Entrepreneurship and Academic Employment-More Alike than You'd Think

Abstract

Abstract:Recognising the increasing value of knowledge and technology transfer, the scientific and political communities in Germany have recently devoted much attention to academic entrepreneurship. Seeking to explore similarities and differences between academic employment and entrepreneurship, we interviewed 112 postdoctoral students from the four major German research organisations and 16 senior transfer managers whose responsibilities included spin-off facilitation.Our findings indicate that those involved in such occupations often believe that academic employment and entrepreneurship differ substantially on many levels. Both interviewed senior managers and postdoctoral students considered engaging in commercialisation activities to be a risky and serious undertaking and a significant career change. Simultaneously, the opinions and observations of postdoctoral students helped us identify a wide range of similarities between academic employment and entrepreneurship. Our findings can help make entrepreneurship more accessible to researchers, re-define the boundaries between scientific and commercial activities, and, ultimately, foster knowledge and technology transfer.

Exploring the Role of Education on the Entrepreneurial Motivations of Academic Spin-offs' Founders

“…Besides that, complementary business/administration education affected the creation of new spin-offs negatively. Additionally, a study by Sinell et al (2015) indicated that typical postdoctoral students considered business sector as a risky activity that implied a significant career change for them. Hence, this study seeks to identify the causes and reasons for this contradictory role of high levels of founder's education on their entrepreneurial motivations.…”

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“…Academics might experience particular difficulty in overcoming the challenges of entrepreneurship because they often regard industry as a completely alien environment and because they lack business-related resources and skills (Franklin et al, 2001; Rasmussen & Wright, 2015;Sinell et al, 2015). Even when they do successfully initiate spin-offs, they rarely invite non-scientific specialists to join (Ensley & Hmieleski, 2005; Franklin et al, 2001; Knockaert et al, 2011).…”

“…Recognizing its benefits, European decision makers in academia, industry, and government increasingly regard academic entrepreneurship as the third "academic mission" and continue to introduce wide-ranging support initiatives. Nonetheless, transfer performance in Europe still lags behind that of universities in the United States (Audretsch & Göktepe-Hultén, 2015).Academics might experience particular difficulty in overcoming the challenges of entrepreneurship because they often regard industry as a completely alien environment and because they lack business-related resources and skills (Franklin et al, 2001; Rasmussen & Wright, 2015;Sinell et al, 2015). Even when they do successfully initiate spin-offs, they rarely invite non-scientific specialists to join (Ensley & Hmieleski, 2005; Franklin et al, 2001; Knockaert et al, 2011).…”

Gender-Specific Constraints on Academic Entrepreneurship and Engagement in Knowledge and Technology Transfer

“…Masculine hegemony is challenged when there are female partners in the venture capital firms, making it 50% more likely that startups with female members will receive investment (Brush et al, 2014). In the case of founding an academic spin-off, the perception prevails that entrepreneurship and academia systematically differ in their work logics (Sinell et al, 2015;van der Sijde et al, 2014): entrepreneurship is seen to have little appeal to scientists who are also uncertain about how to cross over into the business sphere.…”