An empirical study of university spin‐off development

Manuel H. Gübeli and David Doloreux

European Journal of Innovation Management, 2005, vol. 8, issue 3, 269-282

Abstract: Purpose - The paper is concerned with spin‐off firms and the process by which a new firm is created and formed from a university. The objectives are to examine characteristics of firms generated by this process, and the intensity of the spin‐off firms' network activity with the parent organisation and the local environment during this process. Design/methodology/approach - The findings are based on a case‐study consisting out of three firms spun‐off from a research centre at Linköping University in the area of visualisation and computer graphics. The source data are gathered from semi‐structured interviews. No generalisation should be drawn from this study due to the small number of firms interviewed and the scope of the technological area addressed. Findings - The results show the importance of collaboration between the university spin‐off, with both the parental organisation and outside organisms, to acquire external competencies in the technological area. The parental organisation plays a pivotal role in the spin‐off process, especially in its early stage where its catalyses the emergence of the business idea by supporting the spin‐off firm with infrastructure and expertise in a specific field of mentorship. However, as the spin‐off evolves, this pre‐incubation service complements yet more support services of municipality and region, which stand to be more important in the technological and business development of the spin‐off. Originality/value - University spin‐offs have an important place in the innovation process, but their promotion must be part of a wider policy package encouraging networking not only with the host university, but with industry and the public sector as well. For universities and public research organisations, it is advisable to take a more active role in the spin‐off process beyond the pre‐incubation stage.

Keywords: Universities; Organizations; Parent companies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ejimpp:14601060510610153

DOI: 10.1108/14601060510610153

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Innovation Management is currently edited by Dr Vincenzo Corvello

More articles in European Journal of Innovation Management from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().