Visibility and Reputation of New Entrepreneurial Projects from Academia: the Role of Start-Up Competitions

Abstract

Academic spin-offs, i.e., new venture projects backed by one or more researchers, are attracting increasing attention by researchers and policy makers as an effective way to increase the rate of technology transfer from Public Research Organizations (PROs) to the business environment. With the aim of supporting technology transfer processes, in the last years, many universities have carry out specific policies and a wide range of programs addressed to the development of academic entrepreneurship. Among these, the organization of a start-up competition is rather popular. But, how effective do such activities result, in particular the start-up competitions, in supporting academic researchers toward entrepreneurship? Are these kinds of initiatives able to raise the level of the reputation of academic entrepreneurial projects? If so, would such social capital have any real impact on the entrepreneurial development of academic spin-off? Is this social capital able to improve the spin-off’s ability to gain access to and acquire an initial stock of resources? Our exploratory research, following the emerging paradigm of the Quadruple-Helix Model, takes into consideration the mediating role of Media players in building visibility and reputation of nascent entrepreneurial projects from academia. The study that we performed is based on the results of web citations of business projects that won at least one prize awarded by an academic start-up competition. We consider the 2013 edition of the Italian universities business plan competitions (PNI), and we tried to measure the visibility and the reputation effect experienced by winners of local and national steps of the business plan competition. Implications of the study might be that investing in start-up competition is a useful mechanism to gain in visibility and might be useful as an ignition mechanism to start a positive entrepreneurship discourse about academic spin-offs among stakeholders that control access to valuable resources for them

Co-Evolution of the University Technology Transfer: Towards a Sustainability-Oriented Industry: Evidence from Italy

“…The selection of the case-i.e., the "National Innovation Award" (PNI)-was driven by the aim to find a representative case [107] in Italy of university TT that results from the dynamics of the interactions at multiple levels within the sphere of university-and their variation over time-aimed at fostering local development through the creation of USOs and USUs. In fact: (i) it is a business plan competition established in 2003 and promoted by the "Italian Association of University Incubators and Local Business Plan Competition" (PNICube) that involves within a university all the three identified levels; (ii) it represents "the leading competition for innovative business projects coming from academic teams of the Italian universities" [108] (p. 559) in the fields of ICT, life science, industrial technologies, Cleanteach and energy; (iii) it has gone through two temporal phases starting from its inception in 2003 to the 2018 edition (i.e., start-up and development of the PNI); (iv) it is organised at regional and national levels. The unit of analysis are is the individual organization.…”

“…Moreover, courtroom questioning and event tracking interview techniques have been adopted [108] in order respectively to emphasize facts and events by avoiding questions that yield inaccurate answers, and to put the informant back in the time frame of the events, and thus, enabling a chronology of those events.…”

The Entrepreneurial University: How to Develop the Entrepreneurial Orientation of Academia

“…A second set of policies is directed to increase the entrepreneurial spirit of academic researchers and their awareness about the possibilities of starting a new business and pursuing an entrepreneurial career (Mustar and Wright 2010). Among these, there are initiatives such as business plan competitions and technology transfer services (Parente et al 2015;Siegel et al 2007). In the last years, start-up competitions are booming all over the world.…”

A Processual Approach for the Quadruple Helix Model: the Case of a Regional Project in Uppsala

“…The media, with general cultural expressions and values (ibid 2011), are seen as part of how public reality is constructed in national innovation systems (ibid, 2009). For example, through media, startup competitions can improve a firm's reputation and facilitate legitimacy (Parente et al 2015). Thus, media attention can influence the effects of startup competitions on supporting technology transfer processes of academic spinoffs (ibid).…”

“…On the other hand, the university and spinoff are now merged and move forward in the process together, as the researchers/academic entrepreneurs are taking over the responsibility for funding applications and wait for approved funding to become more active in the commercialization process. Startup competitions may help academic spinoffs gain visibility, which can help them to have access to valuable resources (Parente et al 2015). In the same way, after winning third place in a business plan competition, Current Power AB was set up with the funds that it got from the competition.…”