Can Perceived Support for Entrepreneurship Keep Great Faculty in the Face of Spinouts?

Despite the recent increase in academic entrepreneurship research, we still know relatively little about the degree of involvement of academic inventors in university spinouts. In this study, we distinguish between academic inventors who leave the university after the creation of a spinout (academic exodus) and those who maintain their university affiliation (academic stasis). Drawing from the literature on innovation‐supportive climates and from organizational support theory, we argue that perceptions of institutional support and departmental norms regarding entrepreneurship are associated with the exodus versus stasis decision. We find that inventors who have higher perceptions of institutional support for entrepreneurship are less likely to leave. This relationship is enhanced by perceptions of favorable departmental norms toward entrepreneurship. We discuss the implications of our work for the literature on academic entrepreneurship, innovation‐supportive climates, and perceived organizational support. Our study has clear policy implications for universities, policymakers, and funders who aim to stimulate academic entrepreneurship, but are concerned about losing entrepreneurial faculty. Specifically, we advise universities and policymakers to actively support academic inventors wishing to spin out and to monitor this support in a customer‐friendly manner, in order to ensure that the inventors' perceptions of support are favorable. It is also important for universities to look out for inconsistencies between a supportive environment for entrepreneurship at the institutional level and unfavorable norms toward entrepreneurship at the departmental level; such inconsistencies can lead good faculty members out of academia. More broadly, universities can pursue an aggregation strategy that aims to retain both a research and commercialization identity while building strong links between them.     

Experience matters: The role of academic scientist mobility for industrial innovation

Research Summary: A learning‐by‐hiring approach is used to scrutinize scientists' mobility in relation to the recruiting firms' subsequent innovation output. Our starting point is that among firm hires, individuals with university research experience—hired from universities or firms—can be particularly valuable. However, conflicting institutional logics between academia and industry makes working with academic scientists challenging at times for firms. We suggest two solutions to this difficulty: hiring “ambidextrous” individuals with a mix of experience of university research and working for a technologically advanced firm, and a strong organizational research culture in the recruiting firm reflected by the presence of a scientist on the top management team. We track the mobility of R&D workers empirically using patent and linked employer‐employee data. Managerial Summary: An important way to make organizations more innovative is hiring individual researchers with the right types of skills and experience. We show that individuals with university research experience beyond their final degree are particularly likely to help boost firm‐level innovation output after hiring compared to R&D workers with other types of skills and experience. However, to obtain good returns to innovation from hiring such individuals, firms need a university research–friendly organizational culture when hiring individuals with university research experience, from either firms or academia.     

高等教育创业型人才有效培养模式研究——三位一体开放式模式的设计与分析

我国高校现有的模式缺乏对学生创业知识、创业精神和创业能力的培养,探讨研究一条真正适合我国高等教育创业教育的有效模式已经迫在眉睫。通过对大量相关文献的查阅和高校的调研,提出针对我国高等教育的三位一体开放式培养模式。     

Stimulating 'hot technologies': interorganizational networks in Dutch ceramic research

The role of interorganizational R&D networks between firms and universities in knowledge transfer of advanced technologies is analyzed. The starting assumption (coinciding with reasons of government bodies to support technological cooperation) is that a national knowledge and technology system exists. From this assumption a number of questions that exist about knowledge and technology transfer can be discussed. Notably whether the knowledge push model of technological innovation is valid. This is done through the analysis of the differences in the pattern of external contacts that exists between the scientific, industrial and policy organizations.
Empirical results of a case study of the stimulation of advanced ceramic technology by the Dutch government form the basis. Advanced ceramics is considered to be an emergent technology within the larger framework of generic technologies. However, the Dutch university and industry structure in this area is weak which raises a number of important questions about the possibility to built a technological infrastructure through government support. The paper concentrates on the role of resource and information flows, which characterize the position of specific organizations in the R&D network. The three main positions in this case are occupied by government bodies, various firms and the university and government laboratories.
Two conclusions on knowledge transfer in university-industry cooperation may be drawn. (a) Institutional (government and university) and industrial research networks are different in character and in fact they consist of different network elements. (b) Government policies, in this case, affect the outlook of scientists but not of firms.     

Creating University Spin‐Offs: A Science‐Based Design Perspective*

Academic entrepreneurship by means of university spin‐offs commercializes technological breakthroughs, which may otherwise remain unexploited. However, many universities face difficulties in creating spin‐offs. This article adopts a science‐based design approach to connect scholarly research with the pragmatics of effectively creating university spin‐offs. This approach serves to link the practice of university spin‐off creation, via design principles, to the scholarly knowledge in this area. As such, science‐based design promotes the interplay between emergent and deliberate design processes. This framework is used to develop a set of design principles that are practice based as well as grounded in the existing body of research on university spin‐offs. A case‐study of spin‐off creation at a Dutch university illustrates the interplay between initial processes characterized by emergent design and the subsequent process that was more deliberate in nature. This case study also suggests there are two fundamentally different phases in building capacity for university spin‐off creation. First, an infrastructure for spin‐off creation (including a collaborative network of investors, managers and advisors) is developed that then enables support activities to individual spin‐off ventures. This study concludes that to build and increase capacity for creating spin‐offs, universities should do the following: (1) create university‐wide awareness of entrepreneurship opportunities, stimulate the development of entrepreneurial ideas, and subsequently screen entrepreneurs and ideas by programs targeted at students and academic staff; (2) support start‐up teams in composing and learning the right mix of venturing skills and knowledge by providing access to advice, coaching, and training; (3) help starters in obtaining access to resources and developing their social capital by creating a collaborative network organization of investors, managers, and advisors; (4) set clear and supportive rules and procedures that regulate the university spin‐off process, enhance fair treatment of involved parties, and separate spin‐off processes from academic research and teaching; and (5) shape a university culture that reinforces academic entrepreneurship by creating norms and exemplars that motivate entrepreneurial behavior. These and other results of this study illustrate how science‐based design can connect scholarly research to the pragmatics of actually creating spin‐offs in academic institutions.     

Business and University Technical Research Cooperation: Some Important Issues

As their product life cycles continue to shorten even further, high-tech firms can be expected to seek more external product research and development assistance. At the same time, as university budgets tighten, aggressive universities will seek more industry funds. These trends lead Don Snyder and David Blevins to predict more business–university cooperation. A nationwide U.S. survey indicates that universities that successfully attract industry funds promote both their willingness and capability to develop new commercial products. They do not insist on a minimum project size and are willing to delay publication of research results. There are, however, some ethical issues that need resolution. Commercial laboratories operated on a for-profit basis have questioned such ventures, citing unfair competition and an inappropriate interpretation of the role of universities.     

The innovating region: toward a theory of knowledge-based regional development

This paper sets forth a model of knowledge-based regional development conceived as a set of multi-linear dynamics, based on alternative technological paradigms. Utilizing longitudinal data from a Swedish region, and international comparisons, four stages of development are identified: Inception, Implementation, Consolidation and Renewal. Innovation policy is created 'bottom-up' as an outcome of 'collective entrepreneurship' through collaboration among business, government and academic actors – the 'triple helix'. The key event is the creation of an entrepreneurial university, whether from an existing academic base or a new foundation, which takes initiatives together with government and industry to create a support structure for firm formation and regional growth. The result of these initiatives is a self-sustaining dynamic in which the role of academia and government appears to recede as industrial actors come to the fore and a lineage of firms is created. Nevertheless, as one technological paradigm is exhausted and another one is needed as the base for new economic activity, the role of academia and government comes to the fore again in creating the conditions for the next wave of innovation.     

University Commercialization Strategies in the Development of Regional Bioclusters*

To analyze university contribution to economic development, the present study examines universities' technology transfer policies and their associated economic development impact. The article examines how a university defines itself as part of a region as well as what activities, if any, do university commercialization strategies in context of their regional environment affect spin‐off activity. Furthermore, this study explores the ways universities contribute to regional economic development by examining existing theories and analyzing universities' relationships with both government and industry in two regions. This study draws from Roberts and Malone's (1996) selectivity–support typology and highlights this article's argument by comparing the commercialization strategies of world‐class universities strategies in the development of regional biotechnology clusters in Massachusetts and in Connecticut. This article investigates the notion of whether universities can differently influence the economic development processes of the while still having successful commercial outcomes. These findings build on previous research ( Clarysse et al., 2005; Degroof and Roberts, 2004; Powers and McDougall, 2005 ), which argues that low support–low selectivity policies may be more suitable to entrepreneurially developed environments, whereas high support–high selectivity policies are more efficient in entrepreneurially underdeveloped environments. Masachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is located in a strong technopole region, whereby many of its support structures for spin‐off formation are provided by the regional infrastructure of the Cambridge–Boston region. In contrast, Yale University, which has an underdeveloped entrepreneurial context, has had to take a more proactive role in providing incubation capabilities to their spin‐off projects. This finding supports a contingent based perspective of academic entrepreneurship, whereby low support–low selectivity policies are more fitted to entrepreneurially developed environments, whereas high support–high selectivity policies are more efficient in entrepreneurially underdeveloped environments.     

Value creation in university‐firm research collaborations: A matching approach

University‐based technological opportunities are often exploited through joint corporate and academic entrepreneurship activities such as university–industry research collaborations. This paper explores the partner attributes that drive the matching of academic scientists and firms involved in these relationships. The paper models the formation of firm–faculty partnership as an endogenous selection process driven by synergy between partners' knowledge‐creation capabilities. The main findings indicate that faculty–firm matching is multidimensional: firms and scientists complement each other in publishing capabilities but substitute each other in patenting skills. Furthermore, firms and scientists with specialized knowledge create more value by teaming with more knowledge‐diversified partners. The paper contributes to the literature on university–industry knowledge transfer and, more generally, to the literature on alliance formation.     

The moderating effects of economic development on innovation and shadow entrepreneurship: grey or pink?

There is currently a renewed surge of interest in informal entrepreneurship around the world. One of the motives stems from how such entrepreneurship shapes and influences a substantial part of the global workforce. However, we may also verify how a major proportion of the research in this field focuses on developing economies and thus justifying the application of such analytical approaches to countries with different levels of economic development as is the case with Europe. Our research objectives, on the one hand, involve analysing the impact of R&D investment on informal entrepreneurship and, on the other hand, the moderating effect of the level of economic development on their innovative capacities and informal entrepreneurship results. To this end, and in accordance with Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, we divide the countries of Europe into two stages of development and may report that the higher the level of economic development, the greater the innovative capacity and, furthermore, the lower informal entrepreneurship becomes. The same holds for R&D investment with its increase being inversely proportionate to informal entrepreneurship. We, therefore, seek to contribute toward a better understanding of the problematic framework of informal entrepreneurship, in particular in the European context.     

Institutions and entrepreneurship development: High-technology indigenous firms in China and Taiwan

This study takes an inductive approach in analyzing the roles played by the state, the market, and the social sector in indigenous entrepreneurship development. Data collected from six high-technology companies in China and Taiwan serve to broaden our prior knowledge on how the three institutions work collectively in nourishing indigenous firms at three stages of entrepreneurship development. At the start-up stage, the state influences a firm’s entrepreneurial motivation by creating contexts, providing necessary financial resources, and setting up policy hurdles. At the growth stage, the social sector facilitates technology transfer to indigenous firms and protects them from lawsuits filed by multinational corporations. At the mature stage, the market allows multinational corporations to either enhance or destroy the technological capabilities of local firms. These findings provide strong theoretical and policy implications.     

中国的工业大国国情与工业强国战略

对于一个处于工业化中期后半阶段的发展中大国而言,将工业发展问题仅仅从产业战略层面来认识是不够的,我国缺乏的是从基本国情高度和国家战略层面认识工业发展问题。本文认为,中国的现实基本经济国情是"工业大国",正处于从"工业大国"向"工业强国"转变的阶段。基于这样的国情认识,本文描述了世界工业强国的特征和指标,论述了我国经济发展战略应该是以建立工业强国为目标的工业强国战略,研究了工业强国战略的必要性、目标、重点任务和政策导向。本文判断,中国将在2020年前后初步建成世界工业强国,在2040年前后全面建成世界工业强国。     

An empirical analysis of the relationship between university investments in Technology Transfer Offices and academic spin‐offs

The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in contributing to the creation and the performance of academic spin‐offs (ASOs). More specifically, it investigates the relationship between resources invested in TTOs in term of employees and the creation and growth of ASOs. The empirical analysis refers to Italy, where since 1999 academicians have been allowed to be actively involved in setting up companies for the ‘industrial use of research’. We used data on ASOs and resources invested by Italian universities in TTOs during the 2002–2011 period to investigate if and to what extent such investments contributed to the birth and growth of ASOs. We also controlled the results using information on university and on local context, in which university is located. The results of the empirical analysis show that in a first phase academicians reacted more promptly than universities to the opportunities offered by the new legislation, which may in part be due to the organizational rigidity that characterizes Public Administration in Italy. However, the empirical analysis also shows that after this initial phase the size of the TTOs (in terms of employees) has had a positive influence on the number of new ASOs (i.e. birth), but not on the performance of ASOs (i.e. growth), which is influenced by both long‐term investments in research (i.e. the quality of research results) and other variables linked to the regional and national contexts, such as the presence of incubators or the level of economic development. Our results regard a widely studied topic and should provide incremental findings for the community of entrepreneurship scholars and relevant implications for policy makers and TTO managers.     

University – industry collaboration in R&D: the role of labor market rigidity

We investigate how R&D university – industry collaboration (R&D UIC) is influenced by labor market rigidity. While it is well-established that an educated and skilled workforce will facilitate R&D UIC, another aspect of these alliances has been under-researched: the role of labor market rigidity, in particular the difficulties employers face in hiring and firing workers. We hypothesize that the size of the R&D labor pool in a country will encourage R&D UIC, and that the ease with which employers are legally allowed to hire and fire will directly and indirectly influence R&D UIC. Integrating data from various sources, we test our model on a sample of 73 countries for which information on the size of the R&D labor pool and labor market regulations are available. We also conduct a robustness test using a different proxy for R&D labor pool on a larger sample of 109 countries. Results confirm the strong link between a country's R&D labor pool and R&D UIC, as well as direct negative impacts of hiring and firing rigidity and an indirect negative impact of hiring rigidity. The findings have implications for managers, policy makers, and researchers of R&D collaboration between universities and industry.     

Work Roles and Careers of R&D Scientists in Network Organizations

Despite the burgeoning literature on the network organization as a new mode of innovation, we know little about how the flow of knowledge across organizational boundaries is intertwined with careers. This study explores the implications of the network model of R&D organization for the work roles and careers of R&D scientists within the changing relationship between industry and the academia. It examines how firms seek to resolve the tension between science and business by developing closer human resource ties with universities. It argues that firms have sought to construct "extended" internal labour markets (EILMs) between themselves and the universities with which they collaborate, leading to the formation of a hybrid scientific community straddling the two sectors.     

Business model fashion and the academic spinout firm

Studies indicate that most European new, technology–based firms (NTBFs) have been founded by relatively senior, highly–educated personnel coming from existing companies. These founders already have strong, industry and market links. A relatively small proportion have spun out of university or other public research facilities. However, this latter group has attracted particular attention from several interested groups, including governments and the scientific establishment. For governments, this has appeared to offer a means whereby public policy could have a direct and significant impact on economic development. Hence substantial public resources are increasingly being committed to support these developments in most industrialised countries. The founders of HEI spinouts are often academics aiming to commercialise nascent technologies and they face challenges which are less likely to arise for the founder with an industry background. The emerging technologies often commercialised in academic spinouts may have many potential applications. At the outset founders must make critical strategic choices of applications to develop, if they are to attract the substantial resources often needed for the risky development process. Some of these choices need an understanding of changing fashions in business models and investors' current preferences for particular industries. It is a difficult challenge for academic founders with little prior market knowledge and linkages, and no previous experience of professional investors and their requirements, to select the applications and business models which will support successful venture creation. This paper explores a number of key issues which surround these decisions and their relation to the changing business environment. It is concluded that the acceptability of novel technologies and products is mediated by systemic interactions which are ill–understood by industry and government.     

A quantitative assessment of innovation dynamics and R&D management in Japanese and West German telecommunications

Abstract
Among the industrial countries, different working divisions have evolved between manufacturing industry, governments and network operators, each being responsible for distinct parts of R&D in the telecommunications field. This paper provides a comparison of R&D in Japan and West Germany to several western industrial countries and highlights their diverse structures.
For this quantitative assessment various indicators for science and technology (S&T) have been compiled systematically. The new aspect of this paper is that indicators, only some of which are well established, can be interconnected provided that appropriate limitations are recognised. A comprehensive indicator system for research and development in telecommunications is currently not available as far as the author is aware. Consequently, subjective expert assessments are essential for the present indicator systems to overcome incomplete links between indicators, their poor adaptation to one another and data availability problems . The statistical sections here are therefore supplemented by a series of personal discussions in various countries.     

基于行业数据的新型工业节能减排效率与技术创新研究

本文构建一种基于生产率的新型节能减排指数,测度2007～2013年我国36个工业行业的节能减排效率,并重点分析企业自主创新、国内创新溢出和国外技术引进对工业节能减排效率的影响。研究发现：我国战略性新兴产业、高新技术产业节能减排效率普遍较高,资源、资本、劳动密集型行业节能减排效率普遍较低;企业自主创新对高效率行业作用更明显,国外技术引进对低效率行业影响更突出,国内创新溢出对各行业效率的影响力度基本一致;环境规制、行业企业规模等也是影响节能减排效率的因素之一。     

服务创新与有形产品创新之比较

服务业的迅猛发展使其在国民经济中的地位越来越重要,已经成为或正在成为现代经济生活的主导。在这样的背景下,服务创新受到了学术界和产业界的广泛关注。由于服务产品具有不同于有形产品的独特特征,服务创新也与有形产品创新有很多的不同。本文着重分析了服务创新与有形产品创新的不同之处,指出了二者之间的联系,明确了服务创新独特性,以便更好地探索服务创新的方法和规律。     

中国农村工业园区政策的演变和提示

工业化是传统经济转向现代经济的必由之路,是发展中国家孜孜以求的目标。农村工业化是促进农村经济增长的强大动力,同时在工业化过程中城市与农村是相互依赖的。农村工业化是工业化的重要内容。农村工业作为整个工业体系的重要组成部分,可以与城市工业相互补充、相互促进、共同推动工业化的发展。农村工业的发展,有利于为城市工业提供劳动力、场地、资金等条件,有利于城市工业的产品扩散和产业转移,有利于城市工业向高新技术产业领域发展,促进城乡产业结构的合理化。文章研究了中国农村工业化政策的意义,并对其在发展过程中起到重要影响的体制因素进行了分析。