Fostering Academic Entrepreneurship: A Qualitative Study of Invention Commercialization in Vietnam

Abstract

Previous studies have been silent on how institutional factors influence scientists’ entrepreneurial cognitions and behavior. Transition economies offer a unique opportunity for addressing this issue since different generations of scientists experienced vastly different ideology and management systems. Built on the entrepreneurial cognitions and contextualization views and interview data from scientists in Vietnam, this study found that scientists internalized institutional factors to form their motivations, partnership approaches, and behavioral competencies, which in turn influence their chosen modes of entrepreneurship. This suggests that new institutions which address younger generations and focus on developing entrepreneurial qualities are pertinent to promote commercialization in transition economies.

Academic Entrepreneurship: An Empirical Research of Invention Commercialisation

“…Studies on invention commercialisation have been considered at two levels, namely individual and institutional. For individual level, the processes and success of research commercialisation are significantly influenced by individual characteristics of scientists because invention commercialisation depends considerably on the scientists' competencies in recognising and catching the business opportunities from invention or research results (Nguyen et al, 2018). Some previous studies have indicated that social network (Aldridge & Audretsch, 2010;Bercovitz & Feldman, 2008;Haeyssler & Colyvas, 2011;O' Gorman et al, 2008), prior knowledge (Shane, 2000), human capital (publications) (Alshumaimri et al, 2012), age (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2008;Link et al, 2007) and gender difference (Markman et al, 2008;Minniti & Nardone, 2007;Elston & Audretsch, 2010;Perkmann et al, 2013) have effects on the ability to recognise business opportunities, determine these type of opportunities and decision to commercialise the invention.…”

“…However, studies on invention commercialisation at the institutional level are rather sparse (Perkmann et al, 2013), and almost these studies are conducted in advanced economies (Nguyen et al, 2018). Some studies had shown that commercialisation had been facilitated by the presence of clear national policies, such as the Bayh-Dole Act in the United States (Aldridge & Audretsch, 2011) and the abolition of the so-called "professor privilege" in European countries (Mowery & Sampat, 2005;Powevers & McDougall, 2005).…”

“…Researching commercialisation in emerging economies is also started to be interested recently, such as Saudi Arabia (Alshumaimri et al, 2012), Malaysia (Yaacob et al, 2011), China (Li & Morgan, 2010) and Vietnam (Tran, 2007). Nevertheless, the lack of strong supports by market institutions, experiences and necessary resources is becoming the key barriers and tremendous challenges for invention commercialisation in these countries (Alshumaimri et al, 2012;Shapira & Wang, 2009;Nguyen et al, 2018;Tran, 2007). Some scholars have agreed that institutional factors are internalised by individual researchers to shape their cognitive process of invention commercialisation (Bercovitz & Feldman, 2008;Lam, 2011;Nguyen et al, 2018) while invention commercialisation entails individual scientists ensuring their own entrepreneurial acts (Aldridge & Audretsch, 2011;Hayter, 2015;Shane & Venkataraman, 2000).…”

“…For instance, although scientists' motives for commercial engagement could be multifaceted (Lam, 2011), the question "how do contextual factors facilitate the process of scientists' entrepreneurial cognitions or invention commercialisation?" are not explained evidently (Nguyen et al, 2018). Indeed, Turker & Selcuk (2009) argue that most recent studies only focus on examining the role of some internal factors such as personal characteristics (Akanbi, 2013;Antoncic & Prodan, 2008), individual motivations (Camelo-Ordaz et al, 2016;Kautonen et al, 2013;Tkachev & Kolvereid, 1999) and personal background (Bird & Brush, 2002;Boden & Nucci, 2000;Camelo-Ordaz et al, 2016;Long & Quan, 2018) rather than investigating the influence of external factors on shaping entrepreneurial intention.…”

“…Technology transfers are viewed as a process of implementing research results to practices, whereas technology transfers relating to financial exchanges are defined as commercialisation (Nguyen et al, 2018). Thus, invention commercialisation can be determined as an entrepreneurial activity since it refers converting results of research into new products or processes for commercial exchange (Alshumaimri et al, 2012;Teixeira & Nogueira, 2016).…”