Establishing regional institutions to facilitate university entrepreneurship in China: a grounded model of resource acquisition processes

This study introduces a new organisational form of university entrepreneurship: research university affiliated regional institutions (RUARIs). RUARIs are established by their parent universities and hosted by governments in different regions, aiming to facilitate university entrepreneurship. Using a multiple-case study of four RUARIs in China, we develop a grounded model of the resource acquisition process to explain how research universities are motivated to establish their RUARIs and how they could facilitate RUARI performance. We found that research universities establish RUARIs to acquire external resources from host regions, and the economic and institutional distance between the home and host regions determines potential external resource acquisition. After entry, parent universities use two types of administration strategies: autonomy delegation and resource backing. Autonomy delegation is key to realise the potential external resource acquisition. Resource backing can be translated into internal resource acquisition. Realised external and internal resource acquisitions can both improve RUARI performance.