Contesting a Hybrid Firm at a Traditional University

Abstract

This paper presents a challenge to the idea of what some scholars have called the entrepreneurial university. By applying and elaborating on Thomas Gieryn’s concept of boundary work, it offers evidence to the effect that developing an entrepreneurial university is not as straightforward as it may seem from a more generalized perspective. Developing such an entity, at least in the confines of traditional, public-funded universities, is complicated by the emergence of a boundary between public and private activities. This study focuses on a potential hybrid research group: an academic group that sought to fuse its research with potential business activity within an ordinary university department. Controversies over four distinct issues arose: 1) the bureaucratic authority of a department chairman, 2) the allocation of teaching loads, 3) the ownership of research tools and materials and 4) the intellectual property rights of the researchers. Ultimately, the controversy was resolved through a formal written contract that established two boundaries: a border between the social roles of university researchers and those of private entrepreneurs, and a physical separation of the work done by academic projects from that of corporate development. As a result, the hybrid research group/firm was ‘purified’ into a private entity with no direct ties to the university.