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This study aims to ascertain the personal characteristics of a group of successful academic entrepreneurs in a South African university enterprise and the prevalent barriers and enablers to their entrepreneurial endeavour.

The authors used a Delphi process to identify and rank the characteristics, enablers, barriers and behaviours of entrepreneurial academics, with a Nominal Group Technique applied to establish challenges they encounter managing their enterprise and to propose solutions.

Perseverance, resilience and innovation are critical personal characteristics, while collaborative networks, efficient research infrastructure and established research competence are essential for success. The university’s support for entrepreneurship is a significant enabler, with unnecessary bureaucracy and poor access to project and general enterprise funding an impediment. Successful academic entrepreneurs have strong leadership, and effective management and communication skills.

The main limitation is the small study participant group drawn from a single university enterprise, which complicates generalisability. The study supported the use of Krueger’s (2009) entrepreneurial intentions model for low- and middle-income country (LMIC) academic entrepreneur investigation but proposed the inclusion of mitigators to entrepreneurial activation to recognise contextual deficiencies and challenges.

Skills-deficient LMIC universities should extensively and directly support their entrepreneurial academics to overcome their contextual deficiencies and challenging environment.

This study contributes to addressing the paucity of academic entrepreneur research in LMIC contexts by identifying LMIC-specific factors that inhibit the entrepreneur’s movement from entrepreneurial intention to entrepreneurial action.

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.

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.

Academic entrepreneurship is seen as a pathway for universities to create value from their knowledge. However, there has been a lack of clarity about what activities constitute academic entrepreneurship, the different type of entrepreneurial academics and how their perceptions of their environment relate to their engagement.

Drawing on a large data set of 10,836 responses across 33 countries, the empirical study investigates European academics who undertake four academic entrepreneurship activities (spin-out creation, commercialisation of R&D results, joint R&D and consulting) to determine if they perceive the environment for academic entrepreneurship differently than those who undertake only some of the activities and those undertaking none at all.

The findings show that less than 1% of academics undertake exclusively spin-offs creation or R&D commercialisation; however, the majority also engage in other entrepreneurial activities such as joint R&D and consulting and even other education and management engagement activities with industry. In addition, entrepreneurial academics in Europe perceive significantly higher motivators and more developed supporting mechanisms for academic entrepreneurship. However, their perceptions of barriers are similar.

At a managerial and policy level, the study results call into question universities prioritising a narrow view of academic entrepreneurship which focusses only on spin-offs creation and R&D commercialisation. Instead, a broader view of academic entrepreneurship is recommended and appropriate mechanisms in place to enable academics to achieve research outcomes from their entrepreneurial activity.

This paper offers an important contribution on how the perception of the environment contributes to the development of entrepreneurial behaviour in individual academics.

The commercialization of research produced by universities constitutes a core facet of academic entrepreneurship (AE). Academic literature reveals the need to shed light on entrepreneurial processes in higher education institutions (HEIs). This study intends to fill this gap by researching the mechanisms for facilitating AE and the variables that can moderate the relationship between such mechanisms and AE in Portuguese HEIs.

Our research model aims to assess the mechanisms of academic entrepreneurship (AE) within a sample of 125 Portuguese public higher education institutions (HEIs). To test our research hypotheses, we employed a structural equation model (SEM) using the partial least squares (PLS) method. Additionally, our evaluation examines the potential moderating effects of incubator programs, support initiatives, and proof-of-concept programs (PoCs). Our research model seeks to evaluate the mechanisms for facilitating AE and explore the effects of including incubator programs, support initiatives, and PoCs as moderators. The seven variables (Research mobilization, Unconventionality, Industry collaboration, University policies, Incubator programs and support initiatives, Proof-of-concept programs, and academic entrepreneurship) were measured using a 7-point Likert scale.

The results revealed that different drivers of AE influence the creation and development of entrepreneurial activities. Our findings also show the moderating effects of incubator programs, support initiatives, and proof-of-concept programs on AE. We find that incubator programs, other support initiatives, and PoCs maintain a moderating effect on AE and benefit their respective HEIs.

The study examines only the Portuguese HEI context. Therefore, generalizing these results necessitates reservations. However, the responses came from various actors in HEIs, from different academic backgrounds and research interests. This makes the results more generalizable. Limitations are evident in external validity, given that we gathered the data over a relatively short period.

Observed factors are explored to gain a deeper understanding of their influence on the mechanisms of AE. The implications arise from the new perspective presented and the methodology used to identify mechanisms capable of fostering AE. We hope this research will encourage other researchers to study this topic further.

the engagement of universities at the global level should be emphasised in future policy. While universities in innovation systems often have a local focus, their engagement in innovation ecosystems transcends the boundaries of geographic locations.

PoCs had a significant positive moderating effect on the impact of research mobilization and university policies on AE. Thus, we find interactions between universities and industry boost AE. This study demonstrates how AE benefits HEIs by extending orientation towards mobilizing research, unconventional approaches, cooperation with industry, and university policy implementation. We thus advocate a new approach, demonstrating the influence that the mobility of research, unconventionality, industry collaboration, and university policies hold over AE.

This study critically analyzes the micro-, meso- and macro-level factors that influence the female academics to engage in academic entrepreneurship (AE). The extant literature, which seeks to understand the female academics engagement in AE mostly revolves around a gender-comparative lens, where women entrepreneurs are understood only in comparison with men. This study examines the association between informal academic entrepreneurship (IAE) and the level of asymmetry between the micro-, meso- and macro-level factors (5M framework). In this study, the author conducted three interviews with female academics in Bangladesh.

The need for dynamic and innovative skills and the importance of resources and individuals in pursuit of new opportunities prove to be extremely vital for the higher education institutions (HEI). The purpose of this paper is to develop a taxonomy of academics from HEI, based on their individual entrepreneurial orientation (EO).

The population in study was composed of teachers and researchers from worldwide HEI. The data collection was conducted through a questionnaire sent by an e-mail and the authors used the I-ENTRE-U scale to identify entrepreneurial-oriented teachers and researchers from HEI. A Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify profiles of researchers with similar values in four EO dimensions.

The study allowed the authors to identify five profiles of researchers: downers, achievers, followers, defenders and rebels.

The results can be an important starting point for other researchers and practitioners hoping to evaluate academics’ EO in a higher education sector. The taxonomy also allows wider predictions about the behaviour of the profile members of profiles and relates it with other variables such as performance. Further contributions may be added by extending the data gathering from different geographical areas and/or different academic contexts, such that future studies could apply other LPA techniques and compare the results.

Only few studies have focussed on individual EO of scientists/academics, considering different national and regional contexts. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study that develops a taxonomy of academics from HEI, based on their individual EO.

The objective of this research is to have an up-to-date and comprehensive assessment of the current knowledge regarding the variables that encourage the individuals, within the academic community, to get involved in knowledge exploitation activities. It is influenced by the observation that there is a need for more systematic scrutiny of micro-level processes to deepen our understanding of academic entrepreneurship (Balven et al., 2018; Wright and Phan, 2018). The study proposes to answer to ‘What are the drivers of academic entrepreneurial intentions?’ and ‘What are the emerging topics for future research?’

The paper follows a Systematic Literature Review process (Tranfield et al., 2003) and adopts a four-step process format from previous literature reviews within the entrepreneurship context (Miller et al., 2018). From the results within Scopus and Web of Science databases, this research selected, evaluated, summarised and synthesised 66 relevant papers.

This study provides a factor-listed representation of the individual, organisational and institutional variables that should be considered in the strategies defined by the university. Moreover, the study concludes that the push factors behind the intentions are multiple, context-dependent, hierarchy-dependent, heterogeneous and, at the same time, dependent on each other and against each other. Lastly, the study contributes to academic entrepreneurship literature, especially entrepreneurial intention literature, which has recently received more researchers' attention.

The study corroborates that the individual factors, directly and indirectly via Theory of Planned Behaviour, strongly impact the academics' intentions. While the focus of the papers under review was an in-depth analysis of a selected group of factors, this SLR sought to compile the factors that were identified and provide a broader picture of all those factors to be considered by the university management. It contributes to the identification and clustering of the drivers that encourage academics to engage in knowledge valorisation activities, differentiating them by activity. For the practitioners, this list can be used by university managers, TTOs and department managers, and policymakers to guide questionnaires or interviews to analyse their academics' intentions and adequately support its academic engagement strategy. Lastly, this study also suggests worthwhile avenues for future research.

The purpose of this study is firstly to analyze whether the determining factors of the entrepreneurial intention of academics are the same for men and women and test whether their degree of importance varies depending on gender, and secondly to test whether the lesser entrepreneurial intention of women detected in previous studies is because of the lesser presence of the determining factors of entrepreneurial intention among women or, on the contrary, is determined by the existence of implicit barriers that do not depend on these factors.

After conducting a survey on a sample of 1,178 academics, the results of a linear regression model confirm the hypothesis that female academics have less of an entrepreneurial intention.

Moreover, through the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition, it is observed that this lesser female entrepreneurial behavior is not because of the absence of any of the factors considered as determinants of entrepreneurial intention, but instead is related to the existence of implicit barriers for women that influence their entrepreneurial intention.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that a study of this nature has been conducted internationally. Unlike other studies on academic entrepreneurship, the authors do not restrict the sample to one or two universities but rather aim the study at all universities in Spain and, therefore, at all academics from all branches of knowledge.

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).