Abstract
Academic spin-offs, i.e., new venture projects backed by one or more researchers, are attracting increasing attention by researchers and policy makers as an effective way to increase the rate of technology transfer from Public Research Organizations (PROs) to the business environment. With the aim of supporting technology transfer processes, in the last years, many universities have carry out specific policies and a wide range of programs addressed to the development of academic entrepreneurship. Among these, the organization of a start-up competition is rather popular. But, how effective do such activities result, in particular the start-up competitions, in supporting academic researchers toward entrepreneurship? Are these kinds of initiatives able to raise the level of the reputation of academic entrepreneurial projects? If so, would such social capital have any real impact on the entrepreneurial development of academic spin-off? Is this social capital able to improve the spin-off’s ability to gain access to and acquire an initial stock of resources? Our exploratory research, following the emerging paradigm of the Quadruple-Helix Model, takes into consideration the mediating role of Media players in building visibility and reputation of nascent entrepreneurial projects from academia. The study that we performed is based on the results of web citations of business projects that won at least one prize awarded by an academic start-up competition. We consider the 2013 edition of the Italian universities business plan competitions (PNI), and we tried to measure the visibility and the reputation effect experienced by winners of local and national steps of the business plan competition. Implications of the study might be that investing in start-up competition is a useful mechanism to gain in visibility and might be useful as an ignition mechanism to start a positive entrepreneurship discourse about academic spin-offs among stakeholders that control access to valuable resources for them.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amit, R., & Schoemaker, P. J. (1993). Strategic assets and organizational rent. Strategic Management Journal, 14(1), 33–46.
Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99–120.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. New York: Doubleday
Bonaccorsi, A., & Daraio C., eds. (2007). Universities and strategic knowledge creation: specialization and performance in Europe. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham.
Brett, A., Gibson, D., & Smilor, R. (1991). University spin-off companies. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Inc, Maryland.
Burt, R. S. (1983). Corporate profits and cooptation. New York: Academic Press, New York.
Carayannis, E. G., & Campbell, D. F. J. (2012). Mode 3 knowledge production in quadruple helix innovation systems. Springer Briefs in Business, 7, 1–63.
Corley, K. G., & Gioia, D. A. (2004). Identity ambiguity and change in the wake of a corporate spin-off. Administrative Science Quarterly, 49(2), 173–208.
Dasgupta, P., & David P.A. (1994). Toward a new economics of science. Research Policy, 23(5), 487–521.
Deephouse, D. L. (2000). Media reputation as a strategic resource: an integration of mass communication and resource-based theories. Journal of Management, 26(6), 1091–1112.
Deerwester, S., Dumais, S. T., Furnas, G. W., Landauer, T. K., & Harshman, R. (1990). Indexing by latent semantic analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 41(6), 391–407.
Deutsch, Y., & Ross, T. W. (2003). You are known by the directors you keep: reputable directors as a signaling mechanism for young firms. Management Science, 49, 1003–1017.
Dierckx, I., & Cool, K. (1989). Asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage. Management Science, 35, 1504–1511.
Dollinger, M. J. (2003). Entrepreneurship: Strategies and resources. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Dowling, J., & Pfeffer, J. (1975). Organizational legitimacy: social values and organizational behavior. Pacific Sociological Review, 18(1), 122–136.
Etzkowitz, H., & Leydesdorff, L. (2000). The dynamics of innovation: from national systems and “mode 2” to a triple helix of university-industry-government relations. Research Policy, 29, 109–123.
Fernhaber, S. A., & McDougall‐Covin, P. P. (2009). Venture capitalists as catalysts to new venture internationalization: the impact of their knowledge and reputation resources. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 33(1), 277–295.
Fini, R., Grimaldi, R., Marzocchi, G. L., & Sobrero, M. (2011). Complements or substitutes? The role of universities and local context in supporting the creation of academic spin-off. Research Policy, 40(8), 1113–1127.
Fini, R., Grimaldi, R., Marzocchi, G. L., & Sobrero, M. (2012). The determinants of corporate entrepreneurial intention within small and newly established firms Entrepreneurship. Theory and Practice, 36(2), 387–414.
Florida, R. (1999). The role of the university: leveraging talent, not technology. Issues in Science and Technology, 15(Summer), 67–73.
Fombrun, C. (1996). Reputation: Realising value from the corporate image. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Fombrun, C. J., & Abrahamsn, E. (1988). Weaving the institutional fabric of organizational environments. Working paper, Graduate School of Business, New York University.
Fombrun, C. J., & Shanley, M. (1990). What’s in a name? Reputation building and corporate strategy. Academy of Management Journal, 33(2), 233–258.
Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hall, R. (1992). The strategic analysis of intangible resources. Strategic Management Journal, 13(2), 135–144.
Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1989). Organizational ecology. Cambridg, MA: Belknap Press.
Holmstrom, B., & Tirole J, (1989). The theory of the firm, in R. Schmalensee and R. Willing (eds.) Handbook of industrial organization, vol. 1, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam, North-Holland.
Itami, H. (1987). Mobilizing invisible assets. Harvard University Press, Cambridg, MA.
Katz, E. (1987). Communications research since Lazarsfeld. Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 51, Part 2: Supplement: 50th Anniversary Issue, S25–S45.
McQuail, D. (1985). Sociology of mass communication. Annual Review of Sociology, 11, 93–111.
Miles, R. H. (1982). Coffin nails and corporate strategies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Milgrom, P., & Roberts, J. (1986). Price and advertising signals of product quality. The Journal of Political Economy, 94(4), 796–821.
Mustar, P., & Wright, M. (2010). Convergence or path dependency in policies to foster the creation of university spin-off firms? A comparison of France and the United Kingdom. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 35(1), 42–65.
Parente, R. (2013). Recruiting partners for co-evolution: leveraging on sidecar investments and escalating commitment. In: Proceedings of EFMD entrepreneurship conference - empowering entrepreneurs for growth Madrid 4–5 March Pag.1–13.
Parente, R, & Feola, R. (2013). Entrepreneurial intent and entrepreneurial commitment of young researchers. International Journal of Technology Management & Sustainable Development Vol 12, n. 2, November 2012.
Peteraf, M. A. (1993). The cornerstones of competitive advantage: a resource‐based view. Strategic Management Journal, 14(3), 179–191.
Rao, H. (1994). The social construction of reputation: certification contests, legitimation and the survival of organizations in the American automobile industry: 1895-1912. Strategic Management Journal, 15, 29–44. (Supplement S1).
Resetarits, A., Resetarits-Tincul, A.M. (2012). Fuzzy concepts – a new approach in the description of boundaries as creative knowledge environments in educational sciences. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 3(1), 53–67.
Roberts, E. B. (1991). Entrepreneurs in high technology: Lesson from MIT and beyond. New York: Oxford University Press.
Roberts, P. W., & Dowling, G. R. (2002). Corporate reputation and sustained superior financial performance. Strategic Management Journal, 23(12), 1077–1093.
Roberts, E. B., & Malone, D. E. (1996). Policies and structures for spinning off new companies from. R & D Management, 26(1), 17–48.
Sahaym, A. (2013). Born with a silver spoon of legitimacy but struggling for identity? The paradox of emerging spin-offs in a new sector. Journal of Business Research, 66(11), 2210–2217.
Shane, S. (2004). Academic entrepreneurship. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Shane, S., & Cable, D. (2002). Network ties, reputation, and the financing of new ventures. Management Science, 48(3), 364–381.
Shapiro, C. (1983). Premiums for high quality products as returns to reputations. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 98(4), 659–679.
Siegel, D. S., Waldman, D., & Link, A. (2003). Assessing the impact of organizational practices on the relative productivity of university technology transfer offices: an exploratory study’. Research Policy, 32(1), 27–48.
Siegel, D. S., Wright, M., & Lockett, A. (2007). The rise of entrepreneurial activity at universities: organizational and societal implications’. Industrial and Corporate Change, 16, 489–504.
Socher, R., Perelygin, A., Wu, J. Y., Chuang, J., Manning, C. D, Ng, A. Y., & Potts, C. (2013). Recursive deep models for semantic compositionality over a sentiment treebank. Conference on empirical methods in natural language processing (EMNLP 2013, Oral).
Sohl, J. (2003). The private equity market in the USA: lessons from volatility. Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, 5(1), 29–46.
Sorrentino, M. (2008). Le imprese science-based. Roma: Carocci Editore, Roma.
Stuart, T. E., Hoang, H., & Hybels, R. C. (1999). Interorganizational endorsements and the performance of entrepreneurial ventures. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 315–349.
Suchman, M. (1995). Managing legitimacy: strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 571–610.
Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Vohora, A., Wright M., Lockett A. (2004). Critical junctures in the development of university high-tech spin-out companies. Research Policy, 33(1), 144–175.
Weigelt, K., & Camerer, C. (1988). Reputation and corporate strategy: a review of recent theory and applications. Strategic Management Journal, 9(5), 443–454.
Wiley, M. G., & Zald, M. N. (1968). The growth and transformation of educational accrediting agencies: an exploratory study in social control of institutions. Sociology of Education, 41(1), 36–56.
Wilson, R. (1985). Reputations in games and markets. In A. Roth (Ed), Game-theoretic models of bargaining (pp.27–62). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Parente, R., Feola, R., Cucino, V. et al. Visibility and Reputation of New Entrepreneurial Projects from Academia: the Role of Start-Up Competitions. J Knowl Econ 6, 551–567 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-015-0255-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-015-0255-6