This study examines how academic engagement with society can be facilitated by higher education institution (HEI) managers by studying academics' needs and their managers' support for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (i.e., the determinants of self-determination). Interviews were conducted with managers (n=6) and academics (n=16) affiliated with HEIs from the Hochschulallianz für den Mittelstand in Germany. The findings indicate alignment and gaps between managers and academics. First, the need and support for autonomy were present. Second, managers suggested that academics had relevant competencies, but academics indicated they had a lack of such competencies. Third, managers perceived that there was a strong collaboration between academics; however, academics reported that they experience negative peer effects when collaborating with society. Aiming to bridge the gap using a bonding social capital approach, HEI managers are recommended to strengthen academics' sense of belonging to an HEI and to promote access to capital and competencies that are within the HEI's internal network.
Keywords: academic engagement; bonding social capital; motivation; self-determination; society
Within the wider context of understanding higher education institutions' (HEI) roles in innovation, the Triple Helix model is highly significant in explaining the interactions between academia and stakeholders outside academia in a non-linear way (Cai and Etzkowitz 2020; Cai and Amaral 2022). Specifically, the spheres/helices illustrate the actors and their interactions. This study investigates the university/academia helix in relation to the society helix. The latter is understood as a helix that includes the industry helix in the original illustration of the three spheres but more widely captures societal stakeholders. The current study aims to contribute to an understanding of the internal structures of the academia helix to facilitate engagement with society.
Academic engagement refers to knowledge-related collaboration between academic and non-academic individuals or organizations (Perkmann et al., 2013). Triple Helix research recognizes academic engagement with society as a response to societal challenges (Bölling and Eriksson, 2016) in which economic collaborations with stakeholders outside the organization are seen as shortcomings (Cinar and Benneworth, 2021). HEIs often approach academic engagement from the perspective of economic value creation (Aranguren et al. 2021; Sivertsen and Meijer, 2020), resulting in policies and objectives that prioritize economic activities, such as patenting and research and development (R&D) with industry, over interactions with society (Cinar and Benneworth 2021). However, higher education institutions on the organizational level developed policies and objectives toward academic engagement with society. Nonetheless, HEIs' objectives for engagement do not end with industry but drive the knowledge economy (Cai and Lattu 2021). Thus, these interactions with society require researchers' attention (Cai and Amaral 2021). Our understanding of society entails both individuals and organizations: for example, citizens or citizen groups such as children or the elderly, NGOs, and hospitals or churches.
Earlier studies indicate that the strong policy focus on economic value creation hampers academics' motivation to collaborate with stakeholders from society (Abreu and Grinevich 2013; de Jong et al. 2016). This results in tensions between the HEI on the organizational level and the individual academic in two ways. First, academics fail to see how their own and their peers' engagement with society fits the policy goals (de Jong et al. 2016). Second, academics experience a lack of recognition from HEIs for their engagement (Miller et al. 2014). The scarcity of studies integrating the individual and organizational levels, as shown in a recent bibliometric analysis (Skute et al. 2019), demonstrates that the two levels are often studied in isolation. However, such studies suggest a promising approach toward connecting the individual and organizational levels (Miller et al. 2014). In this study, we understand the individual academic level in terms of academics' motivations and the organizational level as the characteristics of HEI's support mechanisms (adapted from Skute et al., 2019).
Aiming to first identify gaps emerging between the individual and organizational levels in isolation, we draw on Ryan and Deci's (2000a, 2000b) self-determination theory. The theory describes three needs – autonomy (opportunity for self-direction), competence (ability to execute activities), and relatedness (belonging to groups and organizations) – which are all positively related to academics' engagement (Orazbayeva et al. 2021; Ryan and Deci 2000b). The self-determination theory guides this study as it supports the depiction of not only academics' individual needs for engagement (Orazbayeva et al. 2021) but also managers' support for those needs. To analyze the interaction level, we introduce social capital theory (especially bonding social capital) (Putnam 1995), which elucidates how higher education managers can support academics' needs by connecting them to the internal resources in the network (AL-Tabbaa and Ankrah 2016; Grzegorczyk 2019). Bonding social capital refers to individuals' ability to access resources using their relationships within the organization as a close-knit collective (Fang et al. 2011; Putnam 1995). We suggest that bonding social capital is HEIs' key to satisfying academics' needs by providing the necessary resources for suitable self-direction, access to complementary competencies, and a feeling of achieving organizational objectives as a related group.
Acknowledging that academics' engagement with society shapes a broader understanding of actors outside academia beyond industry (see Figure 1), this study aims to understand how academic engagement with society is facilitated within academia. In this study two categories of actors are considered in the academia helix: managers on the organizational level and academics on the individual level. Within the academia helix of the Triple Helix model, we look into the need satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, three needs that have been shown to be related to academics' engagement (Orazbayeva et al. 2021). The role of management in such need satisfaction has been previously mentioned by authors as relevant, but has not been studied in depth. We suggest that bonding social capital (illustrated as uninterrupted lines in Figure 1) is academia's key to satisfying academics' needs by providing the necessary resources via the internal network and relationships between management and academics or between academics and their peers. Employing bonding capital as an approach to self-determination, academia prepares from the inside of the helix for bridging to the society helix. The social capital and self-determination approach to motivation and the satisfaction of needs is proposed in order to explore non-economic approaches for social Triple Helix collaboration. Current Triple Helix literature and practice is dominated by engagement with industry, which might inhibit academic engagement with society.
Graph: Figure 1 Facilitating academic engagement with society using a bonding social capital approach to self-determination within the academia helix
Aiming to understand Triple Helix engagement with society beyond industry, this study connects the organizational and individual levels within the academia helix through two theoretical lenses. The research is guided by the following research questions: 1) how do academics and managers experience academic engagement with society and, subsequently, how do they perceive academics' need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness? and 2) how does bonding social capital provide academics access to resources to satisfy those needs for academic engagement with society? To answer these questions, we first compare academics' and managers' view of the concept of and need for academic engagement with society, followed by presenting the support for needs on the interaction level. We identify gaps in their perception to ultimately support academic engagement with society and indicate how a bonding social capital approach can be used to bridge the gaps. Hereby, this study makes two main contributions to the literature. First, it provides an understanding of the phenomenon of academic engagement with society on the organizational and individual levels and of the generation of societal focus from the economic perspective, which in turn affects how autonomy, competence, and relatedness are perceived. Secondly, this research sheds light on how academics' needs for self-determination can be addressed theoretically and practically through a bonding social capital perspective, thereby strengthening the HEIs' collective capacity for academic engagement from within.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. The next section reviews the concept of academic engagement with society at the organizational and individual levels and introduces the role of the theories of self-determination and social capital. Thereafter, it presents an empirical investigation based on qualitative enquiry comprising 22 semi-structured interviews with managers and academics from German HEIs. The following sections present the findings and discussion. This article concludes with theoretical and practical recommendations for HEI managers to design effective policies and management practices to further enable academic engagement with society.
Nowadays, HEIs are aiming to intensify the impact of science on society as the expectations of their responsibilities for creating socio-economic development are mounting (Altbach et al. 2019; Cai and Lattu 2021). HEIs aim to drive a global transformation by adding a third mission to the two longstanding missions on education and research (Berghaeuser and Hoelscher 2020; Cai and Amaral 2021; Kliewe and Baaken 2019). Academic engagement with society is understood to take place under the umbrella of a third mission. The phenomenon of academic engagement largely takes shape within the HEI on an organizational as well as individual level (Galan-Muros and Davey 2019; Skute et al. 2019). On the one hand, academics at the individual level are, to some extent, subject to organizational-level guidance with regard to their engagement (Huyghe and Knockaert 2015; Iorio et al. 2017). On the other hand, academics can contribute to the development of academic engagement as they are part of HEIs and voice their need for support (Miller et al. 2014). Within HEIs, academic engagement can thus be studied on the organizational, individual, and interaction-based levels. By attempting to reach an understanding of the interaction, this article provides deeper insights into the micro-level dynamics of the Triple Helix model, which could serve as a useful tool for innovation analysis (Cai and Etzkowitz 2020; Cai and Amaral 2022).
Research has shown that academic engagement is promoted through drivers and facilitators rather than through the removal or absence of barriers (Galán-Muros and Plewa 2016). Previous studies highlight three facilitators of academic engagement based on the three aforementioned needs posited by the self-determination theory. While the satisfaction of needs has positive effects on an organization (Ryan and Deci 2000a), the understanding of this satisfaction within a social environment (such as an HEI) using self-determination theory alone is insufficient. Hence, we introduce the social capital theory (Putnam 1995), especially the perspective of bonding social capital that states that the satisfaction of needs is associated not only with the individual but also with organizational tactics (Bauer et al. 2007). Furthermore, bonding social capital characterizes relationships that enable the exchange of information and knowledge for collective action (Fang et al. 2011; Putnam 1995).
Throughout this study, we argue that bonding social capital can be leveraged by an organization to give individual members within that organization access to resources that contribute to satisfying their needs. We follow up on a suggestion from Lam's (2011) work on academic engagement that emphasizes the role of social context beyond self-determination. We also build on more recent work indicating that social capital can better explain academics' engagement behavior next to factors facilitating self-determination (Goethner et al. 2012; Iorio et al. 2017). Altogether, this study aims to showcase how HEIs can facilitate academic engagement with society with a bonding social capital approach to self-determination.
Self-determination theory describes three needs that facilitate the sustenance of a behavior over time (Ryan and Deci 2000b). The first need, autonomy, is often described as perceived autonomy and the opportunity for self-direction as opposed to controlled action (driven by others) (Ryan and Deci 2000b). In this vein, autonomy can be understood as academics' freedom to engage and make decisions (Orazbayeva et al. 2021; Zalewska-Kurek and Harms 2020). The second need, competence, refers to self-efficacy (Bandura 1997) or the perception of being able to execute tasks to reach a desirable outcome. Research has shown that at least half of the academic population lacks the technical and managerial skills to succeed in engagement activities (Hayter 2015). Furthermore, academics' experience in years is positively related to their performance in academic engagement (Korff et al. 2019). The third need, relatedness, concerns the feeling of belonging to a group and being an integral part of an organization (Ryan and Deci 2000b). Belonging to an HEI refers to an individual being valued, accepted, and included (Maunder, 2018). Previous studies have found relatedness to be a driver of academic engagement (Goethner et al. 2012; Tartari et al. 2014). For instance, studies have also shown that a "third mission statement" positively affects academic engagement (Huyghe and Knockaert 2015; Iorio et al. 2017). Needs satisfaction can support academics' engagement with society and is therefore relevant to academics and managers because a supportive organizational environment is associated with higher levels of engagement (Owen-Smith and Powell 2001).
We introduce bonding social capital to show how managers can mobilize the resources within the internal network to support the satisfaction of academics' autonomy, competence and relatedness needs. Social Capital Theory posits that (social) resources are embedded in social relationships and access to these resources is beneficial to the individual (Coleman 1990). Accordingly, academic engagement with society is an accumulation of social choices (Jasinski 2021), wherein individuals with strong social connections are more likely to achieve their goals (Long et al. 2013). This connection allows organizational members to access social resources through their interaction (Fang et al. 2011). Previous studies have recognized social capital theory as a theoretical anchor, especially in the context of organizational support structures (AL-Tabbaa and Ankrah 2016; Grzegorczyk 2019). To investigate academic engagement with society from an inside perspective, this study focuses on bonding social capital. In the context of this study, bonding social capital is the relationship between academics and management, facilitating access to resources in the internal network of HEIs. Within HEIs, bonding social capital extends beyond interaction with peers (Jensen and Jetten, 2015) to the organizational level. For instance, well-connected academics acquire certain knowledge and behaviors as they have access to the social resources within HEIs' network (Bauer et al. 2007).This study investigates how managers can follow a bonding capital approach to provide academics access to resources within HEIs, thus satisfying their individual needs.
In order to guide our research, an analytical framework was developed. The framework displays the interactions between TTO managers and academics within the academia helix in the Triple Helix model. At the top, research question one is illustrated, aiming to identify how managers and academics understand needs satisfaction in terms of autonomy, competence and relatedness. The dotted lines indicate the investigation into the satisfaction of needs. After identification of the need satisfaction and gaps, if any, a bonding social capital perspective is taken to overcome the gaps, indicated by the uninterrupted line. Bonding social capital refers to transactional relations, which can either be between managers and academics (from left to right) or between academics (the circular arrows).
Graph: Figure 2 Analytical framework guiding the research
This study adopts a qualitative interview approach by integrating the perspectives of directors/managers (who represent the organization) and individual academics in one research design. Given the rather underexplored nature of this field of research and the objective to investigate the complexity of behaviors and motivations in-depth, a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews was utilized (Saunders et al., 2003) to uncover the occurrences and interconnectivity of emerging phenomena (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011).
Empirical data were obtained from the organizational and academic levels of the Hochschulallianz für den Mittelstand (Higher Education Institution alliance for small and medium enterprises, https://hochschulallianz.de/startseite/mitgliedshochschulen/), which has 12 institutions and 27 locations all over Germany and a strong focus on relationship-building for knowledge transfer and innovation. The organization aims to build partnerships, communicate potential, establish platforms, and organize regular "transfer conferences." Similar to global developments, the HIEs from the alliance have set up structures like technology transfer offices (TTOs) to foster activities focused on engagement with society beyond conventional technology transfer tasks (Baglieri et al. 2018). On the organizational level, the data was collected through directors and managers of units such as TTOs who are responsible for achieving the objectives of engagement with society. Moreover, they exert influence in the execution of policies and advise higher management on utilizing policies as key instruments in the management and governance of engagement with society (Miller et al. 2014).
However, the third mission is fluid and determined by not only managers but also academics (Berghaeuser and Hoelscher 2020). The individual-level data were collected via interviews with professors and academics. HEIs within the alliance typically have 100 to 200 professors and several thousand students. Moreover, as all HEIs in the sample are German universities of applied sciences, professors require at least three years of working experience in non-academic positions. Overall, we argue that the German higher education alliance forms a suitable research context for academic engagement with society as its organizational goals are similar to the global goals and aims of HEIs.
We conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with three managers and three directors (M01–M06) and 16 academics (A01–A16), totaling a sample of 22 participants. HEI management representatives (n=44) were identified through HEI homepages, especially those listing staff assigned to knowledge transfer tasks and external collaborations. The response rate of the three directors and three managers (n=6) was 14%. For maximum variety in the sample of academics, we adhered to maximum variation sampling and selected professors from different genders, age groups, and disciplines from all 12 HEIs in the sample. All participants provided written informed consent. Table 1 presents an overview of the participants.
Graph: Table 1 Sample overview
A total of 22 interviews, ranging 30 to 45 minutes each, were conducted between October 2020 and June 2021. Data were collected via video calls. All interviews were taped and securely stored in Sciebo (a non-commercial cloud storage for universities); the recordings will be deleted after the completion of the research. Data were transcribed and anonymized for analysis. To report the observations and results, we used pseudonyms to anonymize the respondents' names. Most interviews were conducted in German (n=19) and a few in English (n=3), depending on the interviewee's preference. All semi-structured interviews followed a previously designed interview protocol with a topic list to increase the comparability between the interviews at the organizational and individual levels. A semi-structured interview guide served to cover similar questions on relevant concepts (see Table 2).
Graph: Table 2 Interview concepts and questions
We organized the transcripts in MAXQDA and applied the Gioia method to structure the data into coded concepts and aggregated dimensions (Gioia et al. 2013), an approach with a workflow similar to that of thematic analysis, such as that proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006), which has been applied in various studies (Janssen et al. 2021; Mercer-Mapstone and Bovill 2020). In practice, we followed an iterative method of going back and forth between the interview data and literature and the coding process followed a three-step analysis. In the first inductive step, the authors familiarized themselves with the data, highlighted the relevant passages, and formed summarized statements, staying close to the interviewees' terminology, forming first-order concepts. In the second step, these summarized statements were clustered on the level of second-order concepts, where codes were compared to the analytical framework. In the third step, second-order concepts were clustered to form aggregated dimensions with a theoretical lens, and the codes were merged or adapted to the theory. Following self-determination and social capital theories, the aggregated dimensions that could be derived from the data are autonomy, competence, relatedness, and bonding social capital (see Table 3).
Graph: Table 3 Data coding
Graph
This section describes the findings on how the phenomenon of academic engagement with society is experienced on the individual and organizational levels. It also describes how academics and managers perceive the need and support for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Thereafter, it describes how bonding social capital provides academics access to organizational resources.
The academics shared a variety of perceptions, as some clearly understood the dynamics of how their engagement with society pushed the third mission forward. However, some academics focused more on specific actors, such as citizens, local authorities, or small start-ups, and wondered if this also comprises the third mission. The organizational "third mission" was traditionally focused on technology transfer, but it is now more focused on engagement with society.
So, you have this overlap between it's really hard to say. Is it research? Is it a teaching or third mission? So, it's there in between. (A01)
Voluntary organizations from a particular district can also bring their innovation topics into our projects, and that again carries the third mission quite clearly forward. (A02)
The third mission is the area of transfer, and we have the task of facilitating the transfer to society, i.e., to transfer everything that we have, in terms of experience, in terms of scientific publications, in terms of developments to society. That means not only within a company network, but also into the classic social society. (M01)
The term the third mission is actually the extension of this classic science and technology transfer to include the regional component, that is, having regional commitment and social responsibility. (M04)
A discrepancy emerged regarding the understanding of the third mission and where the other two missions ended. In particular, the societal elements that are added to expand the third mission of understanding technology transfer to knowledge transfer are often not stand-alone practices. The academics struggled with the synergies and overlaps that could help elucidate that engagement is part of their research or teaching and cannot be counted as just a third mission contribution.
The academics expressed their perceived autonomy by indicating that they can make their own decisions to engage in a project with society and that freedom in such decision-making offers benefits to society. The HEI managers indicated that it is important not to harm academic autonomy and that academics' autonomy positively affects their performance in terms of engagement with society.
(...) Having the freedom to engage in projects that I feel are valuable for society. (A01)
If you restrict academics, they won't be motivated to be creative and focused. (M06)
Moreover, the academics explained that they had engaged with society previously. Nevertheless, they reported various gaps in their competencies, especially regarding project management and dissemination. Most organizational perspectives described academics as fully competent in carrying out academic engagement with society because of earlier occupations or training.
One would need more expertise in copyright, marketing, and distribution. That would be great! (A07)
I think they already have that from their training, that they simply know what transfer means. (M01)
The academics considered relatedness to HEIs and peers important for their engagement and believed that an environment for engagement would present a supportive and motivating effect. They also indicated that such an environment has not yet been established as the two longstanding missions, especially research, are key to how peers evaluate each other. The directors and managers shared a wide variety of understandings concerning relatedness, which was described as inclusive. They believed that interdisciplinary work is crucial and described the relatedness between their peers and the (academic) field of work.
If you do too much for admission staff, you get this image, like you are not a real researcher anymore, you are more a communicator, so you have to be careful because, in the research community, research is sort of the most important thing. (A08)
You do this for yourself, your field, and your people who work directly with you. (M05)
A consensus exists regarding the need for autonomy to benefit engagement with society. Although the general need for competencies is understood by both parties, the presence of further competencies and support could foster engagement. The interview data also indicated a consensus on the need for relatedness as motivation for academic engagement with society. HEIs are willing to establish a supportive environment for like-minded academics, thereby encouraging them to contribute to engagement with society. It is important to clarify to academics that the third mission is now part of the core mission to avoid the negative effects of peers driving each other away from engagement with society by labelling colleagues as communicators rather than academics.
Here, we report the findings regarding the interaction level. Concerning how academics access resources within the internal network, we analyzed how bonding gives them access to social capital and how managers and directors mobilize the resources in the network for academics. Interestingly, while some academics indicated strong collaboration with a couple of colleagues, others adopted a rather individualistic approach. One manager also shed light on a reporting system, which might either create individualists or exemplify how to engage with society.
We are, I would say individualists. And everyone has his own approach. (A04)
We have a reporting system at the university in which we communicate the recorded key performances in a very transparent way, which we then also reflect to the professors, so that they perhaps also feel a bit motivated by this. So, according to the motto, "Candidate X has so much third-party funding income." (M01)
Furthermore, academics indicated that the organization is supportive in providing guidance for academic engagement.
I don't have the feeling that I am left completely alone by the Higher Education Institution, but we did not have a lot of such workshops or similar things in this direction. (A14)
For those who are interested, that it is made particularly easy for them, that they receive support from us in the points where they need support. (M06)
For collaborative purposes, some academics can find like-minded colleagues, while others perceive a lack of interest from their colleagues. HEI managers try to assist academics in finding peers that could work together on academic engagement.
You find allies and you find people who are interested. (A05)
I am responsible for networking once among the researchers at the university. (M04)
Academics gain access to social capital by working together, which leads to better outcomes. However, academics sometimes view their peers not only as collaborators but also as competitors, which renders capital within one academic's network inaccessible to peers. Consequently, managers and directors actively provide academics access to resources within the network and mobilize them. They also facilitate the competition to some extent, which motivates academics to outperform each other in the engagement domain.
This study connects the individual and the organizational level utilizing two theoretical lenses. Table 4 shows the description of academic engagement by both academics and managers. It presents academics' needs, managers' support to satisfy these needs, the gaps between the two, and a bonding social capital approach to bridging the gaps. To create in-depth insights into how managers can leverage bonding social capital to give academics access to organizational resources, we further discuss the findings in this section and elaborate on gaps and collective approaches.
Graph: Table 4 Summary of findings
The interviews implicate that understanding the phenomena of "third mission" and "academic engagement" might result in a misunderstanding between organizations and individuals. As the organizational policies were initially primarily focused on commercial returns, those roots still affect the understanding of societal orientation to date. The narrow view negatively affects managers' support of academics seeking to engage with society. This misalignment between levels is consistent with the developments in academic engagement over time (Altbach et al. 2019; Aranguren et al. 2021; Cinar and Benneworth 2021; McKelvey and Zaring 2018; Muhonen et al. 2020; Perkmann et al. 2013; Perkmann et al. 2021; Rossi and Rosli 2015). We also demonstrated that discrepancies in typologies identified several years ago (Sivertsen and Meijer 2020) continue to persist. Furthermore, we found that academics still categorize their engagement differently from the policies (de Jong et al. 2016) and that this discrepancy can negatively affect engagement, as has been previously identified (Abreu and Grinevich 2013).
Regarding the need for determinants of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, both levels indicated that autonomy is the cornerstone of academia and engagement with society. Our findings showed that academics need autonomy in their engagement with society. However, while directors and managers strongly support academic freedom regarding decision-making, we noted the following gap:
Gap 1: Academic engagement with society seems to be an autonomous and, thus, an individual decision with individual rewards.
Although earlier research indicates that autonomy, as opposed to controlling mechanisms, is an enabler of academic engagement (Orazbayeva et al. 2021; Zalewska-Kurek and Harms 2020), the solitary attitude obtained from autonomy prevents collective action of HEIs with stakeholders from society. Furthermore, previous studies observed that a lack of reward negatively affects academics' engagement activities (Miller et al. 2014). However, the available rewards are focused on individual achievement. Accordingly, we suggest a more socialized approach to academic engagement, wherein autonomy does not prevent collaboration in engagement. For instance, rewards could be provided for collective rather than individual achievements, facilitating academics' use of autonomy to initiate academic engagement with society as an interdisciplinary peer approach and contributing to organizational engagement goals. We phrase the suggestion as follows:
Collective approach 1: Managers should create a culture that is affirmative toward collective action rather than individual performance yet supporting academic's autonomy.
The interview data also provided insight into the competencies required for academic engagement with society. Although a lack of competence did not seem to be a barrier to academic engagement, managers could offer additional support for specific competencies. This indicates the second gap:
Gap 2: Academics are unacquainted with accessing the competencies within the HEIs' internal network.
As the literature on competencies for academic engagement is scare compared to that on autonomy and relatedness (Hayter 2015; Ryan and Deci 2020), a misaligned understanding of the need for competence is not surprising. Although academics feel that they lack the requisite competence (Hayter 2015), competence and experience are still positively related to engagement (Korff et al. 2019; Orazbayeva et al. 2021). However, as HEIs have various faculties and departments, competence is often already present within the internal network. With regard to managers' role in providing academics access to each other's knowledge, we suggest:
Collective approach 2: Managers must mobilize resources within the internal network, for example, by offering workshops and creating awareness for other academics' competencies within HEIs.
Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that an inclusive approach toward academic engagement with society is adopted, aiming for collective collaboration inside the organization. However, academics do not always experience belongingness and peer approval, which negatively affects their engagement behavior. Subsequently, the following gap emerges:
Gap 3: Academics do not always feel that their engagement with society is part of HEIs' policies and objectives.
In line with earlier studies, we demonstrated that peer opinions matter with regard to academic engagement (Goethner et al. 2012). Furthermore, the positive effect engendered by a sense of belonging also corroborates the findings of earlier work (Iorio et al. 2017; Maunder 2018; Orazbayeva et al. 2021; Tartari et al. 2014). We also illustrate that relatedness has not fully developed toward acceptance of engagement with society; peers sometimes support each other rather than being research-focused. This indicates that the transformation and inclusion of a third core mission are still ongoing (Altbach et al. 2019; Aranguren et al. 2021; Cinar and Benneworth 2021; Perkmann et al. 2013; Perkmann et al. 2021). To increase academics' relatedness to peers and belongingness to HEIs, managers can actively initiate connections between academics. We phrase this suggestion as:
Collective approach 3: Managers are called to strengthen academics' sense of belonging and collegiality by bringing them together within the internal network to explore collective approaches to engagement with society.
With an increased emphasis on the societal component of the third mission, beyond the economic foci, a collective approach mobilizing bonding social capital seems suitable.
Aiming to facilitate academic engagement, two main research questions were posed and answered using interview data from TTO managers and academics. First, in order to strength academia's approach to self-determination in order to improve engagement with society, we looked into engagement policies created by HEI management and how they are perceived by academics. We relied on three main motivational concepts from self-determination theory, namely the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Three main insights have been distilled from the findings. First, autonomy is not only an often-studied psychological need, but also acknowledged in practice by both academics and managers as relevant. It is closely monitored by TTO managers in order to fulfill the need for freedom in academic engagement. Second, competence in literature is often described as an outcome variable, primarily acquired through the execution of the tasks related to academic engagement. TTO managers believe that academics have the necessary competencies to engage with society. However, academics often lack such competencies, such as project management and dissemination skills. Academics considered relatedness to their HEIs and peers important for their engagement. However, academics indicated that they do not feel they have the support they desire in order to engage with society. The research missions of HEIs put a lot of pressure on performance. Furthermore, academics indicated a lack of recognition for their engagement with society as part of the third mission. Third, a bonding social capital approach was suggested to bridge the gaps in academics' levels of satisfaction in terms of autonomy (via affirmative organizational culture toward collective engagement with society), competence (by mobilizing resources), and relatedness (by initiating internal collaborations to foster engagement with society).
This study provides deeper insights into the micro-level understanding of the academia/university Triple Helix, which facilitates a better understanding of the Triple Helix as an innovative tool (Cai and Etzkowitz 2020; Cai and Amaral 2022). Through the iteration of how self-determination determinants (i.e., autonomy, competence and relatedness) can be facilitated via bonding social capital, the academia helix was found to be better equipped for interactions with actors from the society helix. Using data from interviews with academics and managers, we shed a different light on academic engagement with society as part of the third mission of HEIs. While this analytical and conceptual framework can be further developed to understand academic engagement with society, it makes various contributions to academic engagement research.
First, a bonding social capital perspective (Fang et al. 2011; Putnam 1995) explains academics' engagement needs beyond the self-determination theory by emphasizing resources that can be accessed within the organizational network of HEIs. Additionally, it illustrates that, although engagement with society does not follow an economic or quantified understanding (Cinar and Benneworth 2021), it is supported by an understanding of resources as social capital. In line with earlier studies, we found that the concept of engagement with society is not easy to capture (Berghaeuser and Hoelscher 2020; Cai and Lattu 2021; Cinar and Benneworth 2021; Sivertsen and Meijer 2020). However, we found similarities between the forms of engagement. As pointed out in earlier works, caution is required when positioning needs and support for engagement with society as it can drive academics away because certain incentives can be perceived as inappropriate, demoralizing, or skewed toward economic engagement (Abreu and Grinevich 2013; de Jong et al. 2016; Sormani et al. 2022).
While the significant roles of all determinants (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) have been presented in an earlier work (Orazbayeva et al. 2021), several nuances must be noted. First, the autonomy to engage (Zalewska-Kurek and Harms 2020) coincides with the autonomy not to engage, thus challenging the facilitating role of freedom in decision-making. Autonomy can also lead to highly individualistic decision-making, which could potentially impede collective action within HEIs. Regarding relatedness, it is still evident that the third mission is a transition (Altbach et al. 2019; Aranguren et al. 2021; Cinar and Benneworth 2021; Kliewe and Baaken 2019; Perkmann et al. 2013; Perkmann et al. 2021). The environment for relatedness is still underdeveloped, resulting in a gap between desired relatedness and current relatedness. Finally, this study demonstrates that while academics engage with society, they experience a lack of competence from other disciplines, including a lack of dissemination and project management competencies.
Various academic engagement activities require a separate understanding of the motivations, incentives, and support systems (Galán-Muros and Plewa 2016; Rossi and Rosli 2015). Our study findings have various practical and managerial implications. First, managers should maintain dialogue with academics to identify any discrepancies between the intentions of the management and their perception by academics. The dialogue could support the much-needed framework for understanding what the third mission and academic engagement entail (Sivertsen and Meijer 2020) and help create a supportive environment beyond the initial economic focus/understanding (Aranguren et al. 2021; Baglieri et al. 2018; Kliewe and Baaken 2019; Markman et al. 2005; Rossi and Rosli 2015). Modifying the terminology from technological and economical phrasing to societal and social phrasing might also benefit the approach toward engagement with society.
Second, the gaps in relatedness, competence, and bonding social capital should be overcome by acknowledging the dual role of autonomy, wherein academics may or may not decide to engage. Accordingly, this research emphasizes the need for internal collegiality to strengthen relatedness and a sense of belonging, thus providing access to missing competencies. Thus, interdisciplinary collaboration within HEIs may be an effective approach. For example, academics in the business field can support academics in the technology field and vice versa. Moreover, commitment from the higher education management level would foster relatedness and competence among academics and nurture bonding social capital among the academic community.
This study has some limitations. It only includes a limited number of academic engagement activities with society; however, academic engagement is multi-faceted and lacks an agreeable typology. Therefore, the participants' interpretation of activities is slightly different, and it is difficult to say how many academics are involved based on different typologies, especially because synergies between teaching and research are exploited. Furthermore, the sample included participants from a German alliance of 12 HEIs with a similar mission of making an impact. HEIs with different foci may have different mechanisms in place, which in turn are perceived differently from those in the particular context of this study.
Considering the plurality of higher educations' missions and the inequality of attention they receive from both management and academics, it could be argued that HEIs are still in a state of transition, where the pressure to conduct research and education with and for society is mounting. Future research can address the shortcomings of the current understanding in various ways. First, future work should dive deeper into the alignment of perceptions of support for academic engagement while following up on the dimensions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The dimensions identified in this study can be instrumentalized in a survey to glean insights into the causalities between basic needs and academic engagement. Second, the current misalignments in perspectives regarding bonding social capital require additional enquiry on a larger scale to design and test adequate interventions to address the gaps. This study also questions the difference between scientific disciplines and the need for support. Lastly, bidirectional interactions could be expanded by studying external societal stakeholders and the role of bridging social capital therein. In study designs that include the institutional level, the societal impact generation on the regional and national levels could be a key topic.
By Eva Sormani and Sue Rossano-Rivero
Reported by Author; Author
