The impact of entrepreneurial capacity, experience and organizational support on academic entrepreneurship

Although sources and determinants of academic entrepreneurship have begun to command the attention of policy-makers and researchers, there remain many unanswered questions about how individual and social factors shape the decisions of academics to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Using a large-scale panel of academics from a variety of UK universities from 2001 to 2009, this paper examines how an academics’ level of entrepreneurial capacity in terms of opportunity recognition capacity, and their prior entrepreneurial experience shape the likelihood of them being involved in starting up a new venture. In addition, we explore what role university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) play in stimulating venture creation. The results show that individual-level attributes and experience are the most important predictors of academic entrepreneurship. We also find that the social environment surrounding the academic also plays an influential role, but its role is much less pronounced than individual-level factors. Finally, we show that the activities of the TTO play only a marginal, indirect role, in driving academics to start new ventures. We explore the implications of this analysis for policy and organizational design for academic entrepreneurship.     

The effectiveness of university knowledge spillovers: Performance differences between university spinoffs and corporate spinoffs

While much prior research has focused upon how the Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) and other contextual characteristics shape the level of university spinoffs (USO), there is little research on entrepreneurial potential among individual academics, and to the best of our knowledge, no comparative studies with other types of spinoffs exist to date. In this paper we focus on an important but neglected aspect of knowledge transfer from academic research involving the indirect flow to entrepreneurship by individuals with a university education background who become involved in new venture creation by means of corporate spinoffs (CSO) after gaining industrial experience, rather than leaving university employment to found a new venture as an academic spinoff. We argue that the commercial knowledge gained by industry experience is potentially more valuable for entrepreneurial performance compared to the academic knowledge gained by additional research experience at a university. This leads us to posit that the average performance of CSOs will be higher than comparable USOs, but the gains from founder‘s prior experiences will be relatively higher among USOs whose founders lack the corporate context. We investigate these propositions in a comparative study tracking the complete population of USOs and CSOs among the Swedish knowledge-intensive sectors between 1994 and 2002.     

Complements or substitutes? The role of universities and local context in supporting the creation of academic spin-offs

In this paper, we analyze the extent to which University-Level Support Mechanisms (ULSMs) and Local-Context Support Mechanisms (LCSMs) complement or substitute for each other in fostering the creation of academic spin-offs. Using a sample of 404 companies spun off from the 64 Italian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics universities (STEM universities) over the 2000–2007 period, we show that the ULSMs’ marginal effect on universities’ spin-off productivity may be positive or negative depending on the contribution offered by different LCSMs. Specifically, in any given region, ULSMs complement the legislative support offered to high-tech entrepreneurship whereas they have a substitution effect with regard to the amount of regional social capital, regional financial development, the presence of a regional business incubator, regional public R&D expenses as well as the level of innovative performance in the region. Results support the idea that regional settings’ idiosyncrasies should be considered for universities to develop effective spin-off support policies. This paper contributes to the debate on the evaluation of economic policies supporting entrepreneurship.     

Public science and public innovation: Assessing the relationship between patenting at U.S. National Laboratories and the Bayh-Dole Act

Most studies of the effects of the Bayh-Dole Act have focused on universities. In contrast, we analyze patenting activity at two prominent national laboratories, Sandia National Laboratories and the National Institute of Standards and Technology before and after the enactment of this legislation and the Stevenson-Wydler Act. It appears as though the enactment of Bayh-Dole and the Stevenson-Wydler Act were not sufficient to induce an increase in patenting at these labs. However, the establishment of financial incentive systems, embodied in passage of the Federal Technology Transfer Act, as well as the allocation of internal resources to support technology transfer, stimulated an increase in such activity.     

30 years after Bayh–Dole: Reassessing academic entrepreneurship

On the 30th anniversary of enactment of the Bayh–Dole Act in the U.S., we consider the rationale for academic entrepreneurship and describe the evolving role of universities in the commercialization of research. We also discuss and appraise the effects of legislative reform in several OECD countries relating to academic entrepreneurship. The article synthesizes papers from the special section and outlines an agenda for additional research on various aspects of academic entrepreneurship in terms of system, university and individual levels. We also consider measurement and methodological issues that must be addressed in additional research.     

Has the Bayh-Dole act compromised basic research?

We examine three hypotheses regarding the effects of the Bayh-Dole Act on research effort of faculty. The first hypothesis we call the status quo hypothesis and it asserts that there has been no effect on research profiles. The second hypothesis, which we call the negative hypothesis, asserts that faculty have been diverted from their traditional role in basic research toward research with more commercial potential. Our final hypothesis is derived from prior theoretical work that suggests that both basic and applied research is greater when faculty can benefit from commercialization of their research effort; we refer to this as the positive hypothesis. The data we examine are the research and invention disclosure of faculty at 8 US universities over the period 1983–1999. Using a citation based measure of basic research publications we relate basic research effort to invention disclosures. Our findings are clear in that they do not show any support for the negative hypothesis and they show substantially greater support for the positive hypothesis than for the status quo hypothesis.     

The effects of knowledge management on innovative success – An empirical analysis of German firms

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of knowledge management on the innovation success of firms in Germany. We look at innovative firms in the period from 2000 to 2002 taken from the Mannheim Innovation Panel and estimate the effect of collaborative measures of knowledge management on the immediate economic success of different types of innovations. The results of our matching analysis reveal that firms which apply knowledge management perform better in terms of higher-than-average shares of turnover with innovative products compared to their twins. We do not find a significant effect of knowledge management on the share of cost reductions with process innovation.     

Knowledge coherence, variety and economic growth: Manufacturing evidence from Italian regions

This paper elaborates a view on knowledge as a result of a combinatorial search activity, so as to investigate its effects on economic growth at the regional level. Empirical estimations corroborate the hypothesis that knowledge coherence and variety, besides the traditional measure of knowledge stock, matter in shaping regional economic performances. The check for spatial dependence suggests that cross-regional externalities exert additional triggering effects on growth, without debasing the effects of knowledge properties. Important policy implications stem from the analysis, in that regional innovation strategies should be carefully coordinated so as to reach a higher degree of internal coherence and trigger economic performances.     

Does inventor ownership encourage university research-derived entrepreneurship? A six university comparison

This paper examines whether university ownership of inventions made by its personnel best serves the widely held social goals of encouraging technology commercialization and entrepreneurship. Using a hand-collected census of technology-based university spin-offs from six universities, one of which is the University of Waterloo and the only inventor ownership university in North America, we compare the number and type of spin-offs produced by these universities. We find suggestive evidence that inventor ownership universities can be more efficient in generating spin-offs on both per faculty and per R&D dollar expended perspective. We find that the field of computer sciences and electrical engineering generates a greater number of spin-offs than do our other two categories – the biomedical sciences, and the field of engineering and the physical sciences. In general, our results demonstrate that inventor ownership can be extremely productive of spin-offs. From these results, we suggest that governments seeking to encourage university invention commercialization and entrepreneurship should experiment with an inventor ownership system.     

Globalization of R&D by US-based multinational enterprises

This paper examines patterns and determinants of overseas R&D investment by US-based manufacturing MNEs using a new panel dataset over the period 1990–2004. The analysis reveals that R&D intensity of operation of US MNE affiliates is determined mainly by the domestic market size, overall R&D capability and cost of hiring R&D personnel. There is no evidence to suggest that R&D specific incentives have a significant impact on inter-country differences in R&D intensity when controlled for other relevant variables. Overall, our findings cast doubts on the efficacy of efforts by host country governments to entice MNE affiliates to engage in domestic R&D activity, in a context where R&D is becoming a truly global activity.     

How to play the “Names Game”: Patent retrieval comparing different heuristics

Patent statistics represent a critical tool for scholars, statisticians and policy makers interested in innovation and intellectual property rights. Many analyses are based on heterogeneous methods delineating the inventors’ or firms’ patent portfolios without questioning the quality of the method employed. We assess different heuristics in order to provide a robust solution to automatically retrieve inventors in large patent datasets (PATSTAT). The solution we propose reduces the usual errors by 50% and casts doubts on the reliability of statistical indicators and micro-econometric results based on common matching procedures. Guidelines for researchers, TTOs, firms, venture capitalists and policy makers likely to implement a names game or to comment on results based on a names game are also provided.     

The Bayh-Dole Act and university research and development

This paper examines the relationship between university research and development (R&D) activities and the Bayh-Dole Act. This act made it much easier for universities to obtain patents from research funded by the federal government and may have provided universities with an incentive to alter their R&D activities. The Act may provide an incentive to reduce basic research (which does not generate licensing fees) and increase applied research (which does generate patents and licensing fees). In addition, industry might be more willing to fund university R&D projects since the results would now be easier to patent. This paper differs from the existing literature which uses patent data (a measure of research output) by using research and development data (a measure of inventive input) to examine the effect of the Act.     

Are you too young for the Nobel Prize?

Although age is not supposed to be a criterion for the award of the Nobel Prize, it is commonly believed that it does play a role. Indeed, econometric evidence in this paper also suggests such a role. However, the paper finds that, if there is a preference for older Nobel candidates, this is introduced during the nomination process. The paper actually finds that the Nobel Committee does not favor older nominees and that, if anything, it seems to partially offset the age premium introduced by the nominators.     

Resolving the knowledge paradox: Knowledge-spillover entrepreneurship and economic growth

The knowledge paradox suggests that high levels of investment in new knowledge do not necessarily and automatically generate the anticipated levels of competitiveness of growth. In particular, knowledge investments do not automatically translate into balanced growth and competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to explain why knowledge investments are inherently unbalanced, so that the competitiveness and growth ensuing from knowledge are not equally spread across individuals, firms, and spatial units of observation, such as regions and countries. Based on a data set linking entrepreneurial activity to growth within the context of German regions, this paper shows that entrepreneurship serves a conduit of knowledge spillovers.     

The persistence of entrepreneurship and innovative immigrants

Ethnicity and immigration status may play a role in entrepreneurship and innovation, yet the impact of university entrepreneurship education on this relationship is under-explored. This paper examines the persistence and differences in entrepreneurship by ethnicity and nationality. We find that among Stanford alumni, Asian Americans have a higher rate of entrepreneurship than white Americans. However, non-American Asians have a substantially lower, about 12% points lower, start-up rate than Asian Americans. Such discrepancy not only holds for entrepreneurial choice but also for investing as an angel investor or venture capitalist, or utilizing Stanford networks to find funding sources or partners. Participation in Stanford University’s entrepreneurship program as a student does little to reduce this gap. The low level of parental entrepreneurship and the high degree of intergenerational correlation in entrepreneurship likely result in the lower level of entrepreneurship and participation in university entrepreneurship programs among Asians relative to their Asian American counterparts. Our findings highlight the value of immigration in terms of breaking the persistence in entrepreneurship among certain ethnic groups and promoting potential high-growth entrepreneurship in the United States. In addition, our findings may have important implications for programs to incorporate immigrant entrepreneurs within their home countries to promote entrepreneurship and help break the persistence of entrepreneurship across generations.     

Reconsidering the Bayh-Dole Act and the Current University Invention Ownership Model

The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 provided U.S. universities with the right to commercialize employees’ inventions made while engaged in government-funded research. This paper argues that the current university invention ownership model, in which universities maintain de jure ownership of inventions, is not optimal either in terms of economic efficiency or for advancing the social interest of rapidly commercializing technology and encouraging entrepreneurship. We argue that this model is plagued by ineffective incentives, information asymmetries, and contradictory motivations for the university, the inventors, potential licensees, and university technology licensing offices (TLOs). These structural uncertainties can lead to delays in licensing, misaligned incentives among parties, and obstacles to the flow of scientific information and the materials necessary for scientific progress. The institutional arrangements within which TLOs are embedded have encouraged some of them to become revenue maximizers, rather than facilitators of technology dissemination for the good of the entire society.We suggest two alternative invention commercialization models as superior alternatives. The first alternative is to vest ownership with the inventor, who could choose the commercialization path for the invention. For this privilege the inventor would provide the university an ownership stake in any returns to the invention. The inventor would be free to contract with the university TLO or any other entity that might assist in commercialization. The second alternative is to make all inventions immediately publicly available through a public domain strategy or, through a requirement that all inventions be licensed non-exclusively. Both alternatives would address the current dysfunctional arrangements in university technology commercialization.     

《拜杜法》与我国技术转移法律体系的完善

《拜杜法》对因政府资助产生的创新成果确立了统一的技术转移法律制度，明确了创新成果的权属，加强了小企业在与政府、科研部门合作中的权利，有力地促进了美国技术转移的速度，取得了明显的效果，对我国技术转移法律体系的建立和完善具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Patenting and US academic research in the 20th century: The world before and after Bayh-Dole

The dramatic growth of patenting and licensing of publicly funded research by American research universities in the closing quarter of the 20th century has stimulated some of the highest-profile debates in science and technology policy today. The issue of what aspects of academic research should be public - and what private - lies at the heart of each of these debates. The movement of academic scientists into commercialisation of discoveries and inventions has been extolled by some as a new model of academic research, one which facilitates economic and social returns from universities. At the same time, this trend has been criticised by others as representing a socially inefficient ‘privatisation’ of academic research and as a threat to the ethos of science itself. This paper places these debates in historical context, with a review of changes in American universities’ patenting policies, procedures and practices throughout the 20th century, an assessment of the logic underlying the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, and an overview of its effects on economic returns from university research.