TY  - THES
A3  - Werner, Arndt
AB  - The crucial role of academic entrepreneurship in accelerating technological innovation and promoting local and national economic development has been globally recognised (Berbegal-Mirabent et al., 2015; Guerrero et al., 2015; Visintin and Pittino, 2014). As one of the various forms of academic entrepreneurial activities, academic spin- offs (ASOs), also known as university spin-offs, are considered an important means (Miranda et al., 2018). This ongoing phenomenon has drawn numbers of scholars’ attention to explore the factors that influence the venturing processes of ASOs, whereas the exploration of the entire scope of academic entrepreneurship remains far from complete.
This dissertation adopts a multi-level perspective to investigate factors that influence the entrepreneurial intentions and behaviours of academics; it focuses on both the personal characteristics of academics and external environmental factors. Both approaches demonstrate significant effects. The primary reasoning behind this thesis is that entrepreneurship research needs to address the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial personalities and consider different sub-groups to gain insight into academic start-ups. Furthermore, it is important to consider the joint impacts and interactions between determinants across different levels. To comprehensively explain the variance of effects, both qualitative and quantitative methods are applied in this dissertation, which comprises of five empirical studies; each study deepens the existing understanding of academic entrepreneurship from a specific perspective (Chapters 2–6). The research motivation and conclusion of this dissertation are summarised in Chapters 1 and 7.
Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on academic entrepreneurship. Following the procedure for conducting a systematic literature review according to Tranfield et al. (2003), Chapter 2 develops a conceptual framework demonstrating that academics’ entrepreneurial intentions, as well as the venturing processes of ASOs, are determined by factors and stakeholders from multiple levels. This chapter offers a basic understanding of academic entrepreneurship and outlines several promising avenues for future research.
Fritsch and Krabel (2012) indicate that a large intention–action gap exists amongst academics; based on their results, 28% of all university scientists have entrepreneurial intentions, whereas only 3.2% implement these plans. As such, Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the characteristics of individual academics and explore the determinants of the ASO venturing process from two opposing perspectives. Chapter 3 focuses on the effects of specific motivating factors on the venturing progress of academic entrepreneurship and answers the questions of which individual motives are most crucial in the venturing process and how these motives affect process. Whereas existing studies have advanced understanding of what drives academics to launch their own businesses (e.g. Hayter, 2015a; Iorio et al., 2017; Lam, 2011), a paucity of research has explored why many academic entrepreneurs cease or postpone pursuing their business ideas. Chapter 4 furthers the exploration of this phenomenon by analysing the psychological mechanisms that trigger such by analysing the psychological mechanisms that trigger such avoidance reactions. The results highlight that psychological factors such as individual decision paralysis, self- efficacy, attitudes towards science and risk-taking propensity significantly affect academics’ decision-making behaviours and how they perceive potential entrepreneurial obstacles. In sum, Chapters 3 and 4 contribute to the literature on the intention–action gap in the academic entrepreneurship context and provide university administrators and policymakers advice on how to develop differentiated support programmes to promote academic entrepreneurship.
To date, empirical evidence considering the individual, as well as the institution- specific structural and environmental, factors that affect scientists’ entrepreneurial intentions remains scarce. The joint impacts of and interplay between different predictors across various levels, as well as within specific levels, remain under-researched. As such, Chapters 5 and 6 fill this gap by adopting an integrated approach to analyse the heterogeneity of academic entrepreneurship. Chapter 5 focuses on stakeholders, from both the micro- and meso-levels, and tests how and to what extent the entrepreneurial propensities of academics are simultaneously affected by specific personal and occupational characteristics. Chapter 6 develops a multi-level model that explains the interplay between the individual characteristics of scientists, the organisational (university) context and the collaboration between scientists and external stakeholders.
Taken together, the findings of dissertation deepen the existing understanding of academic entrepreneurship and offer valuable insights for scholars, university administrators and external stakeholders aiming to promote the development of academic entrepreneurship.
AU  - Chen, Xiangyu
DA  - 2020
DO  - 10.25819/ubsi/7657
KW  - Entrepreneurship
KW  - Academic Entrepreneurship
KW  - Akademisches Unternehmertum
LA  - eng
PY  - 2020
TI  - Determinants of academic entrepreneurship development: a multi-level perspective
TT  - Determinanten der Entwicklung von akademischem Unternehmertum: eine Mehrebenen-Perspektive
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:467-17882
Y2  - 2024-12-26T23:02:59
ER  -