Determinants of Entrepreneurial University Culture Under Unfavorable Conditions: Findings from a Developing Country

This qualitative research examines entrepreneurial cultures of private and public sector universities in an apparently hostile economy such as Pakistan, and how it is affected by a nexus of its internal and external environmental factors. The phenomenon is explored through viewpoints and understanding of the social actors who experience it firsthand through 32 interviews with faculty members of 4 public and 4 private sector universities. A top-down, government-pull model approach driven by visionary leaders was found more viable and suggested in promoting entrepreneurial culture rather than bottom-up, university-push model approach. Furthermore, to achieve entrepreneurial cultures, private universities are restrained by profit motives, whereas public ones are inhibited by administrative procedures. The proposed framework offers empirical guidelines for the purposes of contextualizing entrepreneurial university culture and its underlying factors under unfavorable conditions.