Marco Ferretti

An Individual‐Level Assessment of the Relationship between Spin‐Off Activities and Research Performance in Universities

One of the most problematic aspects in the creation of spin‐offs by university personnel concerns the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and research activity by researcher‐entrepreneurs. The literature has expressed varying and opposing views as to the nature of the relationship, but very little has been produced to empirically legitimate one position or another. The present work proposes to address this shortcoming by exploring the relationship existing between academic spin‐off generation and the research performance of enterprise founders. The study investigates whether, and to what extent, scientific performance by academic entrepreneurs is different than that of their colleagues, and if the involvement in entrepreneurial activity has an influence on the individuals research activity. The research questions are answered by considering all spin‐offs generated by Italian universities over the period 2001–2008 and evaluating, through a bibliometric approach, the scientific performance of founders relative to that of their colleagues who carry out research in the same field. The data show better scientific performance by the researcher‐entrepreneurs than that of their colleagues, and in addition, although there are some variations across fields, the creation of a spin‐off does not seem, on average, to have negative effects on the scientific performance of the founders.

The creation of Regional Innovation Systems in emerging countries: the case of Dubai

In recent years, the concept of the Regional Innovation System (RIS) has been developed. It is defined as the social system which involves interactions among different actors in a systematic way. Such interactions increase and enhance the localised learning capabilities of a region. Researchers and policymakers often do not have a clear idea about what the RIS is and what the policies are that should be implemented to create it. In the state-of-the-art literature there is often ambiguity in the use and definition of the RIS concept and the definitions regarding other local systems. Given this, the aim of this paper is to build a model that will give a narrow definition of RIS and identify the trajectories of its development. The model has been verified analysing the policies adopted for the development of an RIS in the Dubai area.

Technological acquisition processes in product development of large companies

Companies are increasingly required to invest larger portions of their revenues in Research and Development (RD and if a gap between the empirical evidence and the traditional literature on product innovation really exists.

The Creation of Local Innovation Systems in Emerging Countries

Introduction.- Local Innovation Systems in Emerging Countries.- The Government-Driven LISs.- The Firm-Driven LISs.- The University-Driven LISs.

FDI knowledge spillovers and host government policies: the Iranian experience

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is aimed at analysing the influence of the host government policies on foreign direct investment (FDI) knowledge spillovers.Design/methodology/approach – Starting from the analysis of the literature, the paper has introduced a theoretical model that has been illustrated analyzing the Iranian case.Findings – Governments can promote the realisation of knowledge spillovers only if they create the conditions for improving the absorptive capacity of local firms and the connections between local firms and foreign investors (strategic approach). Moreover, in many emerging countries, governments are directly involved in relationships with foreign investors through state‐owned companies. According to this, the Iranian case shows how the direct government involvement, if it is matched with a strategic approach, can encourage the realization of FDI knowledge spillovers.Research limitations/implications – The paper presents some limitations: other quadrants of the proposed model ne...

The University-Driven LISs

Theoretical conceptions of the role of universities in local innovation systems have evolved over the past 20 years, from an initial approach that stressed the importance of knowledge spillovers from university educational and research activities into their regional knowledge spaces, towards a new emphasis on the “third role” of universities, as animators of regional economic and social development. However the typical conception is that universities and research centres in developing countries take little part in stimulating the formation of LISs, with this mission instead being substituted by the state or large companies. This chapter analyses the role and the mechanisms through which universities can contribute to creation of LISs, first from a theoretical point of view. The theoretical arguments are then supported by an analysis of the role of the National University of Singapore, in driving the development of the “Biopolis” biotech LIS.

The Firm-Driven LISs

A substantial body of literature explains how the presence of a leading firm in an LIS has positive effects on cluster development. A number of studies underline the effects that leading organizations can have on spillovers, particularly in facilitating knowledge circulation and avoiding lock-in phenomenon. Such potentials exist especially for large firms. This chapter analyses the mechanisms that leading firms can implement to favour the formation and growth of local systems. It then provides a case study of the role of Acer Inc. in developing an information-technology LIS centred around Hsinchu, Taiwan, illustrating the positive effects from a leading firm.

Shock events and corporate announcements

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to verify if, in case of a shock event, there are types of corporate announcement that may influence stock price behaviour better than others. The authors also try to determine if the communication strategy may be affected by the type of shock event. Design/methodology/approach – Using the event study analysis, the authors estimate the Cumulative Abnormal Returns associated to the stocks of the selected firms hit by a shock event, in order to visualise the effectiveness of different types of corporate announcements after the event. Findings – The research confirms the negative effect of shock events on corporate stocks’ value. Moreover, the study envisages that financial market rewards companies that assume consistent and reassuring announcements during the event window. The authors also find that the effectiveness of corporate announcements is related to the shock’s typology. Research limitations/implications – The study employs a small and unbalanced sample of shoc...

What drives technology transitions? An integration of different approaches within transition studies

ABSTRACT This paper aims to provide a deeper understanding of transition drivers by reviewing four major strands of inquiry in transition studies: Multi Level Perspective (MLP); Strategic Niche Management (SNM); Transition Management (TM); Technological Innovation Systems (TIS). To the best of our knowledge, none of these contributions have so far provided a clear-cut classification of main drivers of transitions, as evidenced by the difficulty of practitioners in reaching goals as entrepreneurs, or policy makers in supporting economic growth. We believe that these theoretical streams share views relating the origin and drivers of transitions and that the analysis of the multi-level developments and systemic sub-processes by using the Integrative Propositional Analysis (IPA) allows for a more comprehensive identification of transition drivers. By mapping causal relationships within each perspective and by developing an integrative framework that takes in due account of overlaps between theories, we derived a new conceptual structure for the identification of transitions’ drivers.

Stages and trigger factors in the development of academic spin-offs: An explorative study in southern Italy

The purpose of this paper is to combine studies that describe the spin-off creation process with studies that analyze spin-off determinants to understand the phenomenon of spin-off development.,This paper proposes a theoretical framework to improve our understanding of academic spin-off development in southern Italy. Following a systematic combining approach, the framework is constructed by iteratively matching the concepts derived by the literature on spin-off processes and spin-off determinants with the empirical findings obtained through a case study of 19 spin-offs in southern Italy.,The combination of empirical results and literature analysis helps us to identify a general model for spin-off creation that could be particularly useful to explain the criticalities of their development.,This paper provides implications for policy-makers in southern Italy regarding factors for which intervention would support the creation of new spin-offs. This study also provides useful implications for policy-makers in other contexts, such as areas that may or may not be at a disadvantage.,The resulting framework represents an original contribution to the literature because it: links two aspects – the stages of spin-off creation and determinants of spin-off development – which are often considered separately in existing studies; explores factors that either impede or facilitate the different stages of spin-off development; provides a series of findings that can be successively tested in other studies; and sheds more light on the context of southern Italy, which has been investigated in only a limited number of previous studies.