Growth determinants in entrepreneurship: A longitudinal study of Spanish technology-based university spin-offs

The study explores whether the university origin of a technology-based firm conditions its growth in terms of both sales and employment. The small firm size of a significant percentage of technology-based university spin-offs (T-USOs) puts into question the policies geared towards promoting university entrepreneurship. A sample of 340 Spanish technology-based firms (219 T-USOs and 121 T-non-USOs) was constructed by using the non-parametric technique of propensity score matching and the data refer to the period 2001–2010. Applying panel data methodology, we find that the T-USOs outperform the T-non-USOs. Therefore, the need for support of university-based entrepreneurship by governments and by the universities is justified, because in this way, they are promoting economic growth and social development. By launching T-USOs, universities not only contribute to the economic growth but also to the internationalisation of the economy, as T-USOs show a more international orientation. In addition, the results lead us to emphasise the need to customise university policies aimed at promoting the growth of T-USOs. Given that the study is focused on a ‘moderate innovator’ country, the conclusions and proposals of this paper may be extrapolated to other countries with similar innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, namely the Mediterranean and Latin American countries.     

University spin-offs and the “performance premium”

The creation of spin-off companies is often promoted as a desirable mechanism for transferring knowledge and technologies from research organizations to the private sector for commercialization. In the promotion process, policymakers typically treat these “university” spin-offs like industry start-ups. However, when university spin-offs involve an employment transition by a researcher from the not-for-profit sector, the creation of a university spin-off is likely to impose a higher social cost than the creation of an industry start-up. To offset this higher social cost, university spin-offs must produce a larger stream of social benefits than industry start-ups, a performance premium. This paper outlines the arguments explaining why the social costs of entrepreneurship are likely to be higher for academic entrepreneurs, and empirically investigates the existence of a performance premium using a sample of German start-up companies. We find that university spin-offs exhibit a performance premium of 3.4 % points higher employment growth over industry start-ups. The analysis also shows that the performance premium varies across types of academic entrepreneurs and founders’ academic disciplines.     

Comparing Academic Entrepreneurship in Europe – The Case of Sweden and Ireland

One of the greatest challenges facing European economies is the comparatively limited capacity to convert scientific breakthroughs and technological achievements into industrial and commercial successes. As a result, there is growing awareness of the proactive approach being undertaken by academic institutions, with many adopting a direct entrepreneurial role in collaborating with industry. This paper examines the activities of those academics involved with industry within two small European countries, namely Sweden and Ireland. In particular, it discusses and contrasts the extent to which academic entrepreneurship (i.e. all commercialisation activities outside of the normal university duties of basic research and teaching) has developed. It examines the influence of gender, age, previous entrepreneurial experience, work experience and university environment on the entrepreneurship activities of a sample of academics in both countries. The results demonstrate that there is considerable entrepreneurial experience among academics in both countries, and that this translates into a high degree of involvement in "soft" activities such as consultancy and contract research, but not into organizational creation via technology spin-offs.     

Do they matter? The role of non-academics in the internationalization of academic spin-offs

Internationalization and academic entrepreneurship have been receiving a lot of attention not only in academic research but also in policy practice. While academic spin-offs suffer from limited resources and lack of entrepreneurial skills, they often penetrate international market through their innovative products and technology since the very early years of their establishment. In the literature, little attention has been paid to explicitly examine the internationalization process of academic spin-offs as well as the role of non-academics. In order to investigate the impact of non-academics on the performance of spin-offs, we carried out an empirical analysis of 126 Spanish spin-offs which were divided into two market categories, international and domestic market. With regard to the percentage of non-academics in founding team, we found that their impact was more relevant to the performance goals than to innovativeness. On the other hand, the size of non-academic networks contributed significantly not only to the performance goals but also to innovation. However, we did not find a significant relationship between the strength of non-academic networks and the performance goals and innovativeness of the international spin-offs. Overall, we concluded that the role of non-academics was crucial for supporting the internationalization of the spin-offs.     

Are born globals really born globals? The case of academic spin-offs with long development periods

Most research on the born global phenomenon investigates firms from the point of their legal founding. Studies in the field of entrepreneurship show nonetheless that international firms undergo long pre-founding periods, which are likely to affect growth and internationalization in newly founded firms. In this study, we investigate three academic spin-offs with advanced technologies that are attractive in a global market. These firms had experienced extended time in developing their technologies, two of them in pre-founding periods. We examine here the networks of academic spin-offs in three stages: idea conception, technology development, and growth and internationalization. The research builds on diverse theories: born global theory, research on academic spin-offs, entrepreneurial firms, and network theory. We use a multiple case study to investigate the three spin-offs and a process approach in interviewing that includes the biographic histories of the focal firms. In analysis, we identify networks that provide financial resources, knowledge, innovation and technology resources, marketing, and reputational resources. Networks acquired at different stages and network changes greatly affected growth and internationalization in the focal firms. We also find that networks and resources acquired in pre-founding periods had great implications for growth and internationalization in the young firms. Our research therefore highlights the problem of age in the born global literature and we argue for the need to include pre-founding periods to better understand the born global phenomenon.     

Spin-offs from research centers at a research university

Spin-offs are a means of technology transfer from a parent organization that represent a mechanism for creating jobs and new wealth. We investigated 6 of the 19 spin-offs from the 55 research centers at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in 1997. The Albuquerque area in Northern New Mexico is rich in technology, thanks to the presence of three large Federal R&D laboratories and the University of New Mexico. University administrators and community leaders envision a future technopolis (technology city), but achieving this goal will be difficult, given the lack of needed infrastructure, entrepreneurship, and venture capital in the Albuquerque region.Nevertheless, in the early 1990s the amount of research funding at UNM increased at a faster rate than at other U.S. research universities (total research funding rose to $197 million in 1996). Most of this increase (about 85%) took place through the efforts of UNM's 55 research centers, which are multidisciplinary units supported mainly by funding from federal and state government agencies, private companies, and foundations. The research centers transfer technological innovations across the university's boundary via various mechanisms, including spin-offs.A spin-off is a new company that is formed (1) by individuals who were former employees of the parent organization (a UNM research center in the present case), and (2) a core technology that is transferred from the parent organization. A previous study by the present authors identified 71 spin-offs from the three federal R&D laboratories in New Mexico. The fact that high-technology spin-offs are occurring in New Mexico, and at an increasing rate, suggests that a technopolis may be getting underway. In recent years the University of New Mexico and the federal R&D laboratories have established organizational and procedural mechanisms intended to encourage spin-offs and other types of technology transfer such as patenting and technology licensing.An important factor in the success of a spin-off company is the degree of support that it receives from its parent organization. The six UNM spin-offs of study here experienced few conflicts with their parent, in each case a university-based research center. However, lengthy negotiations with university officials over intellectual property rights to a spin-off's core technology were often involved. The director of a spin-off's parent research center usually played a key role in the spin-off process. Often the university research center continued to provide laboratory facilities and access to research equipment to the spin-off. Generally, both the spin-off and the parent organization perceived of the spin-off process as a win-win situation (which might not be the case when the parent is a private company and the spin-off becomes a competitor).In the present investigation we identify two types of spin-offs: (1) planned, when the new venture results from an organized effort by the parent organization, and (2) spontaneously occurring, when the new company is established by an entrepreneur who identifies a market opportunity and who founds the spin-off with little encouragement (and perhaps with discouragement) from the parent organization. Both types of spin-offs were represented in the present study. UNM professors, directors of the parent research centers, and others played important roles in instigating three of the six spin-offs, while the other three were launched mainly by entrepreneurs.Spin-offs represent an important mechanism for technology transfer, as a spin-off is typically founded around a core technological innovation that was initially developed at the parent organization. One reason that a research university is a vital ingredient in a technopolis is because of the considerable role that university-based research centers play in spinning-off new ventures. Stanford University in Silicon Valley, MIT on Route 128, and the University of Texas in Austin are all examples of this important relationship. The University of New Mexico is a smaller research university than Stanford, MIT, or Texas, but it is beginning to play a similar role in the spin-off process. If indeed a technopolis eventually develops in Albuquerque, perhaps in 10 or 20 years, lessons may be learned about the roles of a research university and its research centers (and federal R&D laboratories), in contributing to regional economic development.     

Kathleen Eisenhardt: recipient of the 2012 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research

This article reviews the academic contributions of the 2012 receiver of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, Professor Kathleen Eisenhardt, Stanford Warren Ascherman Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. The Global Award consists of 100,000 euro and a statuette by the internationally renowned Swedish sculptor Carl Milles. Eisenhardt’s work focuses on strategy, strategic decision making, and innovation in rapidly changing and highly competitive markets. Her work in the entrepreneurship field centers on strategy and organization, especially in technology-based companies, what she refers to as “high-velocity industries”. Her main empirical contribution to the entrepreneurship field is her work on ‘corporate entrepreneurship’—how existing organizations can remain innovative, including through new venture creation. More generally, Kathleen Eisenhardt’s research has bridged the two fields of entrepreneurship research and organization science.     

Steven Klepper: Recipient of the 2011 <Emphasis Type="Italic">Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research</Emphasis>

This article reviews the academic contributions of the 2011 receiver of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, Professor Steven Klepper, Carnegie Mellon University. The Global Award consists of 100,000 Euro and a statuette of the internationally renowned Swedish sculpture Carl Milles. Klepper has made breakthrough analyses in the realm of industrial dynamics, emphasizing the regularities in the time paths of entry of new producers, exit of incumbent firms, spin-offs and innovation. His work is predominantly empirical but he has also played an essential role in developing more rigorous theoretical models of phenomena such as spin-offs. Of particular importance is how Klepper has managed to link traditional neoclassical models with evolutionary theory as well as entrepreneurship research with mainstream economics.     

A process model of academic entrepreneurship

Innovations stemming from research conducted on university campuses are a growing source for the ideas and core technologies that drive entrepreneurial endeavors. This trend has led to development of the term academic entrepreneurship, which refers to the efforts and activities that universities and their industry partners undertake in hopes of commercializing the outcomes of faculty research. Because it is a relatively new phenomenon, the process of academic entrepreneurship has not been as well articulated as one might hope. As such, the objective of this article is to draw on a range of academic entrepreneurship literature to develop a multi-stage process model of academic entrepreneurship. This model is intended to guide potential stakeholders through the application of academic entrepreneurship, with a focus on improving the odds of success. The advantage of this approach is identification of the activities, actors, and key success factors associated with each stage of the academic entrepreneurship process. We conclude our discussion by highlighting the benefits of engaging in academic entrepreneurship for a variety of potential stakeholders.     

International entrepreneurship in universities: Context,emergence and actors

This special issue presents an opportunity to explore the international aspects of academic and university based international entrepreneurship. Over the last decades much research attention has been focused on university spin-off firms (USOs) on issues such as, creation, risk, strategies and performance (see Druilhe and Garnsey, 2004; Link and Scott, 2005; Lockett and Wright, 2005; Walter et al, 2006; Wright et al., 2006). There has been a dearth of studies that have examined the international dimensions and aspects of university-based spin-off firms. The six articles presented in this special issue point towards interesting future research agendas at the interface between academic and international entrepreneurship. Three core themes emerge from this special issue: Context, Emergence and Actors. In sum, this special issue pinpoints: firstly, specific features of universities and research organizations as contexts for international technology entrepreneurship; secondly, the process of organizational emergence and entrepreneurial cognition; and thirdly, insight into learning processes of USOs and the role of non-academic actors. Our article concludes by identifying future avenues of research.     

Academics’ start-up intentions and knowledge filters: an individual perspective of the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship

Previous studies suggest that entrepreneurial activity tends to be greater in contexts where investment in new knowledge is relatively high (e.g., entrepreneurial universities). However, in this specific knowledge context, only a few academics recognize opportunities and act on them through entrepreneurial activities (e.g., spin-offs). A plausible explanation could be the existence of several filters that limit the total conversion of knowledge into economically useful knowledge. The vehicle to knowledge transfer is entrepreneurship. Therefore, the main actor is the academic entrepreneur, but no empirical study has highlighted the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship at the individual level. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of academics’ start-up intentions and knowledge filters on the knowledge transfer process within entrepreneurial university. Adopting the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship and the planned behavior theory, a proposed model was tested with a sample of 207 academics enrolled in entrepreneurial universities in Spain using structural equation modeling. Our findings could provide insights for policy-makers to design policies that bring further benefits to society and educational organizations as well as significant contributions to the literature.     

Business accomplishments,gender and entrepreneurial self-image

Drawing on Bem's psychological theory of self-perception, this paper presents and tests a model that examines the impact of business accomplishments and gender on entrepreneurial self-image and explores the definition of entrepreneurship according to Vesper's entrepreneurial typology. Regression techniques are used to identify those business accomplishments that university alumni associate with self-perceptions of entrepreneurship. Experience as a small business person (founding, running, and/or owning a small business) most clearly predicts entrepreneurial self-image. Results also support predictions of both direct and indirect effects of gender as well as direct effects of education and business degree. Results of a separate expert panel study are used to rank business accomplishments according to degree of entrepreneurship. Results of both studies reveal stark contrasts in the implied definition of entrepreneurship between entrepreneurship experts (academic and practitioner alike) and the general business community (as represented by the alumni). This raises questions about the meaning of the term “entrepreneurship”, what the word “entrepreneur”, in particular, conveys to the general public, and the implications for practice and future research.     

Coase on entrepreneurship

Following a short biography of Nobel Laureate economist Ronald H. Coase, this two part interview explores (1) Coase’s life history and thoughts on academic scholarship and (2) Coase’s perspective on the field of entrepreneurship. Coase describes his experiences during his visiting scholarship to America in 1932, early career at the London School of Economics, and government work during World War II. He discusses the virtues of scholarship and the role of technology. In the second part of the interview, Coase views entrepreneurship as a vital source of endogenous change in the economy and outlines the importance of investigating the structure of production, and other important research and policy questions. Coase elaborates on how entrepreneurship has changed over time, and describes his most recent work on entrepreneurship in China. The interview concludes with Coase’s thoughts on the evolution of scholarship and his efforts to advance the field.     

University start-up formation and technology licensing with firms that go public: a resource-based view of academic entrepreneurship

Although academic entrepreneurship is a topic receiving some attention in the literature, higher education's appetite for expanding technology transfer activities suggests that more research is needed to inform practice. This study investigates the effects of particular resource sets on two university commercialization activities: the number of start-up companies formed and the number of initial public offering (IPO) firms to which a university had previously licensed a technology. Utilizing multisource data on 120 universities and a resource-based view of the firm framework, a set of university financial, human capital, and organizational resources were found to be significant predictors of one or both outcomes.     

Opportunity recognition and international new venture creation in university spin-offs—Cases from Denmark and Ireland

Extant research suggests that the founder’s activities and interactions are considered pivotal in driving the opportunity recognition process leading to international new venture emergence. This paper aims to explore the opportunity recognition process and international new venture emergence in the context of university high-technology spin-offs that are internationally market driven from inception. University spin-offs (USOs) are defined as ‘new firms created to exploit commercially some knowledge, technology or research results developed within a university’ (Pirnay et al., Small Bus Econ 21:355–369, 2003). To address this inquiry, this study imports theory from the entrepreneurship literature on organizational emergence, opportunity recognition, effectuation and the principle of individual self-efficacy. Drawing on empirical case data from four case USOs from Denmark and Ireland, this paper finds that the inventor-founders are typically engaged in opportunity recognition processes that are characterized as creative, driven by scientific innovations. It is indicated that the process of USO emergence and continuous development involves activities and interactions similar to typical international new ventures. The scientific knowledge that created opportunities for the emergence of INV-USOs across our cases endorses the view that innovation and internationalization are strongly correlated. Insights are provided on inventor-founders’ entrepreneurial intention demonstrated through activities and interactions in the on-going processes of creating the USO. Findings further highlight that self-efficacy of the inventor-founder(s) and access to specific resources (means at hand) are salient determinants for international new ventures to materialize. The study concludes with a proposed conceptual framework for further research on the creation of INV-university spin-offs. Conclusions and implications are drawn at the end of the article.     

The origin of spin-offs: a typology of corporate and academic spin-offs

We provide a typology of corporate and academic spin-off types, distinguishing spin-offs involving new ventures from those that concern existing activities. We summarize the papers published in this special issue, relating them to the typology we develop. We conclude by developing an agenda for further research on spin-offs.     

The campus as entrepreneurial ecosystem: the University of Chicago

This paper employs Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis of American democracy to construct a framework for understanding the U.S. university campus as an entrepreneurial ecosystem. One question that immediately comes to mind when studying ecosystem performance is what the proper unit of analysis is: the country, the state, the city, the region, or something smaller, like an incubator or accelerator? This paper suggests that the open, innovative American frontier that closed at the end of the twentieth century has reemerged in the entrepreneurial economy on the U.S. campus. The contemporary campus entrepreneurial ecosystem offers the characteristics of Turner’s frontier: available assets, liberty, and diversity while creating opportunity, and fostering entrepreneurship and innovation. A case study of the University of Chicago explores governance of the campus as an entrepreneurial ecosystem and the output produced by that campus ecosystem.     

Machines augmenting entrepreneurs: Opportunities (and threats) at the Nexus of artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to machines that are trained to perform tasks associated with human intelligence, interpret external data, learn from that external data, and use that learning to flexibly adapt to tasks to achieve specific outcomes. This paper briefly explains AI and looks into the future to highlight some of AI's broader and longer-term societal implications. We propose that AI can be combined with entrepreneurship to represent a super tool. Scholars can research the nexus of AI and entrepreneurship to explore the possibilities of this potential AI-entrepreneurship super tool and hopefully direct its use to productive processes and outcomes. We focus on specific entrepreneurship topics that benefit from AI's augmentation potential and acknowledge implications for entrepreneurship's dark side. We hope this paper stimulates future research at the AI-entrepreneurship nexus.Executive summaryArtificial intelligence (AI) refers to machines that are trained to perform tasks associated with human intelligence, interpret external data, learn from that external data, and use that learning to flexibly adapt to tasks to achieve specific outcomes. Machine learning is the most common form of AI and largely relies on supervised learning—when the machine (i.e., AI) is trained with labels applied by humans. Deep learning and adversarial learning involve training on unlabeled data, or when the machine (via its algorithms) clusters data to reveal underlying patterns.AI is simply a tool. Entrepreneurship is also simply a tool. How they are combined and used will determine their impact on humanity. While researchers have independently developed a greater understanding of entrepreneurship and AI, these two streams of research have primarily run in parallel. To indicate the scope of current and future AI, we provide examples of AI (at different levels of development) for four sectors—customer service, financial, healthcare, and tertiary education. Indeed, experts from industry research and consulting firms suggest many AI-related business opportunities for entrepreneurs to pursue.Further, we elaborate on several of these opportunities, including opportunities to (1) capitalize on the “feeling economy,” (2) redistribute occupational skills in the economy, (3) develop and use new governance mechanisms, (4) keep humans in the loop (i.e., humans as part of the decision making process), (5) expand the role of humans in developing AI systems, and (6) expand the purposes of AI as a tool. After discussing the range of business opportunities that experts suggest will prevail in the economy with AI, we discuss how entrepreneurs can use AI as a tool to help them increase their chances of entrepreneurial success. We focus on four up-and-coming areas for entrepreneurship research: a more interaction-based perspective of (potential) entrepreneurial opportunities, a more activities-based micro-foundation approach to entrepreneurial action, a more cognitively hot perspective of entrepreneurial decision making and action, and a more compassionate and prosocial role of entrepreneurial action. As we discuss each topic, we also suggest opportunities to design an AI system (i.e., entrepreneurs as potential AI designers) to help entrepreneurs (i.e., entrepreneurs as AI users).AI is an exciting development in the technology world. How it transforms markets and societies depends in large part on entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs can use AI to augment their decisions and actions in pursuing potential opportunities for productive gains. Thus, we discuss entrepreneurs' most critical tasks in developing and managing AI and explore some of the dark-side aspects of AI. Scholars also have a role to play in how entrepreneurs use AI, but this role requires the hard work of theory building, theory elaboration, theory testing, and empirical theorizing. We offer some AI topics that we hope future entrepreneurship research will explore. We hope this paper encourages scholars to consider research at the nexus of AI and entrepreneurship.     

Integrating psychological approaches to entrepreneurship: the Entrepreneurial Personality System (EPS)

Understanding the psychological nature and development of the individual entrepreneur is at the core of contemporary entrepreneurship research. Since the individual functions as a totality of his or her single characteristics (involving the interplay of biological, psychosocial, and context-related levels), a person-oriented approach focusing on intraindividual dynamics seems to be particularly fruitful to infer realistic implications for practice such as entrepreneurship education and promotion. Applying a person-oriented perspective, this paper integrates existing psychological approaches to entrepreneurship and presents a new, person-oriented model of entrepreneurship, the Entrepreneurial Personality System (EPS). In the empirical part, this model guided us to bridge two separate research streams dealing with entrepreneurial personality: research on broad traits like the Big Five and research on specific traits like risk-taking, self-efficacy, and internal locus of control. We examine a gravity effect of broad traits, as assumed in the EPS framework, by analyzing large personality data sets from three countries. The results reveal a consistent gravity effect of an intraindividual entrepreneurial Big Five profile on the more malleable psychological factors. Implications for entrepreneurship research and practice are discussed.