MEASURES OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

PERFORMANCE: CASE STUDIES OF SPIN-OFF COMPANIES

Abstract
The literature has suggested that entrepreneurship, being about the act of new entry or creation of
a new venture, is a non-linear process and requires a holistic research strategy. Data from case
studies of Australian and some Scottish spin-off companies generated by universities and other
public research agencies have been used to explore the relevance of various measures of non-
linearity and holism. The data have been further used to explore the Rebenik and Mulej concept
of requisite holism as a distributed variable. This analysis has been ful1her extended to examine
the relationships between such descriptors of entrepreneurship and more quantitative measures of
technological innovation performance.
Key words: commercialization, entrepreneurship, holism, innovation) linearity, performance
measures.
INTRODUCTION
This paper derives from case studies of seventeen spin-off companies from universities and other
public research agencies in Australia and Scotland. The unit of analysis was the company. The
case study sample was developed theoretically to cover large and small research profile parent
research providers and a range of technologies.
The paper seeks to analyze and explain the relationships in this context between technological
innovation through the generation of new technology-based films (NT SF) and entrepreneurship
related constructs, quoting Drucker (2000: 1), to explore how and when entrepreneurship is 'the
engine of innovation'.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP CONSTRUCTS AND CHARACTERISTICS

Bygrave (1989) gave working definitions of entrepreneurship indicating a clear separation of
Entrepreneurial Event and Entrepreneurial Process:
An Entrepreneurial Event involves the creation of a new oTganisation to pursue an opportunity.
The Entrepreneurial Process involves all of the functions, activities, and actions associated with
perceiving of opportunities and the creation of organizations to pursue them.
An entrepreneur is someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organization to pursue
it.
Later in this paper, the authors will discuss the relevance of these statements to new technology-
based start-ups, where it is often difficult to establish who or where is the entrepreneur at
different phases of the venture's development.
Holism and holistic
Esfeld has written that the term "holism" goes back to Smuts (1926) where it was introduced in a
biological context (Esfeld 1998: 373).
Already there are two different views of holism in term of "some organizing principle. The
Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines holism as "the tendency in nature to produce wholes from the
ordered grouping of units". The term holistic refers to a philosophical position.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP, TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND SPIN-OFF

VENTURES
An important objective has been to build an integrated model or models for the analysis of the
case study data. To do this, it has been necessary to reconcile the various constructs involved viz.
technological innovation, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial capacity
and entrepreneurial cognition--with new entry performance by such spin-off ventures.
Linearity and non-linearity
Bhave in his analysis of interviews with entrepreneurs in upstate New York concluded: The
venture creation process described here is an iterative, non-linear, feedback-driven, conceptual,
and physical process (Bhave, 1994: 223).
The case study research were planned to explore hypotheses about both holism and non-linearity
in relation to NTSF spin-off companies.,

COMMERCIALISATION, INNOVATION AND WEALTH CREATION

The process of wealth creation through technological innovation arising from the
commercialization of university and other public research agency resource outcomes is complex
as illustrated in the mind map in Figure 4.

RESEARCH FINDINGS
The case studies
The unit of analysis has been new technology-based ventures, particularly those that are spin-off
companies arising from universities or other public research providers where there is an ongoing
intellectual property link back to the parent research provider.
Interview data were collected from twelve such companies in Australia and from two in
Scotland.
Hypotheses
Three hypotheses were formulated, the first three to test questions of holism and nonlinearity and
who or where was the entrepreneur:
H(1) Entrepreneurship as the act of new venture creation is a dynamic holistic process and is not
suited to a reductionist research strategy (Bygrave and Hofer, 1991)
H(2) The conceptual process o/venture creation is non-linear and iterative (Bhave, 1994).
H(3): In any study o/new technology small firm (NTSF) creation, the entrepreneur call always be
clearly identified.
Holism, linearity and entrepreneur identity
There is support for the need for a holistic analysis strategy where an entrepreneur could be
identified, but there was a less consistent relationship between the construct of linearity, or more
relevantly non-linearity, and the construct of holism in this context.

CONCLUSIONS
The unit of analysis has been a new incorporated venture spun-off a university or other public
agency research provider.
The implications for commercialization practice were threefold:
1. The extent to which there \vas an identified individual or individuals, who performed as a
classical opportunity driven entrepreneurs, varied:
2. For some ventures (as well described in the entrepreneurship literature) the classical
holistic inability to separate the entrepreneur from his ne\v venture applied.
3. At the other end of this spectrum, there were well planned and well-resourced spin-offs
from CRCs, CSIRO and a large research profile university where the ne\v venture was
nurtured intelnal1y (Degroof and Robeds, 2003).