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Academic entrepreneurialism in a

context of altered governance: some

reflections of higher education in Hong

KongRui Yang a

aFaculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Published online: 03 Sep 2012.

To cite this article:Rui Yang (2012): Academic entrepreneurialism in a context of altered

governance: some reflections of higher education in Hong Kong, Globalisation, Societies and

Education, 10:3, 387-402

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Academic entrepreneurialism in a context of altered governance:some reflections of higher education in Hong Kong

Rui Yang*

Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

(Received 30 November 2011; final version received 28 March 2012)

Academic entrepreneurialism appears to have become global. Universitysystems around the globe are moving in the direction of a more

entrepreneurial model of higher education. Scholars have not yet reacheda consensus on the definition of entrepreneurship. Research on academicentrepreneurship in East Asia has been lacking. This article contributes tothe discussion by reviewing the rise of entrepreneurialism in Asian highereducation, using Hong Kong as an example. After some analyses of thedefinitions, rationales and pathways of academic entrepreneurship, it shiftsits attention to entrepreneurship in Hong Kong, and discusses howentrepreneurship has been demonstrated in Hong Kong higher education.It argues that while Hong Kongs entrepreneurial spirit is strong in the localculture and business, its achievement in academic entrepreneurship isrelatively low. This article ends by cautioning readers about the differences

between academic and business entrepreneurship.Keywords: academic entrepreneurship; higher education; Hong Kong;the university; governance

Introduction

Over the past one and a half decades, entrepreneurship and market-driven

innovation have become more prevalent in higher education. Like it or not,

entrepreneurship is very much a part of the fabric of contemporary higher

education in many national systems. Higher education scholarship has increas-

ingly applied entrepreneurial terminology and frameworks to studies on a widerange of market-oriented phenomena that include academic capitalism,

technology transfer and university contributions to economic development.

Although the study of entrepreneurship dates back to the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries (Mars and Rios-Aguilar 2010), academic entrepreneurship

has only recently emerged as a growing focus of intellectual inquiry.Despite the growing importance of an extensive body of research, there has

been little effort to link the conceptualisation of entrepreneurship to higher

education practices, especially in East Asia, where pathways of transformation

*Email: [email protected]

Globalisation, Societies and Education

Vol. 10, No. 3, September 2012, 387402

ISSN 1476-7724 print/ISSN 1476-7732 online

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of the entrepreneurial university have appeared quite different from those in theWest. Except for Mok (2001, 2005), few scholars have written on academicentrepreneurialism in East Asia. This article attempts to examine the agenda ofhigher education in Hong Kong in response to the global trend of academic

entrepreneurialism, set in a context of altered governance.

Academic entrepreneurship: definitions, rationales and pathways

Definitions

Support for enterprise and entrepreneurship development in higher education isnot a new phenomenon. However, many people in higher education eschew thenotion of entrepreneurship. To them, the word conjures up the spectre of a for-

profit motive, about which they are suspicious and disapproving. Indeed,

entrepreneurship is much related to business. As a distinct mode of thoughtand action, it derives from business. Yet, it can operate in any realm of humanendeavour. Its defining trait is the creation of a novel enterprise that the marketis willing to adopt. It thus entails the commercialisation of an innovation. Newideas, products or organisational schemes matter little until they achieveconcrete reality in the marketplace, that is, until they are actually used. It is a

process of fundamental transformation from innovative idea to enterprise andfrom enterprise to value. By fusing innovation and implementation, it is aunique process that allows individuals to bring new ideas into being for the

benefit of themselves and others.However, there has been no single, universally accepted definition ofentrepreneurship. It is a multifaceted phenomenon that cuts across manydisciplinary boundaries (Low and MacMillan 1988). Studies falling under therubric of entrepreneurship have pursued a wide range of purposes andobjectives, asking different questions and adopting different units of analysis,theoretical perspectives and methodologies. As Shane and Venkataraman(2000, 217) have declared, rather than explaining and predicting a unique set ofempirical phenomena, entrepreneurship has become a broad label under whicha hodgepodge of research is housed. Many researchers have labelled a wide

variety of processes and strategies as entrepreneurial without explicitlyproviding a rationale for why they should be considered as such. They haveoperationalised terms such as entrepreneurial activities or entrepreneurialclimate without offering technical, conceptual or theoretical guidelines to

justify the use of such proxies. In the higher education literature, entrepreneur-ship has acquired an increasing presence. Existing research focuses over-whelmingly on examining market-oriented phenomena, failing to take intoconsideration in their analyses many other non/less-market-oriented activities,such as teaching, learning and curriculum development.

Significant lessons could be learnt from the corporate sector that arerelevant to academic entrepreneurship, which generally refers to the creation of

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an environment for active support of knowledge exploitation, stimulation ofentrepreneurial behaviour among all the members of and institutionalstructures in the academic community. There are multiple intersections

between entrepreneurship and higher education. Entrepreneurship has much

to contribute to higher education. The technical aspects of entrepreneurshipincluding disruption, innovation and value creation have significant implica-tions for higher education at individual, institutional and societal levels. Thefunctional equivalent of commercialisation of an innovative idea, product ororganisational scheme can include the development and implementation of aninnovative academic programme or a new and sustainable way of delivering a

programme. Such an educational product is a sustainable enterprise thatgenerates value. For a nation, this value of the enterprise fosters a highlyqualified labour force. For a higher learning institution, it helps to provide itsstaff members with an opportunity to advance their careers and contribute to

the building of knowledge in a field. It benefits academic programmes andmeets societal needs. For individual academics, the sustainable value promotesa combination between professional career and personal satisfaction, and

provides students with innovative pre-professional training and involvementand even a portal to higher earnings over a lifetime.

Rationales

The rationale for an entrepreneurial university is in the growing focus of public

policy on enhancing the role that the higher education sector plays in social andeconomic development. Higher education is increasingly encouraged to engagewith the stakeholder community, in particular with regional and localdevelopment agencies and local business. Advocates of entrepreneurship inhigher education have provided various justifications. They largely fall into twocategories, focusing respectively on the delivering and receiving ends ofeducation. Clark (2000) is arguably the most prominent advocate. He insiststhat whether higher education has a future depends on the choice made byuniversities to remain in their traditional form or to react with an entrepreneur-ial spirit to the changes outside the academe. Citing examples from the

historical developments of modern universities such as Massachusetts Instituteof Technology (MIT) and Stanford University in the United States, he arguesthat entrepreneurial spirit is a significant factor for their remarkable success.

Another strong advocate is Etzkowitz (2008), who calls the adaptation ofentrepreneurship thesecond academic revolution. According to him, the firstacademic revolution happened in the late nineteenth century when theuniversity mission was expanded from teaching to both teaching and research.Universities were transformed from institutions of knowledge disseminationand cultural preservation to institutions for new knowledge creation. On top of

the traditional task of teaching, research was then assumed as the basicfunction of universities. With the second academic revolution, serving national

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Since then, this has been seen as a vitally important qualification needed by theyoung as they enter society. It has been believed that this competence has a

positive, flexible and adaptable disposition towards change. Research hasendorsed the need for education to play a leading role in such a cultural

change, proposes that what the economy needs now is quite different fromwhat was required in the past, and has pointed out a mismatch between theneed for more enterprising young people and the fact that educational systemshave been slow to make changes. Meanwhile, schools have been found to beremarkably resistant to change, much to the consternation of politicians,

policy-makers and innovators (Hargreaves 1994, 12).

Pathways

Drawing from the US and European literature and experience, Clark (2004)

recognises the need for a diversified funding base for universities, involvingraising a high percentage of their income from non-public sources. In terms oforganisation, entrepreneurial universities are managed in such a way that they

become capable of responding flexibly, strategically and yet coherently toopportunities in the environment, something described by Clark as having astrong steering core with acceptance of a model of self-made autonomy acrossthe academic departments. By so doing, entrepreneurship becomes part of theuniversitys core strategy. The ultimate outcome is to create an enterpriseculture defined particularly as one open to change and to the search for, and

exploitation of, opportunities for innovation and development. He identifiedfive pathways of transformation for the entrepreneurial university, as follows.

The first is through a strengthened steering core, comprising both universityadministrators and faculty deans, to seek proactively a diversified funding basefor its institution and to allocate the resources internally. It subsidises newground-breaking activities as well as old valuable programmes in the academicheartland. Leadership capacity takes the form of collegiality, rather thanthrough personal strong-minded change agents.

The second is by an enhanced developmental periphery. Within thetraditional structure of entrepreneurial universities, there are two develop-

mental centres: one is administrative offices promoting outreach with anemphasis on consultancy, industrial liaison, technology transfer and continuing

professional education; the other is multi/trans-disciplinary academic unitsoperating as basic units parallel to disciplinary departments. The two centresserve as mediating agents between the university and the organisations outsidethe academe, and help to generate research money and other income.

The third is via a diversified funding base. Entrepreneurial universitiesavoid entire financial reliance on a single patron, and try to diversify theirfunding sources instead.

The fourth is through the adoption of entrepreneurial practices in academicheartland units. Discipline-led units adopt entrepreneurial practices differently



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based on their disciplinary predispositions. Science and engineering depart-ments are ahead of the social sciences. The humanities and arts often have aneven longer way to move from resistance to acceptance. With this layeredsituation, universities in transformation often find themselves entrepreneurial

on one side and traditional on the other.The fifth is an embracing entrepreneurial culture. All the aforementioned

structural pathways of transformation need to be supported by a culture that iscentred on an entrepreneurial spirit, which interacts with the structural ones.

Entrepreneurship in Hong Kong

When Hong Kong was ceded to the British in perpetuity by the Treaty of Nankingin 1842, Queen Victoria was most distressed to know that only a piece of useless

granite was added to her Empire. The British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerstondismissed Captain Charles Elliot for the reason that he had obtained the cession ofHong Kong, a barren island with hardly a house upon it. It seemed obvious to himthat Hong Kong would not be a Mart of Trae (Ho 1992, 1). However,entrepreneurs saw things differently. Earlier in 1836, Great Britains mostsignificant opium trader, James Matheson, conceived the acquisition of HongKong Island as a factory for British, and notably Scottish, traders. He claimed that:

If the lions paw is to be put down on any part of the south side of China, let it beHong Kong; let the lion declare it to be under his guarantee a free port, and in ten

years it will be the most considerable mart east of the Cape. (Chan 1991, 21)

History has confirmed the entrepreneurs insights.What has puzzled economists is that Hong Kong is only a small city with

approximately 7 million people living in an area of around 1064 sq. km. It doesnot possess any natural resources and has relied on outside sources for its fueland raw materials. It has also imported much of its food supplies, largely fromthe Chinese mainland. The colony was described by a visiting American

journalist in 1951 as a dying city (Ho 1992, 5).Things have changed dramatically since then. Hong Kong embarked on its

export-led industrialisation in the early 1950s and experienced rapid indus-trialisation in the 1960s. Between 1961 and 1971, the average growth rate in realterms was approximately 11%, and by 1971, the per capita income reachedHK$6096, placing it behind only Japan in the Asia-Pacific region (Riedel 1974,11). Between 1986 and 1991, the city was still growing in real terms at an averageannual rate of 6.5% (Chau 1993, 31). By 1990, the average per capita income inHong Kong had grown to surpass that of its colonial motherland, Great Britain,and more investment was then flowing from the colony to Great Britain than fromGreat Britain to the colony (Vogel 1991, 68). By 1992 the GDP reached

HK$742,582 million. After more than three decades of rapid growth, it hasemerged as one of the richest economies in Asia (Chau 1993, 1). The city

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economy has outgrown its historical role as an intermediary in internationaltrade, and a centre of redistribution in its respective regional markets. It is now amajor international economy in its own right (Ho 1992, 10).

Interpretations of Hong Kongs post-war success have focused on a variety

of factors, including favourable geographical location, cheap and hardworkinglabour force, inflow of capital and entrepreneurs from the mainland, andlaissez-faire capitalism (Szczepanik 1958). Among earlier studies, Chau(1993) was the only one to mention, albeit very briefly, that the economicsuccess of Hong Kong was attributable to dynamic merchant entrepreneurs.Only recently have the theories that emphasise human agency attracted

peoples attention. Theories of entrepreneurship have been used to explain thesuccessful story in Hong Kong (Yu 1997). While these are all contributingfactors, at a more fundamental level, Hong Kong is an entrepreneurial societywith a long tradition of approving profit-seeking (King 1987, 59). Asexpressed by Rafferty (1991, 167), Hong Kong, more than any other placein the world, is dedicated to the pursuit of making money, more money. Astrong profit-making mentality can be observed in everyday life.

It is important to point out the cultural factors, not only because they are themost significant element to facilitate the development of entrepreneurship inHong Kong, but also because they have specific implications for highereducation. Although Hong Kong is a Chinese community and 98% of the

population is Chinese, it is wrong to conclude that the culture is homogenous.Hong Kong is virtually an open society, exhibiting various religious beliefs,

life styles, languages and political ideologies. It is also important to examine towhat extent Hong Kongs society is influenced by western culture and thetraditional Chinese values. The Chinese culture can be classified into thegreattraditionand the small tradition. The great tradition, an attempt to achieve awealthy and strong nation, was pursued by scholars, philosophers and peopleof letters, while the small tradition, an attempt to keep a good life and goodearnings, was pursued by the unlettered peasants. The culture of Hong Kong

belongs to the small tradition. The great tradition of Confucianism has neverfound its roots in Hong Kong. The society, under British control, has been

heavily influenced by western culture, particularly in pursuing material life andsocial status (Yu 1997). Consequently, profit-seeking is widely regarded asacceptable. People only become interested in things when they can see clearlytheir benefits from them.

Entrepreneurship in Hong Kong higher education: initiatives and inaction

Policy initiatives from the government

Within the operational logic of Hong Kong capitalism, its higher education

sector was never central to the economy during the colonial era. The HongKong colonial government controlled a limited growth of higher education. For



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example, the 1978 government policy allowed for only 3% growth in tertiaryeducation (Shiev 1992). There were hardly research provisions from theuniversities in Hong Kong. When the government or industries were in need ofknowledge for policy design or technological innovation, they purchased

research from foreign countries, especially Britain. The research tradition inHong Kong universities only started in the 1990s, when the Hong KongGovernment began to pay much more attention to the higher education sector.

The Hong Kong Government now plays a dominant role in highereducation provision and development. Based on the British model, theUniversity Grants Committee (UGC) was first established in 1965 to beresponsible for advising the government on the development and funding ofthe then two institutions of higher education: the University of Hong Kong andthe Chinese University of Hong Kong. At present, there are eight institutions ofhigher education that are funded through the UGC. Policies adopted by the

UGC significantly influence the development of the higher education sector(Mok 2001). While higher institutions in Hong Kong are run and ruledautonomously by their own ordinances and governing bodies and theiracademic freedom is well protected by the Basic Law (Article 137 in

particular) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Postiglione2006), their development is mightily driven by the higher education policiessurrounding the academy.

Since the early 1990s, the Hong Kong Government has adopted a variety ofstrategies along the line of managerialism, quasi-marketisation and corporatisa-

tion in public policies and services (Cheung 1997). In 2000, a funding cut of 4%on higher education took place, and role differentiation among universities wasdemanded. In the 2000 Policy Address, the Chief Executive proposedmassification of higher education with 60% of secondary school graduates

pursing tertiary education by 2010, without sharing the financial responsibilityneeded for the expansion. The Sutherland Report published in March 2002attempted to impose a consensus on all the UGC-funded institutions to be unitedas one body in order to make Hong Kong an education hub in theinternational academic market (Sutherland 2002, 67). The UGC then instructeda researchteaching divide among the institutions funded under its aegis.

Moving further from the Sutherland Reports demand for value formoney, the government announced suddenly in March 2003 another 10%cut in funding for the UGC-funded institutions for the next academic year andindicated forthcoming further cuts. The linkage of the employee salary scale ofUGC-funded institutions with that of the civil service was also abolished. Thegovernment induced marketisation of higher education by making all taught

postgraduate and sub-degree programs operate on a self-financing basis,removing the quota for non-local research students, and relaxing the quota fornon-local students in publicly funded undergraduate and taught postgraduate

programs to 4%, opening the market for Chinese mainland and internationalstudents.

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Government spending cuts have forced universities to look for othersources to generate revenue. The Vice Chancellor of the Chinese University ofHong Kong, for example, urged his members to conduct more applied researchand develop more links with the business and industrial sectors in order to

attract external funding. As remarked by the Pro-Vice Chancellor of theUniversity of Hong Kong:A university will be like a domesticated animal in azoo if it relies on the government to feed it. Instead we should roam free on a

pasture (Wong 2004, 163).Within this policy context, the UGC is increasingly able to disseminate its

accountability agenda in the Hong Kong higher education system in teaching,research, institutional management and quality assurance, and intervenes in theindividual institutions managerial systems and affairs on the grounds of arational and effective use of resources (French 1999). For example, electeddeans have been replaced with directly appointed ones, based on the belief thatappointment of deans would enhance their accountability to the universityscentral administration and enable smoother communication links between thesenior management and the faculty (Mok 2001).

Little action at institutional and individual levels

Driven by a purpose to run higher education institutions efficiently andborrowing of the ideas and practices from enterprise, academic entrepreneur-ship is hoped to be used as a means by universities in Hong Kong to react totheir shrinking financial commitment from the government. However, due tothe combined effect of the facts that Hong Kong higher education institutionshave long been well-fed relatively, that high academic salaries are linked totypes of employment conditions rather than to individual performances, andthat Hong Kong culture is extremely material-oriented, higher institutions inHong Kong, especially those sitting at the pinnacle of the system, have notdemonstrated the innovative dimension of entrepreneurship. They have notundertaken academic entrepreneurship in their domestic and internationalmarketplaces, although they have been pushed strongly by the government to

diversify their sources for revenue.One example is Hong Kongs lack of success in creating an Asian higher-

education hub. In response to the financial crisis in 2008, Hong Kong ChiefExecutive Donald Tseng established a Task Force on Economic Challengeswith himself as chair. It selected six new engines for economic growth forHong Kongs knowledge-based economy to complement the traditional four

pillars of financial services, producer and professional services, trading andlogistics, and tourism. Education service was one of the six new enginesselected to diversify the local economy in the wake of financial crisis and

global recession and help power it towards recovery. The task force suggestedthat higher and continuing education play an expanding role in the region,



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along with medical services, cultural and creative industries, environmentalindustries, innovation and technology, and testing and certification.

Indeed, Hong Kong has a number of benefits to offer prospective students.Its universities are highly regarded internationally and in the Asia-Pacific

region particularly. Five of Hong Kongs public universities are ranked in thetop 200 worldwide by the UK-based Times Higher Education Supplementleague tables. The University of Hong Kong has been ranked especially highlyas one of the worlds best universities, even ahead of institutions such asStanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. Most recently,the system has been brought into line with universities in the United States andthe Chinese mainland, making it easier for students from the US and Chinesesystems to transfer to Hong Kong higher education institutions. A furtheradvantage is that higher education in Hong Kong is considerably cheaper than

in the USA, Australia, Canada and the UK, current world leaders in hostinginternational students.Since then, there have been some efforts towards the goal. The eight public

universities created an internationalisation committee to figure out ways toraise their numbers of non-local students. Together with the Hong Kong TradeDevelopment Council, university representatives have conducted joint recruit-ment efforts in India and Indonesia. Individual universities have also recruitedin Southeast Asia, India and Pakistan, as well as in North America and Europe.The government has taken some actions to encourage this trend, includingraising the allowed percentage of non-local students in these universities

upward from 10% to 20%, adjusting immigration rules to ease entry for non-local students and allowing them to stay after graduation to work, and creatingnew scholarship funds to attract postgraduate students to Hong Kong fordoctoral-level studies. The Department of Education has also allowed non-local students to enrol in continuing and self-financed courses, sometimes incollaboration with off-shore providers.

However, there lack cohesive strategies within and between institutions topromote Hong Kong higher education, which remains relatively unknownoutside the region, despite the fact that Hong Kong has the academic strength

to pull off such a goal. Few students and their parents in Southeast Asia, Indiaor Pakistan actually know about the University of Hong Kongs recent high

position in the international rankings (Mooney 2008). Practically, there hasbeen little effort to tackle barriers, including the omnipresent issue of where tohouse more students, brand management, concerns about the language ofinstruction and related cultural issues, the integration of non-local studentswith their local peers on campuses, and the public resources and politicalleadership involved. Having not been pushed into a situation that is as difficultas in Australia, individual institutions in Hong Kong have little incentive to

adopt vigorous measures to compete with their Australian and Britishcounterparts in China. Academics have been generally slow to look for

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solutions to the aforementioned barriers because they cannot see clear signs ofany financial benefits in return for the extra load added to their normal work.

On the other end of the spectrum of exporting educational services in HongKong is the cross-border delivery of higher education within the Chinese

mainland. This falls into the category of transnational higher education,something that has been increasingly used to export education as an approachto international university cooperation. According to UNESCO and theCouncil of Europe (2001), it refers to education in which the learners arelocated in a country different from the one where the awarding institution is

based: that is, any education delivered by an institution based in one country tostudents located in another (McBurnie and Ziguras 2007). During the pastdecade, the transnational provision of education has increased so dramaticallythat it is at the leading edge of the most fundamental change taking place inhigher education today, evidencing the invisible hand of the market at work in

allocating educational resources across borders efficiently.Asia is the region with most active participation in transnational higher

education (Huang 2007). Within Asia, the Chinese mainland has been welldocumented as the worlds largest education-importing country, sendinghundreds of thousands of students to study abroad. According to the AustralianInternational Development Program, the total demand for tertiary education inmainland China will rise from 8 million students in 2000 to 45 million in 2015(Bohm 2003; Marginson 2004). Indeed, as the worlds most promising market,the Chinese mainland has the potential to dwarf all traditional offshore

markets. As one of the best respected higher education systems in this region,using English as its medium of instruction, Hong Kong is extremely well

positioned to export its higher education services to neighbouring countries.With its geographical and cultural advantages, Hong Kong higher institutionsare naturally expected to capture the Chinese market.

The reality, however, is a far cry from such expectation. Here Australiaserves as an illustrative contrast. The fact is that Australian universities have

been the most dominant force in the Chinese mainland. The number of jointprograms in mainland China increased to 745 by June 2004, with 169programs qualified to award overseas (including Hong Kong) degrees

(Ministry of Education 2004). By 30 June 2004, there had been 668 approvedpartnerships. A total of 51,893 students had been enrolled. The degreeprograms approved by the Chinese government were run in collaboration with164 overseas universities or colleges. The overseas partners were predomi-nantly from countries or regions with developed economies and advancedtechnology (China Education Daily 2004). With the biggest shares ofeducational service exports in the world, Australia and the USA were thedominant forces: Australia had the highest number of partnership institutions(29.3%), followed by the USA (26.8%). Hong Kong only occupied 13.4%.

In consideration of all the advantages Hong Kong has, its share of thehigher education market in the Chinese mainland could have been much more



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substantial. This is especially the case in comparison with Australia. Accordingto Australian Education International (2006), Australias share of the Chinesemarket has grown exponentially. Over the past decade, the number of Chinesenationals studying at onshore and offshore Australian higher and vocational

education institutions increased from 3828 to 63,543, close to 1700%. TheAustralian Vice-Chancellors Committee (2003) reported that 27 Australianuniversities (representing 71% of its then 38 members) had offshore

programmes in mainland China in 2003, suggesting China as a major site ofoffshore activity for a large majority of Australias universities. Offshore

programmes in China represented 13% of all reported current offshore activityby AVCC members. The number of Chinas joint programmes with Australianuniversities had surpassed those with US institutions by 2004 (Huang 2007).

While Australian universities have been known for their aggressivemarketing globally, especially within the Asia-Pacific region, it is interesting

to note that Hong Kong has been much less actively participating in the Chinamarket. Closer scrutiny reveals a highly layered picture: the more prestigiousthe institutions are in the Hong Kong higher education system, the less activethey are in the Chinese market; only four institutions were listed on the officialwebsite specifically on joint Chinese-foreign higher education programmes

published by the Ministry of Education. Of the total shared by Hong Konginstitutions, the percentages of the University of Hong Kong, the ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technologyand Hong Kong Polytechnic University were respectively 13.6%, 9.1%, 9.1%

and 68.2%, showing great institutional differentiation, dominated by HongKong Polytechnic University (Yang 2008).

Apart from the joint delivery of certain degree programmes in the mainland,the only major campus-creating partnership between a local and a mainlanduniversity to date is the United International College, a venture in Zhuhai ofHong Kong Baptist University and Beijing Normal University. With 4000undergraduates now enrolled in a liberal arts, English-medium bachelorsdegree programme, the United International College has just begun anexperiment in offering Hong Kong-style university instruction and HongKong-accredited undergraduate degrees to a mainland student body in the

mainland.As for the quality of graduates as the end result of education, studies have

shown that employers in Hong Kong are not happy with the graduates fromlocal higher institutions. This became an especially serious issue in the midstof the recent adverse economic climate. Generally, local employers have

become more vociferous than they had ever been in complaining about thequality of the university graduates who newly joined the workplace. One of thestrong criticisms of local graduates has been the lack of ability to thinkindependently and creatively (Kan 2009, 1). This has been a focus in the

media. It was echoed in local employers surveys such as the one published inMarch 2002 by the small-to-medium enterprises (SME) Committee of the

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Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (HKGCC) on employersopinions about the performance of young employees, covering the periodfrom July to September 2001 (SME Committee of HKGCC 2002).

A similar assessment of local university graduates was published in

November 2006. Local graduates were reported to have failed to convincethe business community that they measured up to employers expectations.Conducted on 698 of the citys most influential business and opinion leaders,this survey found that local graduates lacked both appropriate attitudes towardswork and vital skills. They compared poorly with those who had studiedoverseas: 63% of those interviewed in the survey rated graduates of Europeanuniversities more highly than local graduates while 60% believed NorthAmerican graduates out-performed those from Hong Kong universities (SouthChina Morning Post 2006). Once again, one of the weaknesses of localgraduates was their lack of pioneering spirit. Indeed, students themselves

acknowledge this. A survey by the University of Hong Kong published in April2002 revealed that university students were worried about their chances ingetting a job, ways to develop a career and their own work abilities andattitudes (South China Morning Post2002).

Conclusion

The context in which universities are operated has become very different.There is a broad consensus as to the nature of the pressures on higher

education throughout the world to become more entrepreneurial. Higherinstitutions and the people working within them are pressured to play anenhanced role in contributing to the international competitiveness of theirnation, often in an economic sense via a process of commercialisation ofresearch (European Commission 2005). Demands are increasing to makehigher education contribute more substantially to local economic and socialdevelopment. Universities are urged to take centre stage in regional develop-ment strategies. Against such a backdrop, entrepreneurship is seen as aneffective way to restructure any university that wants to be competitive and tosurvive and grow over time.

Hong Kong seems to have a paradoxical situation: while Hong Kong hashad a strong entrepreneurial culture, its achievement in academic entrepreneur-ship is relatively low. This is due to a variety of factors including the facts thatHong Kong academics are paid well without linking directly to their actualcontribution to the workplace, that academic salary is largely separated frominstitutional entrepreneurial activities, and that higher education institutions arestill able to receive substantial funding from the government. Unless personal

benefits of academics and institutional managers are under threat, they wouldnot participate proactively in their universitys entrepreneurial activities.

On the other hand, it is important to warn against the romanticisation ofentrepreneurship. It must be remembered that the entrepreneurship in the



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academic world is, and should be, fundamentally different from the

entrepreneurship in the business world. As the act of being an entrepreneur,

entrepreneurship means one who undertakes innovations, finance and business

acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods. It is linked

innately to innovations for the purpose of profit-seeking. The concept has beenextended to include social and political forms of entrepreneurial activities. In

consideration of the fundamental differences between business organisations

and educational institutions, the central focus of academic entrepreneurship

could and should be different from that of business entrepreneurship.For educational institutions, the aggressive selfishness needs to be rejected

as far as possible. The link between universities and industry is not always

close and direct. A balance needs to be struck between the university as a

public good and marketing to keep intact the core values of the academic ethos.

Therefore, there is a need for revisiting Clarks (1998, 2000, 2004) thesis. Inthis regard, Hong Kong might have hit the mark by a fluke. While it is

necessary for higher institutions in Hong Kong to advocate academic

entrepreneurship, it is important to beware of the possible toxic influence of

the selfish nature of business entrepreneurship on an educational environment.Experiences from elsewhere confirm this judgement. As Marginson and

Considine (2000, 2413) have pointed out, there have been some serious

weaknesses in Australias practices. According to them, the limits of theenterprise university include: first, its leaders are too far detached from that

which they lead, while at the same time, too much is asked of them; second, toooften the enterprise university works around and against academic cultures

rather than through them; and third, the internal institutional community has

been thinned out. Their following remarks remain highly relevant today and

internationally:

In becoming the Enterprise University, the university seems at risk of losingsight of its own distinctive features and achievements. In fact it might be losingcontrol over the very means by which its own identity is formed. In very fewcases did we find an executive strategy of enterprise and renewal that wasmatched by internal structures capable of mobilizing what [higher educationresearcher Burton] Clark calls the academic heartland of ordinary staff andstudents. (Marginson and Considine 2000, 6)

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