University spin-offs and their environment

Using nine university-level variables (including publications, patents, and spin-offs) and ten regional indicators, I show that the regional economy clearly differentiates Italian universities according to four distinct types, corresponding to four productivity levels. The typology stemming from multiple correspondence analysis suggests that a fertile context is important to successful universities; however, where the environment is extremely rich, individuals seem to strongly self-select at the beginning of their careers, thus dividing entrepreneurs from professors; hence university activities in these regions are lower. A categorical regression specifically exploring success in university spin-off creation tends to reject that publications and spin-offs are substitutes, and confirms several US findings, albeit in a significantly different environment.

[1]  Mike Wright,et al.  The Formation of High-Tech University Spinouts: The Role of Joint Ventures and Venture Capital Investors , 2004 .

[2]  Daniel E. Massing,et al.  AUTM Licensing Survey , 1996 .

[3]  Mike Wright,et al.  CRITICAL JUNCTURES IN THE GROWTH OF UNIVERSITY HIGH-TECH SPIN-OUT COMPANIES , 2002 .

[4]  Waverly W. Ding,et al.  The Determinants of Faculty Patenting Behavior: Demographics or Opportunities? , 2005 .

[5]  P. Green,et al.  Analyzing multivariate data , 1978 .

[6]  Nicolas Carayol,et al.  Does research organization influence academic production?: Laboratory level evidence from a large European university , 2004 .

[7]  Joshua B. Powers,et al.  University Start-Up Formation and Technology Licensing with Firms that Go Public: A Resource-Based View of Academic Entrepreneurship , 2005 .

[8]  Edward B. Roberts,et al.  Policies and structures for spinning off new companies from research and development organizations , 1998 .

[9]  Elizabeth Garnsey,et al.  Do Academic Spin-Outs Differ and Does it Matter? , 2004 .

[10]  Everett M. Rogers,et al.  Spin-offs from research centers at a research university☆ , 2000 .

[11]  Nicola Baldini,et al.  Negative effects of university patenting: Myths and grounded evidence , 2008, Scientometrics.

[12]  Maryann Feldman,et al.  Special Issue on University Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer: Equity and the Technology Transfer Strategies of American Research Universities , 2002, Manag. Sci..

[13]  Andrea Piccaluga,et al.  Exploitation and diffusion of public research: the case of academic spin-off companies in Italy , 2000 .

[14]  A. Grandi,et al.  Academics' organizational characteristics and the generation of successful business ideas , 2005 .

[15]  Mike Wright,et al.  Resources, capabilities, risk capital and the creation of university spin-out companies , 2005 .

[16]  Joshua B. Powers.  Commercializing Academic Research: Resource Effects on Performance of University Technology Transfer , 2003 .

[17]  David C. Mowery,et al.  Ivory tower and industrial innovation : university-industry technology transfer before and after the Bayh-Dole Act in the United States , 2004 .

[18]  Mike Wright,et al.  Academic and Surrogate Entrepreneurs in University Spin-out Companies , 2001 .

[19]  Scott Shane,et al.  Why do some universities generate more start-ups than others? , 2003 .

[20]  Mark A. Schankerman,et al.  Incentives and Invention in Universities , 2003 .

[21]  Rosa Grimaldi,et al.  Exploring the Networking Characteristics of New Venture Founding Teams: A Stdy of Italian Academic Spin-off , 2003 .

[22]  Magnus Klofsten,et al.  Book Review: Academic Entrepreneurship: University Spin-offs and Wealth Creation , 2005 .

[23]  Walter W. Powell,et al.  A Comparison of U.S. and European University-Industry Relations in the Life Sciences , 2001 .

[24]  Brian Rappert,et al.  Links between Universities and Their Spin-Offs , 1998 .

[25]  R. Nelson.  The market economy, and the scientific commons , 2004 .

[26]  Edward B. Roberts,et al.  Overcoming Weak Entrepreneurial Infrastructures for Academic Spin-Off Ventures , 2004 .

[27]  Rosa Grimaldi,et al.  To patent or not to patent? A survey of Italian inventors on motivations, incentives, and obstacles to university patenting , 2007, Scientometrics.

[28]  R. Cushman.  Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center and World Data Center for Atmospheric Trace Gases, Fiscal Year 2002 Annual Report , 1997 .

[29]  Nathan Rosenberg,et al.  Designing Efficient Institutions for Science-Based Entrepreneurship: Lesson from the US and Sweden , 2007 .

[30]  Michael D. Ensley,et al.  A comparative study of new venture top management team composition, dynamics and performance between university-based and independent start-ups , 2005 .

[31]  Tomas Hellström,et al.  The Strength of Strong Ties: University Spin-offs and the Significance of Historical Relations , 2005 .

[32]  Rosa Grimaldi,et al.  Institutional Changes and the Commercialization of Academic Knowledge: A Study of Italian Universities' Patenting Activities Between 1965 and 2002 , 2006 .

[33]  Denis Maillat,et al.  Interactions between urban systems and localized productive systems: An approach to endogenous regional development in terms of innovative milieu , 1998 .

[34]  N. Baldini,et al.  University Patenting and Licensing Activity: A Review of the Literature , 2006 .

[35]  P. David,et al.  Toward a new economics of science , 1994 .

[36]  M. Greenacre.  Correspondence analysis in practice , 1993 .

[37]  Richard T. Harrison,et al.  Maximising the Potential of University Spin-Outs: The Development of Second-Order Commercialisation Activities , 2005 .

[38]  A. Geuna,et al.  University patenting and its effects on academic research: The emerging European evidence , 2006 .

[39]  B. Clarysse,et al.  A process study of entrepreneurial team formation: the case of a research-based spin-off , 2004 .

[40]  Edward B. Roberts,et al.  The technological base of the new enterprise , 1991 .

[41]  Nicos Nicolaou,et al.  Social Networks in Organizational Emergence: The University Spinout Phenomenon , 2003, Manag. Sci..

[42]  M. Wright,et al.  Spinning Out New Ventures: A Typology of Incubation Strategies from European Research Institutions , 2005 .

[43]  Marie C. Thursby,et al.  Incubator firm failure or graduation?: The role of university linkages , 2005 .

[44]  Scott Shane,et al.  Special Issue on University Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer: Organizational Endowments and the Performance of University Start-ups , 2002, Manag. Sci..

[45]  Mike Wright,et al.  Technology Transfer and Universities' Spin-Out Strategies , 2003 .

[46]  J. Hair.  Multivariate data analysis , 1972 .

[47]  Henry Etzkowitz,et al.  The second academic revolution and the rise of entrepreneurial science , 2001, IEEE Technol. Soc. Mag..

[48]  Paula E. Stephan,et al.  Company-Scientist Locational Links: The Case of Biotechnology , 1996 .

[49]  T. Allen,et al.  Entrepreneurial orientation, technology transfer and spinoff performance of U.S. universities , 2005 .

[50]  Joseph Friedman,et al.  University Technology Transfer: Do Incentives, Management, and Location Matter? , 2003 .

[51]  Arvids A. Ziedonis,et al.  The growth of patenting and licensing by U.S. universities: an assessment of the effects of the Bayh–Dole act of 1980 , 2001 .