Assessing Academics’ Third Mission Engagement by Individual and Organisational Predictors

Verena Karlsdottir (), Magnus Thor Torfason, Ingi Runar Edvardsson and Thamar Melanie Heijstra
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Verena Karlsdottir: School of Business, University of Iceland, 102 Reykjavík, Iceland
Magnus Thor Torfason: School of Business, University of Iceland, 102 Reykjavík, Iceland
Ingi Runar Edvardsson: School of Business, University of Iceland, 102 Reykjavík, Iceland
Thamar Melanie Heijstra: Faculty of Sociology, Anthropology and Folkloristics, University of Iceland, 102 Reykjavík, Iceland

Administrative Sciences, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-22

Abstract: In recent years, the coming of the entrepreneurial university has brought about a third role in academia, which involves greater visible exchange of academics with society and industry. In this paper, the authors investigate to what extent individual and organisational factors influence the propensity of academics to engage in different types of Third Mission (TM) activities. This study is based on a large-scale survey of academics in Iceland regarding engagement in socio-economic activities. The results indicate that “soft” activities such as community activities and external teaching and training can be better predicted by individual factors, while hard activities such as applied contract research and commercialisation can be better predicted by organisational factors. Overall, academics are most likely to participate in community-related activities. Hereby, academics from the STEM and health disciplines, with work experience outside of academia and who are open to new experiences are more likely to be engaged in applied contract research and commercialisation. Academics belonging to disciplines other than STEM and health sciences and those that on an average publish more peer-reviewed articles are more likely to disseminate their knowledge to a wider audience outside of academia through public science communication. Gender, rank, and teaching do not affect TM participation, but openness, performance, or discipline do.

Keywords: third mission; entrepreneurial university; personality traits; commercialisation; contract research; science communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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