Fierce Academy in the Interstices of Bureaucracy: Academic Entrepreneurship as Cultural Navigator

In this chapter, I consider my experiences of academicpreneurship from the perspective of the socio-cultural contexts having a bearing on the term: the academic, and the commercial/industrial. I consider the differences between these two socio-cultural contexts to clarify my own experience of forms of activity that are required to straddle the two, such as in entrepreneurial activity that draws on or operates in academic areas. This is then supplemented by an analysis of the historical forces that have shaped these contexts, primarily modernity, and the bureaucratic mode of social organization by which it is characterized. A consideration of the purpose and nature of bureaucracy clarifies the value and function of entrepreneurial activity in such contexts, with a specific focus on academicpreneurialism. I draw on my own experience and research to explain my understanding of academicpreneur as a “navigator” operating in interstitial “third spaces” (Bhabha, 2012) between established domains; and identify the abilities, attitudes, and approaches that are of value in facilitating such activity. Given my emphasis on the discipline- and domain-traversing nature of academicpreneurship, my own discussion similarly draws on a variety of theoretical and empirical bases in advancing its argument. I conclude with insights of practical value to academicpreneur. This perspective confirms the value and accuracy of Eklund and Wanzeried’s Holistic Framework in accounting for the phenomenon. The relevant aspects of the holistic framework are considered in connection with the discussion throughout. To begin with, however, I provide an insight into the personal circumstances of significance in having developed these perspectives, and competences.