University spin-off and contingency variables: impacts on academic performance

The modern economy is increasingly oriented to an information and knowledge based system so that entrepreneurial initiatives result tightly connected to the innovation process and technology transfer. In this framework, universities are considered playing a leading role in technology transfer processes and, as a matter of fact, in the last decades they have evolved in their core activities (traditionally teaching and researching) and today can be considered an alternative and effective mean for the enhancement of scientific research. Hence, university spin-off phenomenon can be considered as a hot topic, both for its relevance in the local economic development and for most extreme expression of the academic third mission. Looking at the phenomenon from a different point of view, university spin-offs might represent a turning point in academics’ career: academic entrepreneurship has become embedded and widespread among the research community, increasingly prepared to embrace new challenges. Today, the debate on universities spin-offs and academic entrepreneurship has become heated and pressing: much has been said about the topic, achieving controversial results when talking about the relationship between the creation of a new venture and the impact on its referent. In this work piece, our efforts are addressed to take on the question, but from a different point of view. Starting from several insights from previous studies, through analytic tools of descriptive analysis and regression models, we will deeply investigate on those specific features an academic researcher should have in order to benefit – in terms of research productivity – from the creation or participation of a university spin-off. In other words: does it exist any contingency variable to the spin-off’s creation, which can make desirable for a researcher to start such new venture? By doing this we hope to contribute to an overall understanding of USOs and academic entrepreneurship which are going to have growing relevance in the business environment.