmä
In the rapidly changing higher education landscape, there is a need to understand the role of academics in institutionalization process of a divergent change, including academia’s engagement with industry and society, which many universities worldwide are now confronting with. The purpose of this organizational level study was to understand a divergent change of emergence and institutionalization of an applied field of regenerative medicine research in University of Tampere, a university focused on basic research, as a bottom-up process in which the role of individual academics was of key importance.
To meet the research purpose, this dissertation mainly relied on semi-structured interviews of twelve academics and managers followed by a brief quantitative survey. To analyze the qualitative data, a theoretical frameworks was synthesized employing the key concepts, such as institutional enablements and constraints, the human agency, and projective imaginations of actors, their internal conversations, social positions, and strategies.
This research has identified four academics who played the key role in the face of institutional constraints, including skepticism, conflicting expectation on researchers, the low institutional support to bring the change, and the silos of academic community of Tampere. Two of these institutional entrepreneurs had no formal social position, but due to their vision, passion, curiosity, societal commitment and engagement, and past work experience played key role in the beginning phase. The other two who came in the second and third phases were effective due to their strong leadership qualities, formal social positions, and contextual discontinuity.
The main conclusion drawn from this study is that in the face of institutional constraints and the opposition from the research superstars, the change was to a great extent non-deterministic in nature which would have been difficult, especially in the beginning phase, without some institutional entrepreneurs.
This research has argued that for making Finnish universities globally competitive but locally engaged, it is essential for universities to protect people who value societal engagement, provide high level trainings to develop visionary leadership, and hire people who have work experience in other countries and other sectors of economy. At the personal level, this research has suggested that in spite of institutional barriers, academics can achieve their valued goals, if they have vision, passion, and commitments.
To meet the research purpose, this dissertation mainly relied on semi-structured interviews of twelve academics and managers followed by a brief quantitative survey. To analyze the qualitative data, a theoretical frameworks was synthesized employing the key concepts, such as institutional enablements and constraints, the human agency, and projective imaginations of actors, their internal conversations, social positions, and strategies.
This research has identified four academics who played the key role in the face of institutional constraints, including skepticism, conflicting expectation on researchers, the low institutional support to bring the change, and the silos of academic community of Tampere. Two of these institutional entrepreneurs had no formal social position, but due to their vision, passion, curiosity, societal commitment and engagement, and past work experience played key role in the beginning phase. The other two who came in the second and third phases were effective due to their strong leadership qualities, formal social positions, and contextual discontinuity.
The main conclusion drawn from this study is that in the face of institutional constraints and the opposition from the research superstars, the change was to a great extent non-deterministic in nature which would have been difficult, especially in the beginning phase, without some institutional entrepreneurs.
This research has argued that for making Finnish universities globally competitive but locally engaged, it is essential for universities to protect people who value societal engagement, provide high level trainings to develop visionary leadership, and hire people who have work experience in other countries and other sectors of economy. At the personal level, this research has suggested that in spite of institutional barriers, academics can achieve their valued goals, if they have vision, passion, and commitments.