While recent research indicates that combining scientific and entrepreneurial activities at the level of academic scientists is feasible, the literature has remained muted on the dynamics behind such successful combinations. Indeed, little is known about how researchers avoid conflicts of...

The influence of the university department upon spin-off venture evolution is complex and dynamic. We examine how the university department context influences the spin-off process from the perspectives of both the spin-off venture and the department. By comparing the development of...

Innovative new ventures are at the heart of economic development, particularly when these startups are created by employee, academic, and user innovators. We synthesize across literature streams examining each phenomena to document distinctions between firms originating from different...

Earlier research on the role of universities in fostering entrepreneurial economic development almost exclusively covers spin-offs by faculty and staff. In contrast, we provide general evidence from the U.S. showing that the gross flow of start-ups by recently graduated students with an...

A considerable body of work highlights the relevance of collaborative research, contract research, consulting and informal relationships for university–industry knowledge transfer. We present a systematic review of research on academic scientists’ involvement in these activities to which we...

Like the US before it, Japan has adopted a series of policy initiatives designed to encourage the commercialization of academic science. However, such initiatives may also adversely affect “open-science”. Based on matched surveys of almost 1000 researchers in Japan and over 800 in the US,...

We argue that the current focus of the academic entrepreneurship literature, which is mostly on patent-based activities such as spinouts and licensing, should be widened to also include other informal commercial and non-commercial activities that are entrepreneurial in nature. We define as...

An impressive literature documents how individual-level factors correlate with entrepreneurship and commercialization behaviors. We have far less insight, however, into how different organizational contexts may, in fact, play a dominant role in shaping these individuals and their behaviors. In...