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Several academic studies have examined the investment performance of initial public offerings (IPOs). Since the underwriters desire to have the offering sell out quickly, they have an incentive to underprice the securities offering. A number of studies have found that new equity issues are generally underpriced and produce positive abnormal short‐term returns. Like IPOs, spin‐offs are issues which are new to the public capital markets. However, unlike IPOs, spin‐offs do not involve an underwriter which determines the offering price of the security. Spin‐offs are also similar to corporate sell‐offs in that a parent company makes a decision to divest a division or subsidiary; however, in a spin‐off the business unit is not sold for cash or securities. Instead, spin‐offs occur when a parent corporation distributes its entire holdings of stock in a subsidiary on a pro‐rata basis to the parent's shareholders. These transactions have the effect of completing the separation of the assets and liabilities of the parent and the subsidiary. Thus, two separate public corporations with the same proportional equity holdings now exist whereas only one firm existed previously.

The aim of the paper is to present a theoretical approach and an empirical analysis of factors affecting the spin-off creation, as although research on spin-off has increasingly received attention in recent years, few studies have focused on the main factors of the spin-off creation.

Considering the exploratory nature of our research objectives, the Université Libre de Bruxelles cases were chosen to evidence macro-, meso- and microfactors that affect the university's ability to create a spin-off.

Many factors that affect the spin-off creation were evidenced.

A multilevel perspective for the spin-off analysis was offered.

Global technological competition has made technology transfer from academia to firms an important public policy issue (Rahm, 1994). Academia and individual academic institutions are a primary source of new knowledge production and innovation (Brennan & McGowan, 2007). It is widely acknowledged that the commercialization of scientific and technological knowledge produced in public funded research institutions, including universities and research centres, into the marketplace have a fundamental role to play in wealth creation, supporting economic growth and technological innovation, and plays a significant role in new venture creation, growth of existing firms, and new job creation (Mansfield, 1991; Harmon et al., 1997; Ndonzuau, Pirnay, & Surlemont, 2002; Siegel, Waldman, Atwater, & Link, 2003b; Steffensen, Rogers, & Speakman, 1999; Walter, Auer, & Ritter, 2006; Perez & Sanchez, 2003). Research by Acs, Audretsch, and Feldman (1992), Jaffe (1989), Mansfield (1991, 1998), and others indicates that technological change in important segments of the economy has been significantly based on knowledge that spin-off from academic research.

Today's academic literature on new technology-based firms is rather growth and success-oriented, despite the fact that many valuable lessons can be learned from failures. This study aims at contributing to our understanding of failure processes by documenting five case studies of spin-offs that originated from European universities. Within the framework of the resource-based view of the firm and social capital theory, the venture's resource base is used as a central element in explaining the failures through the presence or absence of certain resources or by inappropriate application. The analysis mainly illustrated the negative influence of the lack of a champion, poor market development, the absence of market(ing) experience in the venture team and an unbalanced shareholder structure. The relatively small financial base seems rarely to be the main issues in the failure process.

Academic knowledge can be put to use in a commercial environment in several ways. One such mechanism to transfer knowledge to the market place is the start of a new, separate company, termed an academic spin-off company, with the aim to commercially develop and exploit the knowledge generated in the university (Fontes, 2003). In 1999, the Dutch Ministry of Economic affairs published a paper stating that the number of high-tech start-ups in the Netherlands lags behind compared to other EU countries and the United States. Subsequently, initiatives were started to stimulate commercial exploitation of knowledge generated within universities. A specific initiative by the Dutch government in the area of the Life Sciences was the so-called Biopartner programme. This was started in 2000 with the objective to enhance the business climate for start-ups in the Life Sciences and to realize 75 start-ups within 5 years (Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, 1999). Actions were directed toward increasing awareness, stimulating starters, establishing facilities like a seed fund and academic incubators, and promoting the commercialization of academic knowledge within universities. A few years later, the Technopartner program and the Valorization Grant were implemented with similar instruments aiming at scientists in universities (Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2003).

Following the triple helix (TH) model and the way knowledge is transferred into the industry domain, this chapter aims to define features interface that should be implemented in order to facilitate the University–Industry (UI) relationship and thus encourage the spin-off creation.

In order to support this relationship, a new business model configuration of an entrepreneurial ecosystem is proposed, aiming at creating a sustainable environment, where business entities can grow. The field of the Governance of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems is also investigated in order to define a framework for launching, developing, and sustaining a company over time.

This chapter presents a case study developed within the University of Salento (Italy). It capitalizes results from three different research analyses, based on questionnaires and interviews with actors of the spin-off network (professors and researchers, graduating students, admin-tech staff of the Technology Transfer Office, spin-offs’ CEOs/Associates, and R&D managers of external companies) and on results coming from scientific publications and regional/national reports in the innovation context.

A research methodology based on semantic network analysis and sentiment analysis has been applied in order to identify which features an interface should implement in order to facilitate the UI relationship and encourage the spin-off creation.

To support the start-up overcoming the “death valley,” the creation of a link between the strategy used to transfer value to the market and the phase of innovation is proposed inside the business model configuration. Some aspects of a governance model of an entrepreneurial ecosystem were also presented in order to support the business evolution of a single business entity and assuring sustainability over time.

This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of the spin-off policy which includes clarity of objectives and criteria, implementation and monitoring and evaluation functions.

The method used is a qualitative method with a theme approach and the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Data were obtained from the results of focus group discussions and AHP questionnaires with informants from Indonesian Sharia Insurance Association (AASI), the sharia life and general insurance industry, the Sharia Supervisory Board, the government and regulators.

The results of the research are the effectiveness of the clarity of goals and criteria has not been realized optimally, the effectiveness of increasing profitability has not been realized, and the effectiveness of the monitoring and evaluation functions by the government and regulators has been realized. The supporting factor that has the highest level of importance is the role of the government and regulator.

The limitation of this research is that it has not used a wider range of profitability test tools and projections. The theoretical implication of this research is as a reference for robust research in identifying spin-off success factors because this study uses a mixed method where qualitative methods are used in the study using data from theory and expert informants from three parties: regulatory parties, associations (AASI) and the insurance company (life insurance and general insurance). These results form the basis for compiling a questionnaire with a quantitative method so that the data is become relevant based on theory (design) and practical side.

Practical implication of the study is that the Islamic insurance industry has to prepare to achieve condition of Tabarru funds and the investment reaches 50% of the main insurance fund. AASI, as the sharia insurance industry organization, continues innovating the most suitable form of spin-off that can be achieved by the Sharia business unit and also continues to coordinate with regulators to discuss existing problems. The government and regulators also support the implementation of the spin-off by providing convenience in various aspects such as spin-off period relaxation and government incentive and relaxation to enhance sharia insurance industry.

The contribution of the results of this research for the government and regulatory agencies is as input in setting policies and regulations related to spin-offs, for the industry is expected to be more prepared in terms of resources, commitment and strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of spin-off announcements on the parent firm’s share prices. Also, it is studied that during which period the announcement impacts the share prices significantly thereby affecting the shareholder wealth.

A sample of 76 Indian firms has been taken which announced the spin-off of their one or more divisions during 2010–2011 to 2015–2016. The authors have used the event study methodology with an event window period of −35 to +35. Estimation window of 256 (−290, −35) days is considered in the study. S&P BSE 500 is used as a market index.

The authors found that spin-offs have a significantly positive influence on the share prices of the parent firm. The authors also found that average abnormal return (AAR) of all the 76 companies taken together have been highest on day 0 and the cumulative AAR is highest for day +1. These results are in consonance with what had been concluded by Hite and Owers (1983), Cusatis et al. (1993), Miles and Rosenfeld (1983) and Rosenfeld (1984). All these studies are based on the data derived from the USA. Outcome of this study substantiates the same results when Indian spin-offs are analysed.

This paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of Indian spin-offs on the shareholder’s wealth.

The paper is concerned with spin‐off firms and the process by which a new firm is created and formed from a university. The objectives are to examine characteristics of firms generated by this process, and the intensity of the spin‐off firms' network activity with the parent organisation and the local environment during this process.

The findings are based on a case‐study consisting out of three firms spun‐off from a research centre at Linköping University in the area of visualisation and computer graphics. The source data are gathered from semi‐structured interviews. No generalisation should be drawn from this study due to the small number of firms interviewed and the scope of the technological area addressed.

The results show the importance of collaboration between the university spin‐off, with both the parental organisation and outside organisms, to acquire external competencies in the technological area. The parental organisation plays a pivotal role in the spin‐off process, especially in its early stage where its catalyses the emergence of the business idea by supporting the spin‐off firm with infrastructure and expertise in a specific field of mentorship. However, as the spin‐off evolves, this pre‐incubation service complements yet more support services of municipality and region, which stand to be more important in the technological and business development of the spin‐off.

University spin‐offs have an important place in the innovation process, but their promotion must be part of a wider policy package encouraging networking not only with the host university, but with industry and the public sector as well. For universities and public research organisations, it is advisable to take a more active role in the spin‐off process beyond the pre‐incubation stage.

Literature on spin-offs still lacks a thorough understanding of the forces governing spin-off performance. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by taking a network perspective.

The paper combines the literature on spin-offs with the network approach to new ventures to proposing a model showing how networking in the pre-entry phases affects a spin-off's survival and early growth.

The intensity and variety of interactions between the future entrepreneur (FE) and other individual actors has a positive impact on spin-off performance in both the incubation and the emergence phases. The degree of overlap between the network of the incubation phase and the network of the emergence phase also reinforces the effects of the intensity and variety of these interactions on performance during the emergence phase. Finally, entrepreneurial innovativeness is an antecedent of spin-off performance in that it requires different degrees of overlap between the network of the incubation phase and the network of the emergence phase.

Being a conceptual paper, the study needs the support of empirical research. For example, samples of spin-offs achieving a high and low performance could be compared in relation to their FE's networking activity.

The paper creates a bridge between the inherited knowledge approach to spin-offs and the network approach to new ventures to provide a framework for explaining spin-off performance.