The Role of Academic Spin-Off Founders’ Motivation in the Hungarian Biotechnology Sector

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Part of the Advances in Spatial Science book series (ADVSPATIAL)

Abstract

Increasing attention towards the role of universities in regional development has resulted in a large number of publications over the past quarter of a century. A sizeable body of literature shows a specific focus on academic entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial activities in academia may take the forms of externally funded research, earning of supplemental income, trade secret generation (Louis et al. 1989), contract research, sales and testing, external teaching, patenting, licensing or spin-off firm formation (Klofsten and Jones-Evans 2000). Some of these activities have long been present in the scientific domain. However, there seems to be a recent turn in academic entrepreneurship as specific tasks related to science-directed commercialization in forms of patenting, licensing and spin-off firm formation have become significant elements of scientists’ everyday activities (Gulbrandsen and Slipersaeter 2007). Etzkowitz (1983) argues that entrepreneurial universities created by the second academic revolution are the result of a natural evolutionary process of these institutions as a response to declining resources, increasing competition and requirements set by the knowledge economy (Etzkowitz et al. 2000; Goldstein 2009).

Keywords

Intrinsic Motivation Entrepreneurial Activity Extrinsic Motivation Technology Transfer Office Regional Innovation System 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement n° 216813. We would like to express our special thanks to the useful comments and suggestions by Zoltán Bajmócy, János Barancsuk, Attila Buday-Sántha, Edward Bergman, Pablo D’Este, Javier Revilla-Diez, Harvey Goldstein, Simona Iammarino, Annamária Inzelt, Jan-Philipp Kramer, Francesco Lissoni, Gunther Maier, Gerd Schienstock, Sabine Sedlacek, Helen Lawton-Smith, Zoltán Szabó, László Szerb, Franz Tödtling, Michaela Trippl and Nick von Tunzelmann and also for the experts and consultants who offered their help by providing contacts to interviewees: Norbert Buzás, Kata Dobay, Arnold Fehér, Kinga Homolay, Zsolt Makra, Lenke Rónaszegi and Marcell Veidner and to all of the researchers who agreed to be interviewed. Comments and suggestions of the anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged. Of course the usual disclaimers apply.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Economics and Regional Studies, Faculty of Business and EconomicsUniversity of PécsPécsHungary

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