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The economic impact of scientific research is receiving widespread attention all over the world, with interest being paid to research results that could potentially contribute to economic growth. There have been various policy responses in many African countries to facilitate the nation’s transition from a production-based to an innovation-based economy, especially in the universities. The effort is, however taken for granted that scientists (researchers) are now having academic entrepreneurship mindset. The purpose of this paper is to attempt at developing a model that integrates individual, organisational and institutional determinants of academic entrepreneurship, which can facilitate the ability to cross the “valley of death”.

The paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature to establish the factors that influence the capacity of academic researchers to discover and exploit opportunities for converting knowledge into commercialisable products.

The findings indicate that exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities is driven by the extent of previous collaboration with industry, cognitive integration and prior entrepreneurial experience. Moreover, the university institutional environment must encourage and facilitate the creation of university spin-offs.

The paper and the proposed framework are based on theoretical suppositions related to the determinant factors underlying the formation of academic entrepreneurial intentions. Therefore, an empirical analysis is required to measure each factor proposed in this model.

Considering the present weak national innovation system and university-industry linkages, universities in developing countries will require more than the production of potentially useful knowledge. There is need for conscious efforts by the university administration to put in place mechanisms that will facilitate the commercialisation of knowledge being produced in the university, encourage active participation in designing marketable products, as well as playing a leadership role in ensuring successful commercialisation.

The findings and framework developed in this paper can serve as an input to the design of policies that can stimulate the entrepreneurial activity of the academic researchers so that they can further contribute to technological development and economic growth in African countries.

Majority of the empirical studies on entrepreneurship in developing countries have not attempted to understand the entrepreneurial intention of university academic (researchers). But the current efforts of integrating economic development as an additional function to research and teaching of the universities in developing countries requires that they should operate more entrepreneurially. Therefore, this paper is proposing a framework that might stimulate the creation and development of entrepreneurial university thereby making the university to effectively fulfil its teaching, research and entrepreneurial missions.

This paper aims to understand, in the state of São Paulo academic environment, the differences between the profiles of academic entrepreneurs, nonacademic entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs.

The authors collected data from a more comprehensive research, whose objective was to evaluate the scholarship programmes of São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). For data collection, the authors used an online questionnaire, pre-filled with information from the Lattes Curriculum of the sample individuals, as well as information obtained from FAPESP and from coordination for the improvement of higher education personnel. The response rate of the questionnaires was 21 per cent. The authors sought to explore the variables regarding entrepreneurial activities carried out by former scholarship holders, by relating them to other key variables identified in the literature review and explained in the hypotheses.

The results indicate that entrepreneurship rates decrease with the higher academic level of the researcher; in general, academic entrepreneurs come from families with a good financial situation, and applied sciences are the areas of knowledge with more entrepreneurs.

Despite the great number of theoretical and empirical studies found in the literature on entrepreneurship and academic entrepreneurship, there is still a shortage of practical studies on this latter topic in Brazil. This gap is even more evident when the authors consider the significant growth of entrepreneurial activity in the country in the past years. This paper contributes to fill this gap, and it aims to understand, in the state of São Paulo academic environment, the differences between the profiles of academic entrepreneurs, nonacademic entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs.

The aim of the paper was to investigate entrepreneurship in a university setting and in particular amongst university managers, established academic entrepreneurs and nascent academic entrepreneurs. The purpose was to better understand the enablers and barriers to entrepreneurship taking place.

A qualitative, sense‐making methodology was used involving a single case method and a purposeful sampling approach. A three‐stage design strategy consisted of: identification of key themes by questioning university policy makers, managers and academic entrepreneurs; development of a questionnaire to profile academic entrepreneurs; and use of the questionnaire to assess preferences amongst nascent academic entrepreneurs

Four types of academic entrepreneur (hero, maverick, broker and prospector) were identified based on different approaches by individual academics to the use/production of discipline knowledge and the nature of their relationship with the host university.

The single case research is perceived as a limitation. Future studies will involve refining the level of analysis in terms of different disciplines and institutions.

The results suggest that interventions to promote entrepreneurship within universities ought to consider different strategies in order to take account of preferences amongst nascent entrepreneurs.

The paper looks at entrepreneurship in universities from a corporate perspective rather than from an individual perspective. The powerful influence of the university organisational setting is therefore recognised in terms of the creation of enablers and barriers to academic entrepreneurship taking place.

This paper aims to identify factors that influence the outcomes of academic entrepreneurship at the University of Tehran.

The research questionnaires were randomly distributed, and 95 individuals, including professors and experts in the field of academic entrepreneurship at the University, answered the questions. The population was estimated to include 150 subjects; 100 questionnaires were distributed totally; and 95 questionnaires were finally collected.

The results obtained from the data analysis indicate that institutions (formal and informal) and organizational factors (resources and capabilities) have a significant impact on the success of academic entrepreneurship. In addition, the results from an effect size analysis revealed that capabilities and informal resources have the strongest impact on the academic entrepreneurship outcomes. Limitations and directions for future research are provided at the end of the study.

It is a pioneering work that identifies the factors that influence academic entrepreneurship outcomes at the University of Tehran in a specific context such as Iran. Guerrero and Urbano’s (2012) entrepreneurial university model, which is built on the theory of institutional economy (North, 1990) and the resource-based view (Barney, 1991), has been adapted as the theoretical framework.

To explore, describe and explain what processes are at work in facilitating or inhibiting entrepreneurship amongst academics.

A corporate entrepreneurship perspective is used to construct a framework for understanding academic entrepreneurship at different ontological levels within a university context. A single case study method is adopted involving a purposeful sampling strategy of academic entrepreneurs within one university. A sense‐making approach investigated the practice of entrepreneurship by academics.

Develops a tentative framework for bounding the phenomenon of academic entrepreneurship and presents a model that attempts to identify key elements of academic entrepreneurship in terms of different modes of knowledge production and value‐creating processes.

The single case setting limits the applicability of the research to other institutions. However, the framework and model that are developed and the overall approach are valuable contributions to an important, emerging research area. The academic entrepreneurship framework provides a series of logically related conceptual bins that form a basis for future research. The model of academic entrepreneurship attempts to explain how academics produce different types of knowledge.

The paper suggests that academic entrepreneurs have a complex set of relationships with their parent disciplines and the university setting within which they operate. The outcomes indicate that orthodox models of entrepreneurship are not always meaningful as regards understanding what academic entrepreneurs actually do in practice.

The paper investigates a little‐understood phenomenon and one that is increasingly important for UK policy makers and university administrators. The academic entrepreneurship framework and model is an original and valuable contribution to the study of this phenomenon.

We conjecture that there are five stages to academic entrepreneurship: motivation, governance, selection, competition, and performance. The process of academic entrepreneurship originates with the motivation of faculty, universities, industry, and government to commercialize knowledge that originates within the university setting. The model conceptualizes that the governance and competitiveness of the commercialized knowledge moderate the mode selection and ultimately the performance of academic entrepreneurship. The conceptual and empirical support for the model are derived from a theory-driven synthesis of articles related to academic entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to draw on literature underpinning social support to explore individual level considerations when designing social support systems for academic entrepreneurs.

The paper draws from literature in the fields of entrepreneurship, organisational support, stress and coping, and conservation of resources theory to conceptualise social support in an academic entrepreneurship setting.

Provides an expanded definition and a framework of social support. The definition signals the complex nature of delivering social support by considering mechanisms through which the concept is operationalised. These include the content of social support, relationships it occurs within, mode of delivery of support and finally outcomes of such support. A social support influencer pentagram is presented of elements that, together, or separately may affect how individuals seek, receive or perceive support in the academic entrepreneurship context. The framework may also have implications for organisations in other contexts.

Future research should explore the content, delivery mode and timing of support sought and/or received and perceived as helpful and the types of relationships within which these might occur. The impact of this on academic entrepreneurship and variation of these inputs and outputs with respect to the types of actors involved should be considered. It underscores the need, in empirical research, for in-depth understanding of the context of each incident of support regardless of organisational context.

This paper illustrates the challenges of designing a supportive culture and the conceptual contribution forewarns policy makers of the need to design multi-faceted, flexible and adaptive social support systems.

This paper seeks to establish the value and complex nature of social support as a medium to encourage academic entrepreneurship by providing a broader definition of social support and a framework of elements that may affect whether individuals seek, receive or perceive support within the academic entrepreneurship setting. To our knowledge, it is one of the first papers in an academic entrepreneurship setting which recognises the dual separate paths [based on stress and coping theory (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984) and conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989)] from the perception of support and the objective support itself to entrepreneurial outcomes. The proposed framework also seeks to contribute to a greater understanding of the ways in which social systems might influence the success of an individual academic’s entrepreneurial endeavours and those of others with whom they interact. It also contributes to the wider social support literature by providing a better understanding of how individuals might break resource loss spirals (Hobfoll et al., 2018).

This paper examines and discusses the need for micro-level analyses of academic entrepreneurship and outlines a micro-level research agenda for the study of academic entrepreneurship.

Based on a review of academic literature on academic entrepreneurship, this study focuses on individual actors and suggests some future research agendas.

The authors highlight that more studies dealing with academic entrepreneurship need to take a micro-level perspective, thereby outline several fruitful avenues of research: (1) star scientists and principal investigators, (2) TTO professionals, (3) graduate entrepreneurs, (4) university administrators, (5) policy makers and funders as well as (6) micro-level organisational routines.

This paper derives three main implications for management practice and policy. First, there is a real need to develop the managerial skills, competencies and capabilities of scientists and individuals. Second, policy makers need to ensure the necessary resources to pursue a paradigm shift towards more entrepreneurial thinking and action and create adequate incentives. Third, firms need to offer support and guidance on how to best commercialise and transfer scientific knowledge and ideally complement support structures of universities and research institutes.

This paper provides an organising framework for the study of micro-level academic entrepreneurship and emphasises the need to focus further on individual actors and how their actions, behaviours and approaches contribute to academic entrepreneurship in different institutional, environmental and cultural contexts.

Drawing on the social cognition theory, the purpose of this research is to explore how selected individual and organizational determinants, namely individual academic output (AO) and previous commercialization experience, organizational scientific reputation and entrepreneurial support policies (ESPs) influence their broadly-defined academic entrepreneurial intentions, involving spin-off intention (SOI), patenting and licensing intention (PLI), contract research and consulting intention (CCI) through theory of planned behaviour (TPB) modelling.

The current research constructs the framework by combining reciprocal determinism in the social cognition theory with TPB. To testify the hypotheses, partial least squares structural equational modelling (PLS–SEM) technique with 272 observations from Chinese universities was utilized.

The findings show that academic-related determinants, namely individual AO and organizational reputation (OR), are more likely to influence academic scientists' SOI through TPB modelling, while entrepreneurial-related determinants in terms of individual previous commercialization experience (PCE) and ESPs in higher education organizations are more influential for promoting behavioural intention to all kinds of academic entrepreneurship activities through TPB modelling. The more formal academic entrepreneurship involvement (engaging in creating spin-offs) is better explained through TPB modelling, especially the continuous mediating effects of subjective norms and entrepreneurial attitude and perceived behavioural control are more effective on spin-off activities. In addition, subjective norms are more influential in mediating relationships between individual or organizational antecedents and academic entrepreneurial intentions in the Chinese context.

Combining the social cognition theory and TPB, this study first investigated how individual intentions to engage in broadly-defined academic entrepreneurial activities are promoted through TPB modelling. The results, relating to the divergence of different determinants shaping different academic entrepreneurial intentions through various paths in TPB modelling, will provide insight into university managers and policymakers to improve academic entrepreneurship engagement in the Chinese context.

This study aims to investigate whether and how academic entrepreneurship can grow in less technologically advanced conditions, particularly those seen in emerging markets. The objective was to examine the pre-conditions for the birth and growth of university-based ventures in Thailand, where science commercialisation has not yet flourished.

A single case study approach was adopted for the in-depth study of the birth of an unusual entrepreneurial initiative in one academic unit within a dental school, an environment that typically focuses on academic work. Data from interviews with key members working in this unit were analysed to reveal the pre-conditions of entrepreneurship within this Thai university department, with a focus on the existing understanding of academic entrepreneurship.

Social conditions, rather than technology-related motives, were important for the birth of the university-based venture examined. Key triggers for academic entrepreneurship in this situation were found to closely align with a model of social entrepreneurship.

Evidence from this emerging economy can help expand the typology of academic entrepreneurship. In addition to the technology-led ventures typically seen, the results from this study call for socially oriented university-based ventures that tackle social problems in local society.