Academic Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial Advisors and Their Advisees’ Outcomes

Maria P. Roche ()
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Maria P. Roche: Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02163; Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30308

Organization Science, 2023, vol. 34, issue 2, 959-986

Abstract: The transfer of complex knowledge and skills is difficult, often requiring intensive interaction and extensive periods of coworking between a mentor and mentee, which is particularly true in apprenticeship-like settings and on-the-job training. This paper studies a context that quintessentially describes this type of learning: the academic laboratory. I focus on ways a change in the attention of a principal investigator, moving to entrepreneurship, may influence knowledge transmission and skill development by examining the relationship of this change with their PhD students’ scientific productivity and careers. To do so, I rely on novel restricted-access data encompassing faculty and PhD students in computer sciences, engineering, and the life sciences who were active at an elite U.S. research university from 2001 to 2017. The results suggest a substantial negative association between a professor’s entrepreneurial activity and the short- and long-run publication output of the PhD students they train. Furthermore, I detect a decrease in students’ likelihood of becoming professors themselves but an increase in their likelihood of working for consulting firms on graduation. Finally, I provide evidence suggesting that changes in trainee development are the most feasible drivers of the results rather than changes in trainee research orientation, selection, or life cycle effects.

Keywords: academic entrepreneurship; productivity; innovation; entrepreneurial supervisors; human capital development; knowledge-based economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:34:y:2023:i:2:p:959-986

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