Algaepreneurship as academic engagement: Being entrepreneurial in a lab coat

Background

The literature on academic entrepreneurship goes back to dilemmas elaborated by Stankiewicz concerning the tension between academic and commercial values (Stankiewicz, 1986) and the scientific ethos proposed by Robert K. Merton (Merton, 1973). Both these lines of thinking focus on differences between the academic system and the social and commercial systems. Later evidence has shown that most scientists can be entrepreneurial hybrids with strong industry engagement while keeping true to scientific norms (Lam, 2010) – suggesting a blurring of the lines between academic and non-academic norms.

One widely discussed topic in academic entrepreneurship is the ‘entrepreneurial university’ (Clark, 1998), the literature on which encompasses studies of increased interactions with industry and intermediaries that encourage innovation and firm creation (Rothaermel et al., 2007). An entrepreneurial university expands the role of the university to include entrepreneurial activities in addition to teaching and research (Etzkowitz, 2003; Schmitz et al., 2017). Further, the entrepreneurial university provides incentives for scientists to become entrepreneurs (Welter, 2011), and universities that support entrepreneurial behaviour do seem to foster entrepreneurial intention among research scientists (Huyghe and Knockaert, 2015). At the same time, it has also been suggested that the entrepreneurial university should adopt a broader conceptual model of entrepreneurship as a way to build skills and knowledge, complementing the dominant model of entrepreneurship with its focus on business creation and economic growth (Gibb, 2007).

Research into the influence of entrepreneurial activity on scientific publishing found that it did not have a negative effect on the amount or content of publications (Van Looy et al., 2004). It has also been shown that the pursuit of additional scientific knowledge is the main motivation for entrepreneurial activities in universities (Morales-Gualdrón et al., 2009). However, there is also evidence of trade-offs for academics engaging in commercialisation activities which can decrease research output (Toole and Czarnitzki, 2010): this suggests that entrepreneurial activities may have a backlash and create tensions between the academic role and the role of an entrepreneur. This effect has been found to vary among university types, with mid-range universities struggling to produce excellent research and contribute to the local economy at the same time (Wright et al., 2008).

Academic entrepreneurship also intersects with the literature on research collaboration, which blurs institutional lines between university and other sectors (Bozeman et al., 2013). It has been shown that the strength of university–industry links is more important for academic entrepreneurship than the number of such links (Fischer et al., 2017). Another way to view academic entrepreneurship is to look at the different ways academics engage with society and the economy. One definition of such engagement is ‘activity that goes beyond the traditional academic roles of teaching and/or research, is innovative, carries an element of risk, and leads to financial rewards for the individual academic or his/her institution’ (Abreu and Grinevich, 2013: 419).

In this article, we support a broad definition of both entrepreneurship and academic entrepreneurship to recognise the variety of activities in which academic entrepreneurs engage and which are not limited to financial reward. Such activities have been referred to as academic entrepreneurial behaviour (Holley and Watson, 2017), a term that recognises the many ways in which science is made useful, including educating, networking and communication with the public (Jacobsson et al., 2014). For scientists, a narrow definition of usefulness can come into conflict with the research process: there are many different ways in which scientists relate to their involvement with external sectors.

The ‘why’ of academic entrepreneurship aims to answer the call for the social responsibility of universities through new forms of entrepreneurial activity (Siegel and Wright, 2015). This engagement with society encompasses a high degree of experimenting and innovative thinking from participants. In this respect, we follow the conception of being entrepreneurial as being a curious and experimenting human being (Johannisson, 2018). Similar to the process in the lab, this entails a form of experimentation with uncertain outcomes. The difference is that scientists are experienced in lab work but are less so with regard to the entrepreneurial process.

Theory

In this article, we use roles as a theoretical lens to understand what happens when scientists in their academic role engage in entrepreneurial activities. A role is linked to a certain social position. Identity is internal but linked to a role, helping individuals to cope with situations. As such, role identity itself is a link between a person and society (Callero, 1985). Role identity includes the different expectations of a role and the corresponding actions for different roles which influence how one behaves (Mathias and Williams, 2017). Multiple role identities may, for an individual, compete with each other and be in conflict (Stryker and Burke, 2000). There is also quantitative evidence that strong academic identification increases conflict between the academic and entrepreneurial roles (Zou et al., 2018): each role carries its own expectations, and the expectations associated with different roles can cause conflict between them. However, multiple roles can also bring advantages in terms of status, gratification and possibilities (Sieber, 1974).

The issue of multiple roles, with the entrepreneur having to handle the transition from one role to another, has also been recognised in the entrepreneurship literature (Hoang and Gimeno, 2010). Entrepreneurs need to manage several role identities and entrepreneurial activities are undertaken based on these different roles (Mathias and Williams, 2017). Similarly, academics may have an academic social identity and many other role identities, including those of teacher, researcher or citizen, depending on the situation. The roles may also change with time or context, depending on the point which the individual has reached in his or her academic career or the entrepreneurial process in which he or she is engaged.

A form of identity work emerges when academics engage in entrepreneurial activity. Identity work is a process whereby individuals customise and validate their professional identity and in which stories are important in the construction of identity (Pratt et al., 2006). This process may cause conflicts in individuals as they change or reaffirm their role identities. Previous theory has identified two strategies that an individual can use to manage changes to their role identity: delegating and buffering (Jain et al., 2009). These strategies can function as ‘brakes’ for academics before their role travels too far to the commercial side. Delegating means that the academics establish contacts to gather resources and skills that complement their own skills. For example, knowledge about commercialisation can be provided by a science park, so academics can concentrate their efforts on research while fulfilling entrepreneurial activities. Buffering enables academics to protect their academic identity through prioritising research and academic norms. Scientists actively take steps to retain their scientific identity when engaging in entrepreneurial activities. Three ways to retain scientific identity have previously been identified regarding role identity salience (Jain et al., 2009):

prioritising scientific activities, so that academic work comes first and entrepreneurial activities second;

To further explain what influences identity work, the concept of passion can be used, defined as positive feelings and a commitment to certain activities. Specific passions can be connected to specific role identities. Entrepreneurial passion emerges from engagement with, for example, entrepreneurial activities that are meaningful for the identity and result in positive feelings (Cardon et al., 2009). This passion may be directed to specific activities, which may be growth or new products, to people, to inventing or to a social mission (Cardon et al., 2017). Previous research has also shown that such passion varies from content to context. For example, social entrepreneurs are passionate in terms of being enthusiastic and energetic about involvement in the creation of social values (Kropp, 2016), while ecopreneurs are passionate about matters relating to the natural environment (Isaak, 2016). Thus, passion creates meaning and motivation interrelated with the self-identity of an entrepreneur.

Different roles may entail competing passions, such as the entrepreneurial passion and the scientific passion that influence entrepreneurial intention. Such passions can coexist and compete with each other in a form of ‘passion orchestra’ (Huyghe et al., 2016). A strong scientific passion can influence the type of entrepreneurial activities scientists engage in and how strongly they engage. Entrepreneurial activities, on the other hand, can challenge the role identity of an academic entrenched in science. Previous research suggests the importance of this role perspective as a way to understand academic entrepreneurship. Here hybrid roles rather than dichotomies are active (Jain et al., 2009; Lam, 2010) – the academic maintains a core role based in science while layering entrepreneurial activities on top of it.

Identity work can be used to ascertain how and when scientists customise and validate their academic role identity. Further, the strategies of delegating and buffering make it possible to analyse how scientists reaffirm their academic role when they come too close to commercialisation. Finally, the concept of passion can help us to determine what type of academic engagement is compatible with a scientific passion. The main theoretical concepts are summarised in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Theoretical concepts.

Concept	Explanation
Role identity	A link between an individual and society that determines how individuals view themselves. It comes with associated expectations and behaviours
Passion	Positive feelings that can be associated with specific role identities, such as entrepreneurial passion or scientific passion
Identity work	Strategies that individuals use to customise and validate their role identity. Delegating and buffering are two such strategies

Method

Algoland is rooted in a transdisciplinary collaboration between scientists (microbiologists and ecologists) and non-academic communities and has developed cross-disciplinary research with social scientists to address the more complex issues of sustainable development. Following the development of an industrial platform to extend the positive impact of innovative science-based solutions in Algoland, the main author, with a background in social science, became involved in Algoland during the autumn of 2017. The aim was to study the potential for an industrial platform which would pave the way for the project to reach economic, social and environmental sustainability (as specified in the notes from the initial meeting). Part of the process was to develop a concept that could be used in other industries: one early idea was to examine potential business models based on Algoland.

To study entrepreneurial activities, the study was conducted as an interactive research process (Svensson et al., 2007) and a cross-disciplinary effort between entrepreneurship and marine ecology. The main author became part of the research group Marine Phytoplankton Ecology & Applications (15 members in 2017), participating in meetings, discussions and other activities related to entrepreneurial activity. The co-author is the leader of the research group and the founder of Algoland.

Research group members contributed to the research goals and questions regarding the industrial platform. Bengt Johannisson suggests the merging of researcher and entrepreneur – an ‘entresearcher’ that ‘takes on the responsibility to effectuate a venture and capture its emergence through authentic personal involvement in the venturing process’ (Johannisson, 2018: 70). The concept of an industrial platform organised Algoland activities as a form of entrepreneurial venture.

To assess the potential of an industrial platform with the Algoland vision, a full-day conference was devoted to the construction of business models based on both the advancement of knowledge and the provision of innovate solutions and services of added value. A workshop was conducted based on the Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010), with participants from research in mixed groups with other external partners. The 20 participants were from municipalities, consultancy firms, the Regional Council in Kalmar County, a waste management association, an energy agency, an energy company, industry, a science park and a mussel farm. The Business Model Canvas templates were filled in and documented and pitches from the four groups were filmed and transcribed.

Six months after the conference, the core Algoland team met with representatives from Kalmar Science Park and an Innovation Advisor from the Grants Office at Linnaeus University. During meetings and through email, discussions ranged from the technology readiness level, ownership of a possible start-up and how possible contracts could be written. Notes from these interactions were used to support the analysis.

Further, six interviews were conducted with participants from the research group and three interviews with external stakeholders involved in the Algoland project. This qualitative material was used to create a case file in qualitative data analysis software, which includes the nine interviews, documentation from the workshop and the meetings and documents and research material produced in the Algoland project.

This material was analysed using initial codes generated after reading through it. The initial codes were based on the theoretical framework and research aim but were also data driven. The material was then coded using thematic coding (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015), and preliminary themes were suggested and reviewed, until 14 themes were selected. Three core categories were selected with the research question in mind: collaboration, reflection on the role and academic–commercial tension.

When science meets entrepreneurship

In this section, we show that being collaborative also meant being entrepreneurial – and vice versa – and that this led to a form of identity work. We shall also look at how the scientists managed their encounter with a more commercial view of entrepreneurship using strategies of delegating and buffering.

A broader sense of academic entrepreneurship

In this section, we shall see that the scientists were engaged in an entrepreneurial process simultaneous to but different from the one above. This process was based on a broader conceptual model of entrepreneurship, shown as an engagement with society and the environment – or the so-called academic entrepreneurial behaviour (Holley and Watson, 2017). Here the scientists, as ‘algaepreneurs’, engaged in identity work but did not use the strategies to reaffirm the roles in the same way as that described in the previous section.

Discussion and conclusion

Throughout the empirical analysis, it can be seen that scientists reflect on their academic role. This reflection is particularly present when they encounter activities that sit in contrast to their scientific passion – that which creates meaning and motivation. From the reflection, we can see that when the scientists encounter the dominant model of entrepreneurship, they find safety in their academic role identity. Scientific passion succeeds when competing, rather than coexisting, with an entrepreneurial passion (Huyghe et al., 2016). At the same time, it was less problematic for the scientists to engage with society and to be entrepreneurial in a broader sense. Thus, there are two distinct but simultaneous processes.

First, we can distinguish a process in Algoland, where the collaboration with industry meant that the scientists engaged in identity work in which they needed to reflect on their own roles as academics. The interactions between scientists and industry contribute to the addressing societal challenges (i.e. research matters) but motivate scientists to ‘test the water’ of a dominant model of entrepreneurship. This identity work was intensified when they were confronted directly with ideas about commercialisation. The scientists reacted using strategies of delegating and buffering to reaffirm their role as academics, which function as brakes before they slide over to the commercial side of entrepreneurship. As for entrepreneurial passion (Cardon and Kirk, 2015), scientific passion seems to be important in social interactions in both academic and non-academic organisations. Recognition of Algoland research by non-academic communities and organisations (awards, prizes) also helped to reinforce interactions and engagement with students, industry, authorities and the public.

Second, there is another, simultaneous process which is more compatible with the academic role. Algoland itself can be seen as an entrepreneurial venture, as the scientists venture outside academe with outreach activities and other initiatives. The motivation for these activities was the vision of a better world socially and environmentally. The scientists engaged with society in their dialogue with citizens, authorities and through outreach activities. While this engagement led to a process of identity work, the scientists found it interesting, valuable and even a motivation for doing something more than was expected of them. When testing the water of a broader model of entrepreneurship, they found these outreach activities to be compatible with their scientific passion and therefore the engagement did not warrant the use of strategies to deal with their role identities, but rather enhanced them.

These two processes are shown in Figure 1 as a dual feedback loop.

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Figure 1.

Dual feedback loop of identity work.

This study contributes to our understanding of how scientists engage in and react to entrepreneurial activities. When these activities were formulated in a commercial context, within a dominant model of entrepreneurship, they engaged in strategies as previously shown in the literature (Jain et al., 2009). However, when engaging in entrepreneurial activities in a broader sense, they found them compatible with their scientific passion which in turn related to their academic role identity. Here they were entrepreneurial through their academic engagement (Jacobsson et al., 2014) with wider society. In this respect, we also show that scientists can be passionate about the call for social responsibility and increasing interaction with society (Siegel and Wright, 2015; Wright, 2014) and can successfully integrate related activities into their everyday working life.

The implications for theory include the identification of specific scientific passions. The scientific passion in this case was tied to social and environmental improvement, which motivated the scientists to engage in entrepreneurial activities that would promote such improvement. This finding helps fill a knowledge gap, showing that the interrelationship of passion and identity varies from context to context (Kropp, 2016). In the framework of Algoland, the marine ecologists wished to carry on excellent science while contributing to society and health in a long-term perspective. Hence, the interrelationship between society and the environment became part of their mission. Scientists from other disciplines might have other interests, as this depends on the context. The scientific passion has its roots in particular disciplines that influence the type of entrepreneurial activities and the entrepreneurial intentions of scientists.

While it has not been the focus of this article, the results also have an implicit bearing on studies in sustainable entrepreneurship, eco-innovation and ecopreneurship (Galkina and Hultman, 2016; Rodríguez-García et al., 2019). A key theme in the literature on ecopreneurship is the balance between environmental concerns and business goals. Ecopreneurs are often motivated by their passion for the environment, which gives meaning to their entrepreneurial ventures. Such passion might be part of an endless endeavour to save the world or achieve a sustainable society (Isaak, 2016). We recommend further research on how interactions with partners outside universities affect the academic role.

With regard to implications for practice, the study shows that scientists can be very entrepreneurial in a broad sense, even if they do not want to engage in commercialisation. Other alternatives should therefore be considered when measuring academic entrepreneurship and creating incentives for promoting entrepreneurship. This would involve recognising entrepreneurial activities that are not directly commercial but that have commercial potential or contribute to other forms of social value. It would be detrimental to force scientists directly into commercialisation; it is a step-by-step process, and the scientific passion can, as shown in this study, be deeply rooted.

Algaepreneurs belong to a new breed of entrepreneurial scientists who assume responsibility for a sustainable society based on science-based solutions with a positive impact, such as Algoland. Adopting such social responsibility can later evolve into commercialisation; however, this may not be the passion of scientists.