Firms’ genetic characteristics and competence-enlarging strategies: A comparison between academic and non-academic high-tech start-ups

This paper argues that academic high-tech start-ups exhibit peculiar “genetic characteristics” that leave an enduring imprint on firm development. We formulate a series of hypotheses on the effects of such genetic characteristics on the post-entry strategies that academic high-tech start-ups adopt to enlarge their initial competence endowments. In the empirical section, we use matched-pair statistical techniques and run several regressions to test the theoretical hypotheses. Our findings contribute to the literature on the antecedents of the strategies adopted by academic high-tech start-ups. They also allow us to derive implications for academic entrepreneurs, university managers and policy makers.

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