A Tension Lens for Understanding Entrepreneurship-Related Activities in the University

Using a tension lens, this paper explores how academic and non-academic staff who teach, practice and support entrepreneurship manage tensions associated with entrepreneurship-related activities, and how individuals’ tension management influences these activities in university settings. We draw on three theoretical perspectives (contingency, paradox, and dialectic) on tension and tension management to analyze two tensions that individuals experience in two Canadian universities: the reward tension that manifests as misalignment between reward systems and individuals’ entrepreneurship-related activities; and the resource tension that presents as a struggle to do more with less. The study shows that strategies for managing the reward tension may influence the type of entrepreneurship-related activities individuals engage in, and strategies for managing the resource tension tend to widen the scale and scope of entrepreneurship-related activities. Moreover, while the asymmetric power relations between individuals and universities shape how resource tension is managed, power relations may become more symmetric in the reward tension context when individuals selectively engage in entrepreneurship-related activities through job autonomy and/or job entitlement.