Individual Characteristic Associated With Academic Entrepreneurship

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International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management
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Article Title: Which Individual Characteristics are Associated with Academic En-
trepreneurship? Evidence from Estonia
Author(s): Maksim Mottus, Oliver Lukason, Urmas Varblane
DOI: 10.1142/S0219877019500184
Int. J. Innovation Technol. Management Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com
Received: 26 October 2017
Accepted: 14 February 2018
To be cited as: Maksim Mottus, Oliver Lukason, Urmas Varblane, Which Individual
Characteristics are Associated with Academic Entrepreneurship? Evi-
dence from Estonia, International Journal of Innovation and Technology
Management, doi: 10.1142/S0219877019500184
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WHICH INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH
ACADEMIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP? EVIDENCE FROM ESTONIA
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Maksim Mõttus
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu,
Liivi 4, 50090 Tartu, Estonia
maksim.mottus@ut.ee
Oliver Lukason
AN Liivi 4, 50090 Tartu, Estonia

oliver.lukason@ut.ee
Urmas Varblane
Liivi 4, 50090 Tartu, Estonia
urmas.varblane@ut.ee
Received (Day Month Year)

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Revised (Day Month Year)

Accepted (Day Month Year)
Published (Day Month Year)
This study aims to find out how academic workers’ characteristics are associated with their ownership
in firms. It is based on quantitative data for the whole population of academic staff from Estonian
public universities. Variables portraying age, academic field, professorship, number of publications
and research grants are applied in analysing academic workers having ownership in firms. The results
indicate that being a professor, having Science as the primary academic field, and a larger number of
publications increase the likelihood of academic ownership while a larger number of grants decreases
it. The age of academic worker is not a significant determinant of the likelihood of academic
ownership.
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Keywords: academic entrepreneurship, academic ownership, individual characteristics, public

universities, Estonia, whole population.
1. Introduction
The role of universities in creating value for the society and the debate about the best
methods to transfer knowledge created at universities to the economy are important policy
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issues [Markman et al. (2005); Grimaldi et al. (2011)] and policy-makers need most
suitable measures to allocate resources and to justify their decisions [Mowery et al. (2001);
Goel and Grimpe (2012)].
Knowledge created at universities is transferred through both formal and informal
activities [Roberts (1991); O’Shea et al. (2005)]. The mechanism of transferring academic
research into society is much more diverse than what is covered by common measures of
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transfer (e.g. sponsored research, licencing, patenting), and thus, should be researched
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beyond these measures [Bercovitz and Feldman (2006); Bicknell et al. (2010); Nilsson et
al. (2010)]. As previous research has mainly been focused on universities’ formal
structures (e.g. information from technology transfer offices), many cases of academic
entrepreneurship have potentially been left uncovered [Aldridge and Audretsch (2011)].
Commercialization of academic knowledge represents an important way for the
academic research to contribute to the economy [Perkmann et al. (2013)], because it has
immediate and measurable market acceptance for outputs of such research [Markman et
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al. (2008)]. While some authors use the term “academic entrepreneurship” in a broader
sense, by meaning different technology transfer activities (e.g. contracted research,
consulting, firm creation) [Brennan and McGowan (2006); Grimaldi et al. (2011)], other
authors use a narrower definition, that is firm creation involving academic staff with the
objective to commercialize knowledge [Shane (2004); Wright (2014)].
In previous studies, contract research and consulting have been the most exploited types
of academic entrepreneurship, while patenting and firm creation have been used less
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frequently [Aldridge et al. (2014); D’Este and Perkmann (2011); Haeussler and Colyvas
(2011); Klofsten and Jones-Evans (2000); Louis et al. (1989); Renault (2006)]. Patenting
as a measure of entrepreneurship might be problematic, because it mainly reflects the
activity of protecting intellectual property rights and many patented innovations simply do
not reach the market [Aldridge et al. (2014); Henderson et al. (1998)]. New firm creation
is considered to be the most important method of knowledge commercialization [Roberts
(1991); Shane (2004); O’Shea et al. (2005)], and therefore, this study also focuses on firm
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creation by academic staff.
The individual characteristics of the academic staff involved in firm creation play an
important role as individuals are making the key decisions that affect firm creation and
technology transfer process [Bicknell et al. (2010); Jones-Evans (1995); Renault (2006);
Roberts (1991)]. Thus, a better understanding of individual characteristics affecting these
decisions could improve technology transfer and increase the economic impact of
universities. People of various cultural and social backgrounds can be successfully trained
as entrepreneurs, and thus, entrepreneurship can also be integrated into the academic scene
irrespective of cultural background [Etzkowitz (2003)].
The study aims to find out how academic workers’ characteristics are associated with
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their ownership in firms. Whole population of academic workers from Estonia is used and
the study aims to be the first encompassing all cases of a specific type of academic
entrepreneurship (i.e. academic ownership) in a single country. Previous studies have been
criticized because of concentrating only on small and/or specific groups of academic
entrepreneurs [Rothaermel et al. (2007), Fini et al. (2010)], and thus, this study mitigates
given lack of knowledge by considering the whole population irrespective of academic
worker type. The evidence about the association of individual characteristics of academic
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staff and academic ownership obtained in this study on the example of Estonia mostly
contradicts findings in previous research.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the next part, a literature overview is
provided and based on available literature academic entrepreneurs’ individual
characteristics are discussed. In the third part, data and used methods are introduced.
Results and discussion are provided in the fourth part, followed by policy implications in
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the fifth part. In the last part, the conclusions of the study are presented, accompanied by
limitations and some future research directions.
2. Literature Review and Hypotheses

2.1. Firm Creation by Academic Staff
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“New firm creation” is one of the major research streams in university entrepreneurship
literature and it has a sub-stream of determinant individual attributes, which focuses on
factors (e.g. experience, seniority) that shape the individual’s decision to become an
entrepreneur [O’Shea et al. (2008); Rothaermel et al. (2007)]. The results of many
publications show that individual-level attributes (individual characteristics) are the most
important predictors of academic entrepreneurship [Bercovitz and Feldman (2008);

Clarysse et al. (2011); D’Este et al. (2012); Kenney and Patton (2011)]. Thus, this study
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contributes to the research stream by identifying individual characteristics as the key
determinants of new firm creation activity among academic staff.
New firm creation in academic entrepreneurship literature has been defined differently,
ranging from the intention to start a company [Renault (2006)] to the fact that a scientist
has started a firm [Aldridge and Audretsch (2011)]. Also, technology transfer can occur in
fields that are different from an academic’s primary research field [Goel and Grimpe
(2012)]. Thus, due to the multifaceted nature of academic entrepreneurship, it is important
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to research all the companies created and owned by academic staff, irrelevant of their
academic fields, and also outside of university technology transfer and support systems. In
this study, the term academic ownership is proposed for an unbiased description of new
firm creation by academic staff and it is based on two criteria: (1) academics should be
employed at the university; and (2) they should have ownership in a firm to ensure ties
with business. An academic worker with academic ownership is an academic owner.
2.2. Individual Characteristics Describing Academic Workers’ Academic Career

and Academic Ownership
To collect data about previous research on the relationship between academic staff’s
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individual characteristics and their academic ownership, a search in the most prominent
academic literature (based on impact factor) covering technology transfer was performed.
Four academic journals (Research Policy, Journal of Technology Transfer, Technovation,
and R&D Management) were chosen for analysing previous research in the first round.
Articles published in these journals and directly linked to the topic were included in the
analysis. In the second round, all articles citing or cited by the articles found in the first
round were browsed and relevant ones included in the analysis. Because the scope of the
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paper is firm creation, studies focusing on other mechanisms of commercialization (e.g.

contract research, licensing) were abandoned. Due to focusing only on empirical research,
18 studies were identified (see the summary in Table 1) highlighting the significance of
academic workers’ specific individual characteristics related to academic career in
determining the likelihood of engagement in entrepreneurial activities.
Based on the analysis of these articles (see Table 1), the following conclusions about
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study designs in previous research can be made.

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1) The potential weakness of the previous studies is that the focus has mostly been on
university spin-offs and on technology transfer in the university’s intellectual
property system. Still, a sizeable amount of academic entrepreneurship is taking place
outside the university and therefore many cases could be left uncovered [Aldridge
and Audretsch (2011)].
2) Previous research is exclusively based on samples. Firm lists have been obtained from
specific sources, like university technology transfer offices (TTOs), but it may create
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a bias by not encompassing the cases not covered by these sources [Geuna and Muscio
(2009)].
3) Data have been collected through surveys and interviews, except for Stuart and Ding
[2006].
4) Most studies have been conducted in the US and UK, a few also in Canada and
Norway. No such studies were found about European emerging economies.

5) Mostly logit and probit regression models have been used for data analysis, and thus,
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the results of different studies are comparable.
Table 1. Findings from the previous literature: individual characteristics of academic workers associated with
firm creation.
Times applied out of Effects found*

total 18 studies
Individual characteristics** analysed positive negative no effect
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Biological age 11 1 3 8
Professional age 3 1 0 2
Professor 11 3 0 8
Teaching activity 2 0 0 2
Research activity 1 0 0 1
Public grants 5 3 0 3
Citations 3 0 0 3
Scientific breadth 1 1 0 0
Patents 8 7 0 1
Academic field: Science 8 5 1 7
Spin-off support mechanisms 3 0 0 3
Publications 8 2 1 6
* Some studies have applied multiple models on the same datasets with different results, thus the sum of
different effects can be greater than the total number of studies. ** “Positive” effect refers to the increase of
likelihood of firm creation when the value of a characteristic is increasing or the logical value is “Yes”.
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Source: compiled by the authors based on: [D’Este and Perkmann (2011); D’Este et al. (2012); Roberts (1991);
D’Este et al. (2009); Clarysse et al. (2011); Landry et al. (2006); Aldridge et al. (2014); Gulbrandsen and Smeby
(2005); Louis et al. (1989); Marion et al. (2012); Stuart and Ding (2006); Aldridge and Audretsch (2011);
Haeussler and Colyvas (2011); Renault (2006); Krabel and Mueller (2009); Goel and Grimpe (2012); Karlsson
and Wigren (2012); Abreu and Grinevich (2013)].
According to previous studies, academic workers’ academic career related individual

characteristics affect the likelihood of engagement in firm creation. Age, academic position
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(being a professor), engagement in public research grants, academic field, and number of
publications are the most used characteristics of academic workers in the context of
academic ownership. Thus, these characteristics are elaborated further in this section.
Rarely used characteristics (e.g. scientific breadth and number of citations) were excluded,
as the aim is to assess the importance of most widely used characteristics in the context of
academic ownership. Patents as a widely used characteristic were also excluded, as in many
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study designs [e.g. Louis et al. (1989); Haeussler and Colyvas (2011)] they are considered
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likewise the academic ownership as a dependent variable, i.e. another form of
commercialization.
The academic life cycle models propose that the likelihood of engagement in
entrepreneurial activities increases in time because of the search of economic return for
gained knowledge [Bercovitz and Feldman (2008)]. In studies documented in Table 1, this
context has been most frequently modelled by using academic workers’ biological age.
While in some earlier studies, the common belief was that older academic workers are more
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inclined to academic entrepreneurship [Levin and Stephan (1991); Klofsten and Jones-
Evans (2000)], recent work, however, has indicated that younger academic workers are
more likely to commercialize research [Stuart and Ding (2006); Bercovitz and Feldman
(2008)]. Most of the previous studies documented in Table 1, despite hypothesizing a
positive relationship, still found that age is not a significant determinant of academic
entrepreneurship. Moreover, the studies documented in Table 1 failed to explain this

insignificant relationship in detail, and thus, a logical explanation would be that academic
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ownership is randomly distributed over different age groups. Relying on the findings in
previous studies, it can be hypothesized that:
H1: Age of an academic has no effect on the likelihood of being an academic owner.
As studies have used varying classifications of research fields and in order to enhance
comparability, the results from previous research were consolidated by viewing the
findings in respect to top-level classification (that is, Science field versus Non-Science
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field). While some studies have found that research fields are significant determinants of
firm creation [Aldridge et al. (2014); D’Este et al. (2009); Landry et al. (2006)], most
previous studies summarized in Table 1 failed to find evidence that working in the Science
field has an effect on the likelihood of being an academic entrepreneur. The explanation to
such a phenomenon has largely been overlooked, but there could be equal opportunities to
commercialize codified knowledge (more characteristic to the Science field) and tacit
knowledge (more characteristic to the Non-Science field) through academic ownership.
Relying on the findings in previous studies, it can be hypothesized that:
H2: The orientation of academic staff on the Science academic field has no effect on the
likelihood of being an academic owner.
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The career stage or academic status has been noted to influence the likelihood of
engagement in entrepreneurial activities [Bercovitz and Feldman (2008); Goel and Grimpe
(2012)], and in previous studies documented in Table 1, the most common option to portray
it has been by denoting whether a person is a professor. Still, these studies failed to find
evidence of being a professor having an effect on the likelihood of being an academic
entrepreneur. This has been explained by several aspects brought out as follows. With a
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long period to a professorship, it may be that many entrepreneurial academics quit their
academic careers [Clarysse et al. (2011)]. Academic staff can choose how to allocate time,
which might influence their entrepreneurial activities [Abreu and Grinevich (2013); Landry
et al. (2006); Perkmann et al. (2013)]. The absence of a relationship between academic
tenure and academic entrepreneurship could suggest that the traditional and entrepreneurial
visions of universities and university research can successfully co-exist without harming
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each other [Landry et al. (2006)]. Relying on the findings in previous studies, it can be
hypothesized that:
H3: Being a professor has no effect on the likelihood of being an academic owner.
The number of publications may have a negative impact on new firm creation activity,
because academic staff allocates time between competing activities: the traditional creation
of public knowledge and the commercialization of their knowledge [Landry et al. (2006);
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Mowery et al. (2001)]. Alternatively, academic workers with a high number of publications
may seem more trustworthy and therefore have a better access to resources [Karlsson and
Wigren (2012)]. Previous research in the field of new firm creation by academic staff has
mostly found that the number of publications has no significant effect on entrepreneurial
activity of academic workers (see Table 1). This could be explained by several aspects, for
instance that entrepreneurial and academic achievements are not substitutes [Gulbrandsen
and Smeby (2005)] or publications support both the entrepreneurial and the non-
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entrepreneurial university research [Landry et al. (2006)]. Relying on the findings in
previous studies, it can be hypothesized that:
H4: A greater number of publications has no effect on the likelihood of being an academic
owner.
Academic staff’s scientific productivity could be measured by the ability to attract public
funding (grants). The results concerning the relationship between grants and academic
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entrepreneurship documented in Table 1 have been the most controversial, some indicating
a strong and some no relationship. Grants support research activity and increase knowledge
creation, which will increase the likelihood of transforming knowledge into innovative
outputs [Aldridge et al. (2014)]. Academic workers who attract more grants to fund their
research could also collaborate better with the industry [Gulbrandsen and Smeby (2005);
Louis et al. (1989)] and success in applying for public funding signals the increased
likelihood of an ability to attract funding and will therefore increase the possibility of
collaborating with the industry [Perkmann et al. (2013)]. Thus, despite a certain
controversy in previous studies, it can be hypothesized that:
H5: A greater number of grants increases the likelihood of being an academic owner.
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3. Data and Methods

Based on an extensive literature review, Rothaermel et al. [2007] concluded that studies in
the field of academic entrepreneurship would benefit from conducting longitudinal
analyses using samples that are more representative of the studied population. Fini et al.
[2010] also noted that research on academic entrepreneurship would yield better results if
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it was based on samples of all academic entrepreneurs rather than just those that encompass
spin-offs created within university systems and/or exploit patented inventions. Since no
studies have been conducted on the whole population and surveys/interviews have been
exclusively used, this study will make the first attempt to research this phenomenon based
solely on quantitative data sources and the whole population of academic workers,
including all their ownerships in firms. Since no studies on the associations between
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individual characteristics of academic workers and their ownership have been conducted
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in Eastern Europe [Rothaermel et al. (2007); Perkmann et al. (2013)], Estonia is chosen as
a target country due to the availability of suitable data sources for such a study.
According to World Bank [2018] Doing Business database, Estonia has 12th ranking
in the world in respect to ease of doing business and starting a business. Thus, the
conditions in this country for starting a business are very favourable. Some of the Estonian
universities rank very high among institutions from Emerging Europe and Central Asia,
such as the country’s largest University of Tartu being in the third place and two others
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(i.e. Tallinn University of Technology and Tallinn University) being among the first one
hundred institutions [QS University Rankings by Region (2018)]. The government
spending on R&D in Estonia is among the highest in Central and Eastern European region,
although being remarkably lower than for instance in Western European countries
[Ukrainski et al. (2014)]. Thus, the study of Estonian context might be especially valuable
due to the ease of firm creation and presence of high quality research, which create good
opportunities for academic workers to transfer knowledge through entrepreneurship.
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In this study, the focus is on all four Estonian non-specialized public universities. In
total, there are six public universities in Estonia, but two smallest ones are specialized only
on arts, music and theatre studies. The four studied public universities are (the number of
students is in brackets): University of Tartu (UT; 14,470), Tallinn University of
Technology (TUT; 14,151), Estonian University of Life Sciences (EULS; 3,093), and
Tallinn University (TU; 9,485). For each of the four universities a list of all academic
workers from the end of 2011 was obtained. In total, there were 2,853 workers, broken
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down by universities as follows: UT 1,305, EULS 331, TUT 839, and TU 378. Of the
academic positions, professors, senior researchers, researchers, associate professors, and
assistant professors were included.
For creating the variables for this analysis, different datasets had to be merged. The
information about the academic background of individuals was obtained from the Estonian
Research Portal (ERP), which encompasses the CVs of all academic workers based on
predefined fields, and information about ownership was obtained from the Estonian
Business Register (EBS). The data were collected about the ownership from the same date
as all the other data. The following Table 2 includes the coding and content of applied
variables.
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The variable OWNER reflects academic ownership, namely the engagement of

academic workers in entrepreneurship through having an ownership in a firm. Although
the used dataset possesses relevant data, the exact share in a firm’s equity was not
accounted for, as in this study only the engagement was measured, not the extent of it.
Consequently, it was not accounted for how actively a person was participating in firm’s
activities or how strong was the connection with her/his academic activities (i.e. the
knowledge transfer extent). The firms owned by academic workers are exclusively micro
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firms. The median total assets of such firms in 2011 was 21 thousand euros and in majority
firms financed their activities from equity capital. The turnover of a median firm was very
small, namely 14 thousand euros. The firms had mostly either one or two owners, in the
latter case both being academic workers. Out of all firms, 12% were specifically functional
in NACE 72 (i.e. scientific research development), the other prominently represented
sectors being manufacturing, info- and communications technology and various
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consultancy services.
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Table 2. Variable coding in this study (all as of 31.12.2011).
Variable and Description

abbreviation Hypothesis
Ownership in firms 0 – academic worker is not an owner, 1 – academic Dependent variable
(OWNER) worker has ownership in at least one firm irrespective of
share size
Academic field 1 for Science, 0 for other (i.e., Social Sciences or Arts & H2
(FIELD) Humanities); the coding is established based on the ISI

Web of Knowledge classification
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Age of individual The biological age of an academic worker H1
(AGE)
Research grants Number of Estonian research grants an academic worker H5
(GRANTS) has had and is participating in
Publications Number of articles in international peer-reviewed journals H4
(PUBLIC) and peer-reviewed chapters in books by an academic
worker
Professor status 1 for professors, 0 for other H3
(PROFESSOR)
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Source: compiled by the authors.
For coding the academic field (FIELD), the classification (i.e., a Science or a Non-
Science field) based on ISI Web of Knowledge Journal Citation Reports (JCR) was applied
on the structural units (faculties or institutes) the individuals were working in. The “Non-
Science field” was not disaggregated to Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities, as based
on the literature review the aim of this study was to test the association using the Science
field only. Moreover, in JCR there is a remarkable overlap between fields listed under
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Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities. In the current dataset, there were no cases when a
faculty/institute could belong to both Science and Social Science / Arts & Humanities
categories. There are also other possible classifications, e.g. the Frascati Manual, but this
would demand an exact knowledge about the main research area of each individual, which
the used dataset unfortunately does not possess. The variable AGE reflects the age of an
academic worker at the time of data collection (i.e. year 2011 end) and is calculated by
using the individual’s birth date. The number of successful research grants (GRANTS) was
based on two types of grant provisions: Estonian grants for small research groups and
institutions. Although ERP also includes some information about foreign grants, they are
not fully documented, thus the inclusion of them could lead to mistakes. The number of
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publications (PUBLIC) was based on a known measure, by accounting for the international
peer-reviewed journals and chapters in books of internationally acknowledged publishers
(the repute being based on a list drawn up by the Estonian Ministry of Education and
Research). Academic tenure of an academic individual was measured with being a full
professor (PROFESSOR).
For studying which variables increase or decrease the likelihood of being an academic
owner, logistic regression analysis (LRA) was used, which was the most commonly applied
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method in previous studies discussed in the literature review section. In LRA, OWNER
was used as dependent variable and FIELD, AGE, GRANTS, PUBLIC and PROFESSOR
as independent variables. After LRA was performed, the marginal effects were presented
to outline the relative importance of different variables and multicollinearity tests were
conducted to guarantee the robustness of the final model. The analysis was supplemented
with parametric and non-parametric tests (as some independent variables were continuous
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and some binary) to outline which variables were significantly different between the two
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studied groups: academic owners and non-owners. Of the parametric tests, the ANOVA
Brown-Forsythe test was applied, as it is more robust to violations in the homogeneity of
variances assumption. Of the non-parametric tests, the chi-square test was applied, as both
the dependent and independent variables were binary.
4. Results and Discussion
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The descriptive statistics of the studied variables are reported in Table 3. It can be seen that
multiple binary variables were significantly differently related to the two groups, i.e.
academic owners and non-owners. Namely, academic ownership was more common
among individuals in the Science field and those who were professors. Out of the three
continuous variables, only the mean number of publications was significantly different
through two groups, while holding a larger value for the group of academic owners.
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Table 3. Descriptive statistics through two groups of OWNER.
Academic non-owners
(n=2420)
Std.
Academic owners
(n=433)
Std.
All (n=2853)
Std.
Mean Dev. Median Mean Dev. Median Mean Dev. Median
FIELDxx 0.65 0.48 1 0.72 0.45 1 0.66 0.47 1
GRANTS 3.00 2.47 3 2.85 2.66 2 2.98 2.50 3
AGE 47.50 13.27 45 48.36 12.81 47 47.63 13.20 45
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PUBLIC 16.79 22.48 10 21.89 41.12 10 17.57 26.23 10
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PROFESSORx 0.12 0.33 0 0.21 0.41 0 0.13 0.341 0

Note: chi-square test p-value x<0.001, xx<0.01, xxx<0.05; ANOVA Brown-Forsythe test p-value w<0.001, ww <0.01,
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< 0.05. Source: compiled by the authors.
The LRA results are documented in Table 4. The model is significant with LRA Chi-square
43 and p-value < 0.0000. It can be seen from Table 4 that at the p < 0.05 level there were
four significant variables, three of which were also significant at the p < 0.01 level.
Working in the Science field, having higher number of publications and being a professor
increase the likelihood of being an academic owner, but having a higher number of grants
decreases it, while age is the only insignificant variable. Marginal effects indicate that
being a professor has the strongest effect on the likelihood of being an academic owner,
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followed by being active in the Science field. Multicollinearity is not an issue in the model,
as the maximum VIF value is 1.48 and the average VIF over all variables is 1.26 (see
Appendix 1).
The comparison of the results of LRA and those obtained in previous studies (see Table
5) indicated that all significant variables have different effects compared to the results in
the previous empirical research. Contrary to the previous research [Landry et al. (2006);
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Renault (2006)], this study indicates that having Science as the academic field increases
the likelihood of academic ownership. This might signal different aspects, among them that
in the field of Science the (mainly) created codified knowledge can be more easily
commercialized or scholars in that area have more linkages with firms.
While most previous studies found that professor status has no significant effect on
academic entrepreneurship [D’Este et al. (2009); Marion et al. (2012)], this study’s results
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provided contrary evidence that being a professor increases the likelihood of involvement
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in academic ownership. In the dataset, 23.8% of professors were academic owners, while
the next most frequent group was associate professors with a respective share of 16.9%. It
might be more likely that professors have some knowledge that can be commercialized and
that they have already achieved many academic goals in their career, having therefore time
and interest to focus on other areas. Also, at many universities, professors are the key
persons contacted by the industry for cooperation projects, and thus, knowledge transfer in
case of them (for instance in the form of a joint venture with stakeholders outside the
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university) is more likely than in case of other academic workers.
Table 4. Logistic regression model (Y=1 academic owner, Y=0 non-owner).

Coefficient SE p-value Marginal effect dy/dx

FIELD 0.400 0.124 0.001 0.0480
GRANTS -0.084 0.026 0.001 -0.0106
AGE
PUBLIC
PROFESSOR
CONSTANT
AN -0.003
0.005
0.609
-1.773
0.004 0.418
0.002 0.019
0.149 0.000
0.225 0.000
-0.0004
0.0006
0.0890
Note: Model log likelihood -1215, LR χ2 43 (p-value 0.000). Source: compiled by the authors.
While previous studies have found the number of publications to be insignificant [e.g.
Gulbrandsen and Smeby (2005); Renault (2006)] and the participation in grants to have no
negative effect [e.g. Aldridge et al. (2014); Perkmann et al. (2013)] on the likelihood of
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academic entrepreneurship, the current study found contrary evidence. Namely, the
number of publications increased and the number of grants decreased the likelihood of
academic ownership. The positive effect of the number of publications could be explained
by several aspects: for instance more productive scholars might have more (inventions) to
commercialize or this variable serves just as a proxy of the general intelligence and
performance of an academic worker. The negative effect of grants, which in this study are
local scientific grants, might directly signal that people involved in them are more
academic research focused and set commercialization of knowledge in the background.
Grants might provide enough financial resources, and thus, academic workers do not have
an incentive to look for additional financing through commercialization. Also,
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commercialization has been noted to be too time consuming [Krabel and Mueller (2009)],
which could lead to a too high opportunity cost of substituting academic work and/or free
time with commercialization activities.
Table 5. Comparison of the LRA results with previous findings from the literature.
Current study (effect on the likelihood Comparison of results

Individual characteristic to be an academic owner)
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Age No effect Supported in the literature

Professor status Positive effect Contrary to the literature
Public grants Negative effect Contrary to the literature
Academic field: Science Positive effect Contrary to the literature
Publications Positive effect Contrary to the literature
Notes: When the previous studies (see Table 1) have found a similar effect, “Supported in the literature” is
noted in the last column. This table is based on the results in Table 4, taking into account variables that have p <
0.05. Source: compiled by the authors.
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Similarly to this study, most previous studies also found that age is not a significant
determinant of the likelihood of academic ownership. This might indicate that academic
ownership can be randomly distributed over age groups, as for instance there are 13.6%
academic owners in the population of academic workers aged below 50 and the respective
figure for those at least 50 years old is 15.8%. This finding could in turn indicate that the
specific time when an individual enters academia, is able to create knowledge that can be
commercialized or has an intent to start commercializing, is random.
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The results of the study are not subject to ownership size differences. Namely, when
ordinary least squares regression is ran with ownership size as dependent variable and
variables listed in Table 2 as independent variables, none of them is significant at p<0.01
level. Thus, an increase/decrease in the independent variable value does not lead to
ownership increase/decrease.
5. Policy Implications
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Our findings have some policy implications mainly for universities, as it is clear that the
individual characteristics related to academic career are important in explaining academic
entrepreneurship, and thus, they enable to attract and retain academic workers with a higher
potential for academic entrepreneurship. When universities aim to maximize the creation
of spin-off firms, then professors in the Science field are most likely to contribute to this
objective, and therefore, the commercialization opportunities of their research should be
studied first and foremost. Academic workers involved in research grants seem to be
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focused more on academic output than commercialization through entrepreneurship, which

has twofold implications. On one hand, their motivation to commercialize might be low,
but on the other hand, there might still be hidden entrepreneurial potential in that group.
Thus, TTOs could further inquire the possibilities of commercializing knowledge created
by scientists actively involved in research grants. Also, TTOs can account for the fact that
academic workers with a large amount of high-quality publications are likely to have some
research results for commercialization. Thus, this study provides some hints for TTOs,
which academic workers have more potential to commercialize knowledge through firm
creation. As this information can also be accounted when planning different support
measures, it can potentially lead to more efficient use of public resources. Lastly, as past
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studies have shown that universities in different countries concentrate only on formal
structures of commercialization [Bekkers and Bodas Freitas (2008); Fini et al. (2010)], this
study provides evidence that a sizable amount of commercialization can occur through non-
formal channels. The application of these implications outside Estonia is of course tempted
by the fact, how similar university settings and business environments in other countries
are. Although the study of such similarities remains out of the scope of this paper, several
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of the practical implications are characterized by a certain universal logic, making them
potentially applicable in other environments as well.
6. Conclusion
The aim of the study was to discover associations between academic workers’ individual
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characteristics and their ownership in firms. This study was the first one to cover the whole
population of academic personnel in one country, namely Estonia. It analysed all
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12 Author’s Names
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companies owned by academic staff (noted as academic ownership), and thus, knowledge
transfer was not limited to studying university spin-offs and/or companies created in
university technology transfer structures only.
Logistic regression analysis was applied to discover associations between academic
workers’ individual characteristics and their academic ownership. Results showed that
having Science as the primary academic field, a higher number of publications, and being
a professor increased the likelihood of academic ownership while a higher number of grants
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decreased it. All these findings contrasted the results of most empirical studies conducted
previously. There was only on exception: similarly to previous research, this study also
found that academic worker’s age was not a significant determinant of the likelihood of
academic ownership. This study provides certain evidence, that the results of past studies,
which have mainly focused on specific groups of academic workers, might not be
transferrable to the whole population of academic workers.

This study suffers from several limitations. Firstly, the context of the ownership was
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not disclosed in more detail in this study. Namely, it would be beneficial to study further,
for instance, what is the nature of involvement in the firm (e.g. either a passive or an active
owner), in which industries the firms are functioning, and how well they are performing.
Secondly, the lack of information about other types of commercialization did not enable to
disclose the possible similarities and differences in individual characteristics. Thirdly, one
individual characteristic (i.e. public grants) was restricted with data about local grants and
in case of another (i.e. academic field) the most aggregate classification as possible was
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used. A final limitation, which is characteristic to almost all studies in the same area, was
being a single-country study, which leaves the question of the transferability of the results
to another environment.
As a major future research direction, this area could benefit from longitudinal analysis
using the same methodology and data sources for assessing the dynamics in academic
entrepreneurship. Namely, this study provided a static picture from a certain point in time,
but it would be beneficial to conduct research by viewing the individual characteristics at
firm foundation.
Acknowledgement
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Financial support from Estonian Ministry of Education and Research grant IUT20-49
“Structural Change as the Factor of Productivity Growth in the Case of Catching up
Economies” and from European Social Foundation through the Research and Innovation
Policy Monitoring Programme is acknowledged. Authors thank the editor, reviewers and
our colleague Tiia Vissak for comments that lead to the improvement of this paper.
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Appendixes
Appendix 1. Correlation matrix and variance inflation factors (VIFs) of variables.
FIELD GRANTS AGE PUBLIC PROFESSOR VIF

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FIELD 1.000 0.379 0.022 0.327 -0.023 1.16

GRANTS 1.000 -0.084 0.593 0.084 1.35
AGE 1.000 0.271 0.250 1.14
PUBLIC 1.000 0.364 1.48
PROFESSOR 1.000 1.20
Notes: Spearman correlation coefficients. Variance inflation factors provided in the last column do not indicate
any multicollinearity issues. Source: compiled by the authors.
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Biography
Maksim Mõttus is a PhD student at the Faculty of Economics and Business
Administration, University of Tartu (FEBA UT). His main research area is academic
entrepreneurship and he has extensively been involved in technology transfer consultancy.
Oliver Lukason (PhD) is a senior research fellow of international business and finance at
FEBA UT. Besides academic entrepreneurship, his main research areas include bankruptcy
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prediction, firm failure processes, start-up firms, firm internationalization processes and
others. He has published in various international journals.
Urmas Varblane (PhD) is a full professor and chair of international business and
innovation at FEBA UT and a member of Estonian Academy of Sciences. Besides

academic entrepreneurship, his main research areas include innovation, foreign trade,
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competitiveness, firm internationalization and others. He has published in various
international journals.
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Individual Characteristic Associated With Academic Entrepreneurship

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Accepted manuscript to appear in IJITM

Author(s): Maksim Mottus, Oliver Lukason, Urmas Varblane

Received: 26 October 2017

Accepted: 14 February 2018

Link to final version: https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219877019500184

AN Liivi 4, 50090 Tartu, Estonia

Received (Day Month Year)

Revised (Day Month Year)

Keywords: academic entrepreneurship, academic ownership, individual characteristics, public

2. Literature Review and Hypotheses

2.1. Firm Creation by Academic Staff

important predictors of academic entrepreneurship [Bercovitz and Feldman (2008);

2.2. Individual Characteristics Describing Academic Workers’ Academic Career

paper is firm creation, studies focusing on other mechanisms of commercialization (e.g.

study designs in previous research can be made.

Norway. No such studies were found about European emerging economies.

Times applied out of Effects found*

According to previous studies, academic workers’ academic career related individual

entrepreneurship. Moreover, the studies documented in Table 1 failed to explain this

3. Data and Methods

The variable OWNER reflects academic ownership, namely the engagement of

Variable and Description

(FIELD) Humanities); the coding is established based on the ISI

4. Results and Discussion

PROFESSORx 0.12 0.33 0 0.21 0.41 0 0.13 0.341 0

Table 4. Logistic regression model (Y=1 academic owner, Y=0 non-owner).

Coefficient SE p-value Marginal effect dy/dx

Current study (effect on the likelihood Comparison of results

Age No effect Supported in the literature

focused more on academic output than commercialization through entrepreneurship, which

transferrable to the whole population of academic workers.

individual level, Organization Science 19(1): 69–89.

review of the literature, Minerva 47(1): 93–114.

21. Jones-Evans, D. 1995. A typology of technology-based entrepreneurs: a model based on

case of Sweden and Ireland, Small Business Economics 14(4): 299–309.

FIELD GRANTS AGE PUBLIC PROFESSOR VIF

FIELD 1.000 0.379 0.022 0.327 -0.023 1.16

innovation at FEBA UT and a member of Estonian Academy of Sciences. Besides

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