مجله آموزش عالی ایران
سال پانزدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 58، تابستان 1402)

The third generation university is one of the main ideas of the participation of the university institution in the local and national development process in order to play an effective role in the surrounding environment and the world community. The development of entrepreneurship is one of the key strategies for promoting the social responsibility of scientific institutions and achieving the goals of social transformation and sustainable development. What has been wrongly highlighted by the concept of the third generation university in academic circles is that the university is a one-dimensional organization similar to knowledge-based institutions that focuses solely on economic-technical entrepreneurship. In this wrong perception of the third generation university, the main and inherent functions of the university, including educational, research and social cultural functions, have not been introduced in priority. Therefore, this article shows that innovative and entrepreneurial teaching and learning has a special place in the third generation university.

In this research, the state of innovative and entrepreneurial teaching-learning in the five studied universities has been evaluated in a comparative manner based on the "Entrepreneurial University Guide" and the "Framework of Innovative Higher Education Institutions" in European Commission and in Cooperation Organization for Economic Development.

Based on this research, universities with their general and specific mission to move in the path of entrepreneurship should act simultaneously and balanced in at least eight dimensions: 1) reforming and improving the leadership and governance process, 2) strengthening and completing financial and humanistic capacities 3) improving the level of teaching-learning, 4) preparing and supporting entrepreneurs, 5) exchanging knowledge and effective and complementary cooperation with local, regional and national communities, 6) increasing the level of international mobility, 7) digital transformation, and 8) efforts to actualize entrepreneurial tasks and outcomes. In addition, innovative and entrepreneurial teaching-learning should become one of the main and fundamental dimensions of the entrepreneurial university. This is despite the fact that the level of innovative and entrepreneurial teaching-learning in the studied universities is not at the desired and expected level and there is a significant gap between the current situation and the desired situation.

Based on the evaluation of the studied universities, attention to innovative and entrepreneurial education is not enough, and in the process of becoming an entrepreneurial university, more attention should be paid to the value and importance of innovative and entrepreneurial education-learning. Achieving the third generation university should be concurrent with strengthening the function of innovative and entrepreneurial education as the central core of the university institution and ecosystem. Therefore, it is necessary for the managers of the higher education system and universities to pay special attention to the levels of policy making, planning and implementation to improve the level of innovative and entrepreneurial education in the academic community.

The main purpose of this research is to design the framework of talent-grabbing university in the higher education system.

The present research is qualitative and of meta-synthesis type. This method is a tripartite situation of data analysis, theories and research methodology and goes far beyond the summarization of research findings. In fact, it is the integrated synthesis and interpretation of findings from qualitative studies in such a way that it provides a general picture of events, concepts and phenomena which has been done using the seven-step method of Sandelowski and Barroso.

Data analysis was done using the thematic analysis method. Identified themes were re-examined in a focus group discussion session using a virtual social network to reach an agreement on the extracted categories. All the factors extracted from the researches were considered as themes, and these themes were classified into 41 basic themes and 9 organizing themes based on the concepts related to the concept of talent-grabbing university.

Conclusions and suggestions: 

Based on the findings of the research, it is possible to understand the special characteristics of talent-grabbing universities that make them attractive and desirable for faculty members and talented students. These features, beyond theirstructural, equipment and financial features that can be found in most of the mother and comprehensive universities, emphasize the features that have been forgotten in most of the universities. These talent-grabbing universities bring mental and spiritual peace, goodness and heart and inner satisfaction to faculty members and talented students. Therefore, beyond the size and geographical location of the university, they can turn it into a talent-grabbing university.

Innovation and originality:

 It can be said that the researches carried out in the field of internal and external evaluation and talent management in higher education in Iran and abroad are more focused on methods, techniques and strategies to attract and retain talented faculty members and students. It is necessary, but the present research moves from the central role of universities in finding and attracting and keeping faculty members and talented students, taking into account special privileges or awards. It has come to focus on the attractive characteristics of universities that make talented students and faculty members compete to get to these universities without special points.

University as an institution emerging from the heart of society and academics as its thinkers, have a key role in social developments. However, in universities, there are factors that have distanced the university from achieving its main goal and led to the occurrence of destructive psychological phenomena such as organizational bullying. For this purpose, the present study was conducted with the aim of answering the question of what are the experiences of young assistant professors about organizational bullying in the university and what factors lead to its formation in the university environment.

The current research is of qualitative type and was done with interpretive phenomenology method. The research community consists of all the young assistant professors who are members of the faculty of Gilan University in 1401. Sampling of the current research was done with a purposeful and snowball method. After interviewing 16 men and 8 women, theoretical saturation was reached. The tool of this research was a semi-structured interview and the data was analyzed using Moustakas' multi-step method.

From the data analysis, 5 main themes related to the lived experience of young assistant professors from organizational bullying including being ignored, deprivation of facilities, rudeness, threats and imposition of double duties were obtained. Also, 5 main themes related to organizational bullying factors including individual factors and organizational factors were obtained. The main theme related to individual factors includes the personality characteristics of organizational bullies and the themes related to organizational factors include the weakness of the administrative system, organizational discrimination, distortion of laws and regulations, and inefficient management.

The results showed that many young assistant professors in their early years of service have experienced a type of vertical bullying from the top down, which usually includes being threatened, deprivation of research and administrative facilities and exploitation. Also, the lack of transparency in some laws and regulations, the weakness of the administrative system in the university and the discrimination in providing services and facilities to some professors have been the main reasons for the formation of bullying in the university.

Higher education always has challenges. One of the most important challenges is the increase in graduate students' academic years. This study aimed to investigate the scientific aspects of the issue of increasing students' academic years.

This research was conducted at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad as a target population, and the data were collected from a systematic analysis and study of the statements of graduate students (15 people), university professors (10 people), and relevant authorities (2 persons). The research method is content analysis. Semi-structured interview technique was used to collect data.

Research findings in educational-research and structural dimensions were developed separately from basic sciences, humanities, and engineering faculties. The findings show that the increase in the academic years of students in the field of education-research issues occurs due to problems around thesis, educational units, paper compilation, and professor-student communication. Also, in the structural dimension factors such as university regulatory rules, professors' expertise, research and laboratory facilities, financial discussions of projects, and interdisciplinary projects are the cause of delays in education.

The increase in academic years is due to various factors at micro and macro levels and its consequences are equally variable. In this regard, structural factors are considered very important from the viewpoint of professors and students and make university trustees focus more on this issue. For this purpose, solutions including the formation of a consultative working group of professors and students, greater interaction of faculties with the counseling center, allocation of financial credit for the project at the beginning of work, etc have been presented so that managers can pay attention to their decisions and implementation of their plans.

Legal requirements and increasing attention to skill training has stimulated start-up ideas in this field. But, there is no government or private financial support for them, or it is not enough to make them fruitful. The purpose of this study was to present and validate an investment model in startups of skill-oriented universities in Iran.

The present applied study was of mixed and exploratory type. In the qualitative part, the data was collected through interviews with 14 experts familiar with the startup investment of skill-oriented universities. According to the primary data and phenomenological analysis, the investment model was presented. In the quantitative part, according to the findings of the qualitative part, a questionnaire was designed and used. The statistical population was a quantitative part of the headquarter and provincial managers of The University of Applied Sciences and Technical and Vocational University and the managers of the country's venture capital trade association, who were randomly surveyed. Quantitative data analysis was done through structural equation model and PLS software.

According to the findings, 14 categories were identified as model indicators. The categories include valuation of startups, risk-taking of investment, acceptance and acceptability of society and trust of investors on skill-oriented universities, macroeconomic conditions, university work quality, legal protections, sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurial power of startups, investment efficiency, teamwork in setting up and entrepreneurial marketing. After performing quantitative analysis and fitness of the research model, all the categories of the qualitative part had a significant, and the model was approved.

The results showed that investing in startups of skill-oriented universities is a positive and developmental thing. Also, the indicators of the model with the exception of indicators of Innovation in academic startup ideas, acceptability of society and trust of investors in skill-oriented universities are somewhat similar to the general and existing investment challenges of Iran's specific political and economic conditions.

Universities and higher education institutions need formal succession planning to ensure the continuity of organizational leadership. The current research was conducted with the aim of identifying the components of succession planning in Iranian public universities.

In this research, the strategy of qualitative content analysis with a meta- synthesis approach was used in a documentary research framework. The statistical population is all the studies conducted in the time frame of 2017-2022. In this regard, the number of 1012 researches in the field of succession planning was evaluated and finally 28 articles were selected purposefully. Then, by analyzing the content and combining the literature related to the open, axial and selective coding method, in total, five dimensions and fourteen key components were selected and analyzed through the process of systematic search and combination, and its validity was confirmed through Cohen's kappa coefficient.

In the current research, the effective factors of succession planning of Iran's public universities were identified and categorized in five dimensions and 14 categories. The five dimensions were organizational, developmental, managerial, individual, and cultural. And the 14 categories consisted of processes, structural, evaluation, legal, human resource management, leadership, skill, personality, career, comprehensive training program, human resource development, foresight, university culture and public culture components.

The administrative and employment rules and regulations of Iran's public universities for faculty members and guest lecturers are determined based on the executive regulations and the approvals of the boards of trustees, and senior human resource manager’s don’t use a specific reference model for succession planning. They keep their old traditions regarding the removal and installation of managers and, in fact, they strongly resist the changes by ignoring the developmental needs of their professors and staff. Therefore, recent trends should be changed according to the new needs of human resources of universities. The current research provides a deep understanding of the existing literature in the field of succession planning in universities. In this context, managers of public universities and higher education institutions can use the results of this research and get familiar with the effective components of succession planning to create a collection of talented and skilled academic staff and potential scientific staff who can become the leaders of universities in the future.