Academic Spin-offs Entrepreneurial Teams and Performance: A Subgroups Approach

Academic spin-offs entrepreneurial teams are quite specific. They generally comprise academics who are often lacking in commercial skills which prompts the integration of surrogate entrepreneurs (practitioners) mostly sourced... [ view full abstract ]

Academic spin-offs entrepreneurial teams are quite specific. They generally comprise academics who are often lacking in commercial skills which prompts the integration of surrogate entrepreneurs (practitioners) mostly sourced by the TTOs. However, the effectiveness of these artificially created teams is questioned even though a traditional approach to top team diversity would recommend it. We argue that in a context of possible different identity-based subgroups in a team, a separation view of diversity can provide important, complementary insight.
Our research focuses on deep level diversity rather than superficial, demographic diversity and explores the impact of the three main possible academic spin-off entrepreneurial team configurations on the two principal success-related tasks, innovation and sales. Furthermore, it considers the role important stakeholders, such as public research institutions and industrial partners, can have.
In a sample of 164 academic spin-offs, we show that certain configurations are more adapted to certain objectives and that a subgroups approach does indeed contribute to better our understanding of the entrepreneurial teams’ outcomes. Moreover, the expectations one might have with regard to the extended entrepreneurial team as a possible remedy for weak core team configurations are not supported by our data. Implications for theory and practice are provided.