Advancing Organisational Models via Leadership and Governance Role to the Development of Entrepreneurial Universities: The IMOI Perspective

Innovation and entrepreneurship are not only influenced by the values and culture created by the leaders but also to some extent by their style and role particularly those with authority and strategic decision-making capacity. The paper takes advantage of the upper echelons model proposed by Hambrick and Mason (1984) drawing on the leadership and governance (L&G) theme in the ‘Guiding Framework’ for entrepreneurial university (Entre-U) which is jointly designed in 2012 by the European Commission (EC) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) to explore the role in entrepreneurial higher education institutions (HEIs). By reviewing materials in a special issue and other journal outlets, the paper aims at contributing to the understanding of the Entre-U phenomenon at the organisational/university level. Findings reveal that strategic planning and decision-making are major roles of L&G. The novel contribution of the research is the proposition of the Innovation-mediation-outcomes/outputs (IMOI) model that could be useful to examine L&G role within the Entre-U context which could also be used to update the old Input-ProcessOutput (IPO) and Organisational Elements model (OEM) of organisational phenomenon thereby enhance our knowledge in other management research.