Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA.
E-mail: clark@gseis.ucla.edu

Abstract

We gain insight into the emerging character of the entrepreneurial university by pursuing empirical answers to two questions: How are such universities initially formed? And how do they sustain themselves? My 1998 book, Creating Entrepreneurial Universities, used European cases to conceptualize five 'pathways of transformation.' My 2004 book, Sustaining Change in Universities, in search of exemplars of entrepreneurial action, turns to 14 internationally distributed case studies to clarify anew these transforming steps and to suggest dynamics of change that produce a new steady state change. Drawn largely from the book's concluding chapter, this article emphasizes key features of change-promoting organization in universities and highlights the growing centrality of university-led action based on flexible and adaptive self-reliance.