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Séminaire d’économie de Bordeaux
Mardi 23 juin à 14h sur Zoom :
Silvio Vismara
(University of Bergamo)
« Goal and performance of academic spinoffs«
(avec Alice Civera and Michele Meoli)
ABSTRACT: Performance of academic spinoffs is puzzling. Some of them are successful, but most of them are not. The substantial differences in performance are explained by heterogeneity with regard to the goals that characterized these firms. Drawing from self-determination theory, we propose a taxonomy of goals, including profit, dimensional growth and survival which are originated by extrinsic monetary, extrinsic reputational and intrinsic motivations respectively. The study employs a mix method of analysis. The first qualitative part is based on 12 semi-structured interviews to academic spinoffs’ founder in order to assess how the motivation of academic scientists to start a business translates into organizational goals of their ventures. The second quantitative part analyses the difference in performance of 778 Italian academic spinoffs established by 59 Italian state universities from 2006 to 2015 according to their organizational goals. Results show that an extrinsic monetary motivation to establish academic spinoffs corresponds to a goal to realize profit, proxied in return-on-assets; extrinsic reputation motivation corresponds to an organizational growth goal measured by employment growth; and intrinsic motivation corresponds to an organizational survival goal easured by survival rate. The main implication of the study for policy makers is to encourage commercial engagement should build on reputational and intrinsic rather than purely financial motivations.