Between Good Intentions and Enthusiastic Professors: The Missing Middle of University Social Innovation Structures in th
This chapter considers the role of universities in stimulating social innovation, and in particular the issue that despite possessing substantive knowledge that might be useful for stimulating social innovation, universities to date have not been widely e
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t This chapter considers the role of universities in stimulating social innovation, and in particular the issue that despite possessing substantive knowledge that might be useful for stimulating social innovation, universities to date have not been widely engaged in social innovation activities in the context of Quadruple Helix developmental models. We explain this in terms of the institutional logics of engaged universities, in which entrepreneurial logics have emerged in recent decades, that frame the desirable forms of university-society engagement in terms of the economic benefits they bring. We ask whether institutional logics could explain this resistance of universities to social innovation. Drawing on two case studies of universities sincerely committed to supporting social innovation, we chart the effects of institutional logics on university-supported social innovation. We observe that there is a “missing middle” between enthusiastic managers and engaged professors, in which four factors serve to undermine social innovation activities becoming strategically important to HEIs. We conclude by noting that this missing middle also serves to segment the operation of Quadruple Helix relationships, thereby undermining university contributions to societal development more generally. Keywords Universities and social innovation · Universities’ third mission · Institutional logics · Quadruple Helix · Social innovation upscaling · Entrepreneurial universities
P. Benneworth (*) Department of Business Administration, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, Twente, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] J. Cunha ALGORITMI Research Center, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal R. Cinar Department of Social Political and Territorial Sciences, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Farinha et al. (eds.), Regional Helix Ecosystems and Sustainable Growth, Studies on Entrepreneurship, Structural Change and Industrial Dynamics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47697-7_3
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1 Introduction There has been a recent trend in Triple Helix studies to extend the original frame of reference to incorporate more classes of actors that have distinctly different dynamics. Although Leydesdorff (2012) posited that there might be any number of additional classes in the helix model, one reading that has achieved a widespread popularity is that of the Quadruple Helix involving societal groups in knowledge creation processes (Rodrigues & Teles, 2017). These groups’ dynamics and logics are very different to government, industries and universities, representing a fourth helix. Their presence can create new opportunities but also new tensions, and the ways in which these relationships play out help define the dynamic potential of the emerging Quadruple Helixes. The Triple Helix approach has been criticised for failing to deal with tensions between partners and the role this play
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