MOTIVATION AND SUCCESS OF ACADEMIC SPIN-OFFS: EVIDENCE FROM HUNGARY

Abstract

Universities today are expected to play a major role in contributing to economic competitiveness and especially through the process of commercializing research results. There is much evidence that firms started by university researchers are effective channels of knowledge from the academic sphere to the private sector. To encourage the creation of university spin-offs, first we have to understand the goals and motivations of academic entrepreneurs. This paper includes the empirical study of 80 Hungarian spin-off owners, who run their own firm besides retaining their position at the university. The purpose is to explore the motives that drive academics to start their own business and to test the relationship between motivations and entrepreneurial success. Success is measured from both objective and subjective aspects. The former refers to quantitative indices related to business performance such as firm revenue, change of revenue, number of employees and firm age. The latter refers to the self-evaluation of one's success as an academic entrepreneur. Subjective success is measured on the one hand by the researcher's own entrepreneurial success criteria, while on the other hand by the perceived degree to which his or her knowledge has been commercialized on the market. The results show that the dissatisfaction with the university salary (necessity) is the most important motive for starting a venture in the academic sphere. The studied entrepreneurial motivations, except for necessity, have a significant relationship with subjective success, but a weaker or no relationship with objective success. The results also highlight the importance of research-related motives, which have a relatively strong link with subjective success (mainly with the subjective success of technology transfer), and are also related to some objective performance indicators of the venture such as revenue. Although the need for achievement and the need for independence are not key motivations for starting a spin-off venture, they have a relatively strong relationship with subjective entrepreneurial success.

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