Determinants of ability, motivation, and opportunity for academic entrepreneurial engagement

In today’s global changing environment, entrepreneurial activities have been recognised as a key driver of innovation and financial sustainability in higher learning institutions (HLI). Academics are now required to do more than their traditional core mission of research, administrative tasks, and teaching activities and engage in entrepreneurial activities. However, despite the strategic efforts of the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) to support the sustainability of the entrepreneurship agenda in HLI, little progress is seen in academic engagement in entrepreneurial activities. Hence, recent studies had focused on investigating the ability and motivational factors of universities’ faculty members' entrepreneurial intention. Nevertheless, limited attempts have been made to simultaneously investigate the ability, motivational and opportunity factors associated with academic engagement in entrepreneurial activities. Accordingly, drawing on the ability-motivation opportunity theory using quantitative method, this research examined the effects of ability factors in terms of academics’ prior entrepreneurial experience and research knowledge, and motivation in terms of personal growth and career advancement. The opportunity factor entails the contextual effects of access to digital technology, organisational support, and peer networking. Furthermore, a quantitative method based on positivistic approach with survey instrument as a data collection technique was used in this study. Findings revealed that there is a significant relationship between prior entrepreneurial experience, organisational support, academic peer networking, access to digital technology and academic entrepreneurial involvement in Malaysia HLI. In addition, results from this study can help guide the policy makers in higher learning institutions (HLI) and Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education, in their attempts to enhance entrepreneurial activities among Malaysian academics and enable HLI to prioritise the appropriate interventions to engage their academics in entrepreneurial activities