Foreign-Born Scholars and Academic Entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe

Kamil Luczaj ()
Additional contact information
Kamil Luczaj: University of Information Technology and Management

Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, No 1, 23 pages

Abstract: Abstract The main aim of this paper is to discuss the findings of qualitative research on academic entrepreneurship among foreign-born scholars in Eastern Europe, a region suffering from a lack of empirical studies on this topic. The academics raised and educated abroad are often perceived as a key nexus in the knowledge transfer and innovative economy in the global academic supercenters, such as the USA, Canada, or Germany. On the contrary, this paper argues that in Eastern Europe, the role of foreign-born academics is very different. Due to structural factors such as a limited number of potential entrepreneurs, the traditional academic entrepreneurship in the form of spin-offs and start-ups is virtually nonexistent. Some academics, however, get involved in academic entrepreneurial activities in the broader sense of this term. Based on 140 individual in-depth interviews and selected success stories, the paper argues that in Poland and Slovakia, special circumstances have created characteristic forms of entrepreneurship (e.g., the “academization” of industrial knowledge). At the same time, the potential remains largely untapped. Institutional barriers to entrepreneurship (lack of special policies pertaining to foreign-born scholars, unfriendly officials, and political climate) are thoroughly discussed in the concluding section.

Keywords: Academic entrepreneurship; Foreign-born scholars; Eastern Europe; Knowledge transfer; Dual employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13132-020-00711-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jknowl:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s13132-020-00711-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13132

DOI: 10.1007/s13132-020-00711-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the Knowledge Economy is currently edited by Elias G. Carayannis

More articles in Journal of the Knowledge Economy from Springer, Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().