Malaysian Higher Education Institutions: shaping an entrepreneurial agenda

Despite of various challenges and obstacles to achieve the research university status, their commitment to learning and advancement of business seems to provide solutions to the emergence of entrepreneurial discipline. Researchers have their roles to play in terms of exploiting their knowledge to be more creative and innovative. The innovative researchers are those who are committed and their levels of preparedness are challenged by the time and commercializing of their innovations. This paper addresses the issues in the development of entrepreneurial discipline among higher education institutions in Malaysia and the United Kingdom (UK). Evidence indicates that in Malaysia and the UK, the Government and the higher education sector have been working together over a number of years to increase the impact of the higher education knowledge base on business and society. Despite several salient drivers of the emergence entrepreneurial discipline in higher education; many higher education institutions fail to adequately utilize its strategic knowledge resources and translate their research outputs into business innovation and social benefit. In view of this, an analysis of selected universities in Malaysia was undertaken to determine the extent to which research university status, creativity and innovative roles could impact the development of entrepreneurship in the university. This was then compared to relevant university experience in the UK. Evidence from the survey suggests that research university focus, creativity and innovative roles explain 57% of the variance in predicting the success of an entrepreneurial venture. Further, an important management implication of the study is that the entrepreneurial activity is embedded within the teaching and research and is at the core of academic identity