Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/32598 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Jena Economic Research Papers No. 2009,079
Publisher: 
Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena
Abstract: 
This study investigates predictors of scientists' intentions to commercialize their research through business founding. Analyzing a cross-sectional sample of 496 German scientists, we develop and test an intentions-based model of academic entrepreneurship combining personal and contextual factors. Empirical results demonstrate that intentions to start a science-based new venture are shaped by some personal characteristics (i.e., personal attitudes toward research commercialization, entrepreneurial control-beliefs, entrepreneurial self-identity, and prior entrepreneurial experience). Moreover, we find that the research context itself - i.e., normative influences of academic workplace peers - does not show a strong direct effect on entrepreneurial intentions. Moderator analyses deliver that peers have an influence primarily by person-context interactions via scientists' sense of identification with these peers. A mediation analysis further indicates that gender-related differences in entrepreneurial control-beliefs might help explain the widely-observed low proportion of female scientist-entrepreneurs.
Subjects: 
Academic entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurial intentions
Entrepreneurial scientist
University-industry technology transfer
Theory of planned behavior
Gender
JEL: 
L26
O33
O38
I23
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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