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

Abstract

Academic spin-offs are increasingly assuming a relevant role in the social and economic contexts. However, only a few studies have looked at the specific role of human capital in these organisations. The contradictory dimension in human capital is the role of the founder's education, in which some studies have revealed the relationship between entrepreneurial motivation and education levels. Other studies indicated that these two variables are uncorrelated. Hence, this study seeks to explore and understand the reasons for these contradictory results by conducting case studies using indepth interviews on six Portuguese academic spin-offs. The findings have allowed us to understand causes and difficulties experienced by Ph.D. students to create new ventures. Furthermore, they also have allowed us to explore the importance of complementary professional and technical training in entrepreneurial motivations.

Methods for identifying and evaluating disruptive technologies in university spinoffs

“…Regarding new-market disruptive technologies, the role of trade fairs, conferences, and journals in identifying disruptive technologies stands out. The high academic profile of their founders, as recognized in the studies conducted by Almeida (2019) and Sansone et al (2021), means that the identification process of new-market disruptive technologies is an extension of the activities that the founders performed in the context of their activities at universities and R&D centers in the areas of scientific production and technology and knowledge transfer. On the contrary, the role of chance (serendipity) is much smaller compared to the identification of low-end disruptive technologies, which indicates that the identification process of new-market disruptive technologies tends to be more systematized.…”

The role of professional experience in the entrepreneurial intention in higher education

“…The exploration of entrepreneurial intention (EI) has been one of the topics within entrepreneurship that has generated extensive research (Almeida, 2019;Costa et al, 2016;Donaldson et al, 2021). These studies seek to identify and explore the factors that lead an individual to entrepreneurial activity.…”