'Academic Capitalism': Universities' Consultancy Agendas

Recent debate in Higher Education (HE) has attempted to identify the legitimate components at the core of academic scholarship. Teaching and research, are recognized activities of modern academia; although their nexus is at times questioned. This paper seeks to understand the role of a rising academic activity, academic consultancy, and to portray its impact onto HE. A two-stage research design including a web-based survey and semi-structured interviews was implemented to gather the experiences and perceptions of academics in information technology/information systems/information management (IT/IS/IM) in the United Kingdom (UK). The findings reveal that the majority of consultancy activities undertaken by the study participants are of small scale, of technical nature and in areas strongly related to the research interest of the academics in questions. Although a shared understanding of what consultancy is can be found among academics, the perception of how consultancy impacts teaching practices and research differs significantly within research-led or teaching-led universities. Such findings are significant as they portray entrepreneurship as a contributing factor that may help universities to shape their policy, culture and structure.