Academic Entrepreneurshipand Its Impact On Academic Outputs Of Engineering Faculty Members In The First-rate Universities

Academic entrepreneurship is an important way to transfer scientific and technological achievements in the engineering field.In recent years,in the context of “Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation”,China's academic entrepreneurship policies have been introduced.However,some university administrators believe that there is contradiction between academic entrepreneurship and faculty members' academic output,so the construction of relevant organizational systems is relatively lagging.This study adopts an explanatory sequential mixed-method design to investigate faculty members in the Materials field in ten first-tier universities under the “ double first-rate ” construction project.It analyzes the current situation of engineering faculty members' academic entrepreneurship in China's first-rate universities and its impact on individuals' academic outputs by investigating 1,308 sample faculty members in the Materials field.Then,it explores the mechanism of academic entrepreneurship affecting the academic output of Engineering faculty members through a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews.There are four main research findings.Firstly,the academic entrepreneurial activities in the engineering field of China's first-rate universities are derivative — most university spin-offs are aimed at transferring the technology generated within universities and are supported by regional entrepreneurship policies.Secondly,academic entrepreneurship in China's universities shows a diversified trend in terms of participation subject,participation degree and capital scale.Thirdly,on average,academic entrepreneurship has a positive impact on the quantity of engineering faculty members' academic output but may undermine their quality.Fourthly,entrepreneurship activities,on the one hand,will aggregate faculty members' role conflicts regarding time allocation,problem-solving,research values and customer needs,which will ultimately affect their academic output;on the other hand,it can promote faculty members' academic output through the accumulation of economic and social capital,which can provide a platform for entrepreneurial faculty members to transfer technology and cooperate with industry.Based on the research findings,several suggestions are made in terms of how to promote the coordinated development of academic entrepreneurship and academic research.