Academic spin-offs: counting beans or extracting value?

We argue that current approaches do not take into full account the process through which Universities create new spin-offs. Instead, we claim that the overall process through which these arrangements impact on spin-offs’ performance can vary considerably and that this process should be interpreted in terms of University-level managerial practices in place for the creation and development of University spinoffs. Managerial practices are likely to play an important role in explaining the systematic difference in performance across spinoffs spun from different Universities. We rely on a longitudinal dataset comprising more than 800 Italian University spin-offs observed over the period 2000-2011 and additional data collection via questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to 68 Italian University TTOs. The scope is to juxtapose the above issues and to begin to uncover the black box of “managerial practices – spinoff creation/performance” in terms of antecedents and impact of a range of managerial activities not adequately covered by the extant literature. The results of this paper should therefore contribute to fill an important gap in the existing literature on university-industry knowledge transfer and academic entrepreneurship. Implications would inform policy makers and university managers about how to direct investments.