Abstract
This study focuses on the development of university departments which is triggered by the appearance of entrepreneurial university, a phenomenon in the long-term institutional evolution on the policy, economy, and society. The literature suggests that universities have adapted various responses from institutions to individuals by building a hybrid framework for knowledge production. This framework could sustainably increase scientific commons and simultaneously enforce industry linkage. However, explanations describing the responses of university departments are very few. The explanations have to consider the changes not only on organizational development but also on the rationale of university research. In an attempt to address this issue, this study develops an organizational perspective, ‘Pasteurian orientation’, which is employed Stokes (1997)’s Pasteur’s quadrant as a conceptual model. The relationships between university antecedents, Pasteurian orientation, and departmental performance are examined. Based on a postal questionnaire survey, a dataset of 99 departments from 6 universities in Taiwan is collected and analyzed by OLS regressions, negative binomial regressions and causal mediation analysis. Findings indicate that the development of Pasteurian orientation has a strong linkage with the antecedents provided by the university, and developing a Pasteurian orientation is beneficial for promoting departmental subjective performance, journal publications and patents. For university administration, besides of providing appropriate antecedents, encouraging departments to develop Pasteurian orientation is a key factor for promoting departmental performance in the rise of entrepreneurial university.