Conceptual model about the entrepreneurial university: design and validation with the PLS methodology

The entrepreneurial university is a growing trend in higher education. Almost three decades of research with studies centred on successful cases from Anglo-Saxon countries serve as a reference for high-income countries. However, these cases cannot be applied to the Latin American reality, as it has distinct circumstances: high rates of informality, of business mortality, low education and scant research. This study analyses, via the technique of structural equation models, the relations between the cultural aspects of the entrepreneurial university, the carrying out of applied research and the creation of firms by university centres. With a sample of students of the University of San Martín de Porres (Peru), the existence of positive relations between the distinct variables which make up the idea of the entrepreneurial university is noted (entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial curriculum, entrepreneurial culture, applied research, and firm creation and technology transfer). Also, in the area of non-Anglo-Saxon universities a positive effect of the impulse of entrepreneurial behaviours and activities on the starting up of new business initiatives by university graduates is observed.