Identifying the Secret Sauce of International Academic Partnerships: Exploring the Influence of Entrepreneurial Orientation and Resource Commitment on Partnership Performance

There is a widespread belief that a positive relationship exists between an organization’s intangible assets and organizational performance. That is, organizations that cultivate intangible assets such as the ability to innovate and the ability to fully engage their human capital are said to execute more effectively and achieve better performance results than organizations without those abilities (Low and Kalafut, 2002). In recent years researchers have posited that the intangible assets of international partners launching franchises in new markets serve as critical factors enabling better performance results of the venture (Grewal, Iyer, Javalgi, and Radulovich, 2011). Although lacking a substantial research basis, the author advances the argument that the entrepreneurial orientation of international academic partners, and their level of human and financial resource commitments to partnership projects, positively influences their collective ability to implement academic programs in new markets. In the proposed conceptual model, the author proposes linkages among the entrepreneurial orientation of international partners, partnership resource commitments, program implementation outcomes, and program performance results. More specifically, the author seeks to review: the factors contributing to the success and failure of partnerships; what is known about the relationship between entrepreneurial orientations of organizations and partnership resource commitment; and what is known about the relationship between entrepreneurial orientations and program implementation outcomes. Lastly, the author proposes research questions to fully explore the relationships among entrepreneurial orientation of organizations, resource commitments of international academic partners, and partnership performance.https://fuse.franklin.edu/forum-2013/1000/thumbnail.jp