56.baiba Dzelme - Academic Entrepreneurship Incentives of Academic Scientists To Commercialize Research Output

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
Academic Entrepreneurship
Incentives of academic scientists to
commercialize their research output
Thesis Master of Business Administration, Management of Innovation
Supervisor: J. Dul
Co-reader: A. Jolink
Student: Baiba Dzelme
Student No: 350274
Email bdzelme@gmail.com
Date December 2nd 2011
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Preface
I would like to thank my coach professor Jan Dul for all the valuable comments and
involvement through all the stages of my research work. His criticism was invaluable
contribution in my research. I would also like to thank my co-reader professor Albert Jolink
for being cooperative and flexible.
Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to Latvian University administration,

technology transfer office employees and its academic researchers who were very supportive.
As well I would like to express thank you to ―Connect Latvia‖ director Elmars Baltins for
very useful information and insights.
Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for all the inspiration and support.
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Abstract
Universities are experiencing a change in practice by growing involvement in technology
transfer and commercialization activities. Not only universities but also faculty members are
becoming ambidextrous where they need to not only fulfil the traditional teaching and
research roles but also economic and social development goals. However, the successfulness
of these new ambitions is mixed, therefore, it is crucial to identify the appropriate policies,
mechanisms and incentives to reach the new commercialization goals.
The aim of this study is to test the theory of academic entrepreneurship by estimating the
impact of different individual motivators to engage in commercialization activities on patent
and spin-off activities. From the academic entrepreneurship literature 10 motivators were
identified and tested in the Latvian biggest university. The research revealed that
commercialization engagement is largely driven by traditional academic motivators
―importance of intellectual challenge‖ and ―importance research exploitation‖. Contrary to
expected many of the motivators had negative effect on commercialization outcome (patent
and spin-off behaviour). It is found that extrinsic motivators have negative effect while
intrinsic incentives have positive influence on the odds of being an academic entrepreneur.
These motivators have direct effect on academic entrepreneurship while motivation for
independence has indirect effect that is mediated through level of effort towards
commercialization activities. Some of the empirical findings do not confirm the designed
theoretical framework. This, however, is explained by difference in the environment of
Latvian academic scientist population where the lack of successful academic entrepreneurship
stories and the big role of European Union fund provision influence faculty members‘
decisions to engage in commercialization activities.
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Contents
Preface ....................................................................................................................................... 2
Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 3
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 6
1.1 Why study individual incentives? .................................................................................... 7
1.2 Research objective .......................................................................................................... 8
2 Theory Building ....................................................................................................................... 9
2.1 Concept - Academic Entrepreneurs................................................................................. 9
2.2 Factors of academic entrepreneurship ......................................................................... 11
2.3 Effort – Entrepreneurial commitment........................................................................... 12
2.3.1 Effort – mediating effect ........................................................................................ 14
2.4 Incentives of academic entrepreneurship..................................................................... 14
2.4.1 Personal income incentives .................................................................................... 14
2.4.2 Intellectual Challenge ............................................................................................. 16
2.4.3 Learning .................................................................................................................. 16
2.4.4 Application & Exploitation of research................................................................... 17
2.4.5 Research funding .................................................................................................... 18
2.4.6 Better work conditions ........................................................................................... 18
2.4.7 Job opportunities for students ............................................................................... 19
2.4.8 Recognition and prestige ........................................................................................ 19
2.4.9 Personal and professional network ........................................................................ 20
2.4.10 Independence ....................................................................................................... 20
2.5 Individual-level factors .................................................................................................. 21
2.6 Environmental factors ................................................................................................... 22
2.7 Summary of literature ................................................................................................... 23
2.8 Research framework ..................................................................................................... 24
3 Theory testing ....................................................................................................................... 26
3.1 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 26
3.1.2 Sample selection and sample description .............................................................. 28
3.1.3 Data gathering ........................................................................................................ 29
3.1.4 Measurements........................................................................................................ 29
(a) Dependant variable .................................................................................................... 29
(b) Independent variables ............................................................................................... 30
(c) Control variables......................................................................................................... 31
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3.1.5 Data Analysis and Conclusions ............................................................................... 32
3.2 Results ............................................................................................................................... 33
3.2.1 Sample and respondents’ characteristics................................................................... 33
3.2.2 Dependent and explanatory variable description ...................................................... 34
3.2.3 Regression analysis ..................................................................................................... 37
Effort ................................................................................................................................ 37
Academic Entrepreneur................................................................................................... 38
3.2.4 Mediation effect – effort ............................................................................................ 42
3.2.5 Factor Analysis ............................................................................................................ 44
3.3 Discussion .......................................................................................................................... 46
4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 50
4.1 Consequences for the theory ........................................................................................ 50
4.2 Managerial Implications ................................................................................................ 51
4.3 Limitations and Future Research ................................................................................... 51
References ............................................................................................................................... 53
Appendix A - Questionnaire .................................................................................................... 58
Appendix B - Summary statistics for selected variables .......................................................... 64
Appendix C - Correlation matrix of explanatory and control variables................................... 65
Appendix D - Regression analysis – effort regression ............................................................. 67
Appendix E - Regression analysis – motivating factors for commercialization engagement .. 69
Appendix F - Regression analysis – motivating factors for commercialization engagement .. 71
Appendix G - Regression analysis after factor analysis .......................................................... 73
Appendix H - Expected and empirically observed effect of explanatory variables ............... 74
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1 Introduction
Universities for the last decades have experienced growing involvement in technology
transfers and commercialization activities. The traditional roles and missions of university are
experiencing a change. By introducing technology transfer offices (TTO) universities
incorporate an additional mission – economic development. (McKelvey, 2009) Etzkowitz
(1998) describes it as university‘s ―second revolution‖, where, in addition to the traditional
mission of teaching and research, university needs to embrace economic development.
According to Triple Helix model, not only the relationship among university, government and
industry is changing but also they are experiencing internal transformation (Etzkowitz &
Leydesdorff, 2000).
As a result, faculty member roles are changing as well. Some scientists are experiencing a
shift in functions from teaching and basic research to more application identification and
wealth creation. (Yang & Chang, 2009) In order to succeed, university internal culture needs
to be readjusted. (Mowery & Sampat, 2005) since the increasing industry collaboration and
the push towards innovation generation create tension within the university.
The tension is mostly because research commercialization is contradicting the norms and
traditional practices of research and knowledge dissemination (Di Gregorio & Shane, 2003).
Despite the contradiction to traditional university norms and culture, invention disclosure
activity has been increasing over the last two decades, according to Thursby & Thursby
(2002). In their research they argue that this increase in disclosure is not explained only by the
shift of research profile but actually shows the willingness of academic scientists to engage in
commercialization activities. Therefore, scientists are becoming more proactive in
commercializing their research outcomes through such channels as patenting, licensing,
consulting and even spin-off creation.
The willingness to engage in commercialization activities from academics can be achieved by

appropriate university policies. Some universities already have formal policies that promote
industry-university cooperation and, according to Perkmann and Walsh (2008), universities
should promote dual strategy that includes both cooperation and research focus. However,
this shift towards commercialization does not come easy and at the moment the evidence of
universities developing commercial capabilities is mixed (Owen-Smith, 2003). Universities
have been accustomed with doing one thing - academic research - but now they are asked to
develop capabilities of something entirely different - commercialization of technology and
ideas. Furthermore, they are not asked to switch from one to another but to combine the
contradictory activities. Nowadays, many universities not only consider the combination of
traditional academia and academic entrepreneurship as possible but also as necessary where
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it is expected from the academic staff to be able to wear ―two-hats‖. Based on the literature
on ambidexterity in the wider domain of organizational theory, this dual focus is very hard to
manage (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004). This is also evident from past experience in
universities where not all universities have been successful in developing such dual policies
(Di Gregorio & Shane, 2003).
1.1 Why study individual incentives?

In the current academic entrepreneurship literature the focus has mostly been put on the
policies, environmental factors and organizations (TTO and academic administration)
(Rothermael et al. 2007). However, the commercialization activities are not only driven by
the amount of external research funding. It is clearly seen from an example of Stanford and
Duke Universities, where the first received US$ 391 million of sponsored research in 1997
and generated 25 start-ups while Duke received US$ 361 million and had no start-ups. (Di
Gregorio & Shane, 2003)
While a considerable stream of research has dealt with dual focus from organizational-level,
such as technology transfer mechanisms and commercialization practices and the subsequent
success and failure of commercial projects, deeper understanding of the key actor – the
university scientist – is missing (Jain et al, 2009, Phan and Siegel, 2006). Participation of
academics in the commercialization process is integral to the emergence of new knowledge-
intensive fields. However, very little is known about the cognitive and social-psychological
processes associated with scientists adjusting their career trajectories and pursuing
entrepreneurial paths (Audretschand Erdem, 2004). As described by Wood (2011), academic
entrepreneurship is not only dependant on institutional structures and resources that university
provides but also significantly by researcher‘s motivation and decision to engage in
commercialization activities. Academic‘s motivation is especially important because it needs
to overcome the fear that invention protection and commercialization is time consuming and
will take time away from the traditional academic role (Smith and Parr, 2003). However, it is
not impossible to combine traditional academic duties together with commercialization
activities. Several papers have outlined examples where productive scientists have succeeded
in continuing teaching and basic research together with commercialization activities like spin-
off formation (Thursby et al, 2007). The term ―star scientist‖ has even emerged where faculty
members who patent are outperforming their other peers by the number of publications and
citation numbers (Yang & Chang, 2009).
Some studies have outlined the importance of individual scientist but have limited the
knowledge only on experience, scientific discipline, and demographics (Goktepe-Hulten &
Mahagaonkar, 2009). There are only a limited number of studies that investigate who are the
faculty members that patent or start a spin-off and why these scientists engage in
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commercialization activities (Gulbrandsen 2005, Allen et al. 2007, Azoulay et al. 2007,
Baldini et al. 2007, Lam, 2010, D‘Este & Markus, 2011). Authors like Audretsch & Kayalar-
Erdem (2004) and Rothermael et al. (2007) stress the need to understand what are the
motivators of individuals to start a new company or to commercialize new research
inventions. This is especially important since there is reluctance from academic scientists to
disclose their inventions. This problem is observed also from within since one of the main
problems according to TTO is to educate and convince the faculty members to disclose their
inventions. (Jensen et al., 2003)
Therefore, in order to facilitate university innovation growth and productivity, it is critical to

understand what the incentives of academic scientists are. Are they only intrinsically
motivated by the challenge of entrepreneurial activities or does pecuniary incentives
determine how the faculty member‘s research activities will be structured? (Lach &
Schankerman, 2003, Lam, 2010) From personal economics theory employees respond to
incentives and show better performance (Lazear, 2010), does this theory also apply to faculty
members? According to Shane et al. (2003) it does; motivation will allow researcher to
identify opportunities, and use existing resources for research exploitation to make the
building steps for initial commercialization activities. Moreover, research shows positive
relationship not only between motivation and faculty member decision making but also
between incentives and success of commercialization activities (Hayter, 2010, Belenzon &
Scharkerman, 2009). However, the performance of commercialization endeavours is beyond
the scope of this thesis.
1.2 Research objective

The objective of this study is to test the theory of academic entrepreneurship by looking at
individual motivators of scientists. Currently, most of the literature for academic
entrepreneurship focuses on institution level and not so much on individual level.
Furthermore, a lot of theory has focused on individuals who have chosen the entrepreneurial
path and do not combine both academic and entrepreneurial roles.
Some of the incentives have already been tested or theoretically designed but most of these
studies test the importance of one or few incentives or have aggregated a set of incentives
without looking at specific unique impact of each. The theoretical framework of this paper is
designed by combining different literature on academic entrepreneurship and individual level
incentives.
Research objective:
Contribute to academic entrepreneurship literature by investigating the impact of a set of

commercialization motivators influence on the academic entrepreneurship behaviour.
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The Research Question that the designed theoretical model will measure is:
Why do academics engage in commercialization activities:

 How important are a set of various motivators in stimulating commercialization
effort and
 How do these incentives increase the odds of faculty member to be an academic
entrepreneur?
2 Theory Building
2.1 Concept - Academic Entrepreneurs
New business ideas and core technologies that facilitate entrepreneurship are emerging
increasingly from research facilities at universities (Wood, 2011). Emerging number of
commercial ventures that were created via university research programs led Etzkowitz (1998)
to the term of ―entrepreneurial university‖. In his paper Etzkowitz described the new role
university and faculty members had to undertake to include economic development as an
additional function in their mission. ―Entrepreneurial university‖ has been substituted with a
more concrete term ―academic entrepreneurship‖. The term refers to the basic principle that
universities undertake wide range of scientific research and this research has the potential to
have commercial applications and thus generate additional revenue for the university (Wood,
2011). This explanation is in line with Shane and Venkataraman (2003) that describe
entrepreneurial process as outcome of discovery, evaluation, and exploitation activities.
Referring the term to individual, Gulbrandsen (2005) defines them as following:
Academic entrepreneurs are researchers that have patented their research results,
started a new science/technology-based firm or otherwise contributed to the
commercialisation of research-based ideas and knowledge.
Academic entrepreneurship is a relatively new term, even though; academic researchers have
patented and started new firms already since 19th century. (Gulbrandsen, 2005) The term has
become more known because of a few productive individuals who took initiative in
universities and created successful commercial endeavours (Henrekson & Rosenberg 2001).
Despite the wide range of applications of academic entrepreneurship, the term is mostly used
describing activities like patenting/licensing and spin-off company formation rather than
industry consultancy and collaboration projects. (Gulbrandsen, 2005) The definitions of the
terms go even further to describe the intentions of academic researchers. Meyer (2003)
outlines two terms ―academic entrepreneurs‖ and ―entrepreneurial academics‖ where the
academic entrepreneurs are described as the ones who adapt to new research demands, new
settings and funding types but they do not do it because of the growth motive. The lack of
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growth motive can be explained by their decision to wear ―two hats‖ - continuation with the
work as university professor.
Scientist‘s involvement in commercialization activities is expressed and defined quite

diversely by different authors. It ranges from minor involvement such as invention disclosure,
applied research for industry consultancy to higher involvement like patent licensing,
technology transfers and spin-off creations. E.g. in Goktepe-Hulten & Mahagaonkar (2009)
paper, the scientist‘s involvement in commercialization activities is described by voluntary
activity of scientist to take the initiative and reveal the research invention to TTO. More
critically viewing the term entrepreneurial activity, patenting and industry collaboration
would be considered entrepreneurial only if they are the mediating activities for starting a
company or enhancing its growth (Gartner, 1988). As a result many research papers
especially in the past have taken patent activity as a measure of research commercialization,
considering patents as the first step of the process (Mowery and Ziedonis 2002). The focus of
this thesis is not on the commercial success of the entrepreneurial activities but on the very
initial stage of commercialization – observing the underlying reasons why faculty members
have decided to initiate research commercialization. Academic researchers decide what to do
with their research, whether to disclose an invention, whether to patent an invention, whether
to collaborate with an industry, and whether to start a company. These decisions show faculty
member‘s ability to identify research commercialization opportunities which makes these
decisions entrepreneurial in nature. (Renault, 2006)
As a result, academic entrepreneurs in this paper are referred to individuals that have
patented an invention or are intending to patent their past research results or have started a
spin-off or are planning to start a spin-off based on their past research results.
There are several arguments why patents and spin-offs, despite their differences as
entrepreneurial activities, have been combined to define academic entrepreneurs in this paper.
1. Both patents and spin-offs are categorizes as commercialization activities. For

example Lam (2010) among commercialization activities lists 1) holding a patent, 2)
involvement in licensing, 3) affiliation with start-ups; 4) own company founding.
Various research papers have included both spin-offs and patents to look at scientists‘
incentives, e.g. Lam (2010), Ambos, Makela, Birkinshaw, D‘Este (2008), Renault
(2006), Gulbrandsen (2005) and more.
2. It has been found that both patent and spin-off creation is motivated exclusively by
commercialization whilst joint research, contract research and consulting the industry
are strongly driven by research-related motives. (D‘Este & Perkmann, 2011)
Therefore, if the incentives of both patents and spin-offs lie in the same category, it
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supports the argument to combine both these activities as the dependent variable to
look at more specific incentives.
3. Patenting is a good proxy for innovation and a good measure for future research
commercialization. Shane (2004) examined academic patenting as a phenomenon of
university entrepreneurship. I am interested only in the initial step of knowledge
commercialization – showing initial interest/initiative for academic entrepreneurship
by filing a patent or starting/being part of a spin-off. I am not observing the
performance (generation of profit) of these patents and spin-offs that create more
differences between patents and spin-offs.
4. The main difference between academics and industrial researchers, according to
Dasgupta & David (1987) lies not in the actual activities that scientists and
technologists take, but in their commitments to the reward systems and the target
audiences. The actual science being done in a lab or a firm are essentially the same;
but what differentiates the scientists are their decisions about uses and audiences for
their findings. Therefore, if scientists decide to file a patent they join the
―commercialization club‖, the same reasoning applies to spin-off creation.
2.2 Factors of academic entrepreneurship

In order to make universities more entrepreneurial several factors have been researched and
identified in university entrepreneurship literature. Rothaermel et al (2007) in their taxonomy
of literature have illustrated numerous factors that influence the entrepreneurial activity
within a university. The summary of these factors are outlined in figure 1.
As already outlined in chapter 1.1 why study individual incentives and from this theoretical
framework outlined in figure 1, it can be seen that a lot of focus has been put on university
level factors. While entrepreneurship literature explains entrepreneurial activity with the focus
of individual-level attributes, academic entrepreneurship explanations does not (Clarysse et
al, 2011). According to Owen-Smith and Powel (2001), dependencies of entrepreneurial
activities within university are academic‘s associated benefits, quality of technology transfer
office, and university‘s internal system. Therefore, decision of academics to undertake
commercialization activities will be influenced by the combination of individual incentives,
organizational procedures and internal culture and environment.
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Figure 1: Entrepreneurial research university
University
Incentive system Intermediary agents
Status Policy
Entrepreneurial
Location Experience activity
Culture Defined role & identity
Faculty Technology
External factors
Industry conditions
Government policies
Source: Rothaermel et al (2007)
Even though, numerous academic entrepreneurship factors have been researched and
identified, not all of them play an important role and many of them are overstated. It has been
found that university environment play a much smaller role compared to individual‘s focus
and abilities. (Clarysse et al, 2011) Environmental factors also do play a role; however, as
argued by Shane et al (2003b) individual‘s motivation plays a critical role in commercial
activities, when ,controlling for external factors. Therefore, the focus of this paper is on
micro-level environment where the theoretical model is built upon the factors that influence
the individual‘s decision to engage in academic commercialization activities.
2.3 Effort – Entrepreneurial commitment

Academic scientists face different entrepreneurial commitment when it comes to research
commercialization. Industrial consulting is one means of experience where faculty members
give technological advice and support in terms of necessary resources, right methods,
strategies and implementations. Other academics engage in technology transfer activities to
transfer theoretical research results in physical output. Some faculty members not only
continue with their academic obligations but also form or are part of spin-off creations to
exploit the research outcomes even further. (Yang & Chang, 2009) Innovation cannot proceed
without certain involvement from the inventor – the academic scientist. Great inventions can
be born in university laboratories but they will not become innovations if the inventor will not
take at least minimum effort for research commercialization. (Smith & Parr, 2003)
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Currently, the primary focus of university and majority of faculty members is on teaching and
research work; therefore, time accessibility is an important determinant whether an academic
scientist will be willing to engage in entrepreneurial activities. (Chang, Yang and Chen, 2009,
Lach and Schankerman, 2004) By exploring different knowledge combinations scientists can
achieve innovation. The primary factors that lead to the innovation are individual‘s effort,
ability and knowledge (Zenger & Lazzarini, 2004, Sauermann & Cohen, 2010). Allocation of
effort will determine the performance of the activity. Going beyond the standards of effort
will lead to higher ability. (Kahneman, 1973) Since academic entrepreneurs are expected to
wear ―two hats‖ – do basic and applied research, it is important to see how much time (effort)
do they devote for commercialization activities (cooperating with industry, doing applied
research, filing patents or starting/working on spin-off company) and for traditional science
(teaching, basic research, paper publication, attending conferences).
Some empirical tests have shown that academic scientists who have engaged in
entrepreneurial activities such as filing patents or/and starting spin-off activities, or just
collaborated with industry have allocated less time for teaching and basic research activities
(Fini, Lactera, Shane, 2010). However, there is not unanimous opinion on the impact of
entrepreneurial effort and if it sacrifices basic research activities. Stephan et al (2007) finds
that patents do not crowd-out researcher‘s publications amount. While Yang & Chang (2009)
outline that faculty members will need to devote substantial time for applying and also
maintaining the patent – in many cases the researcher will need to consult the licensee on how
the patented technology works and should be developed (Smith and Parr 2003). These
findings are also very dependent on academic‘s age and tenure position – older faculty
members are more likely to do both patenting and publishing without sacrificing the other
(Geuna and Nesta 2006). Another belief is that if an academic entrepreneur allocates more
time for applied research relative to basic research it does not mean that the basic research is
receiving less time than before but rather that leisure time will be sacrificed (Thursby et al,
2007). Despite these findings, the concerns of the majority of faculty members are still based
on the prejudice that engagement in research result protection and commercialization will be
very time-consuming and will take time off their academic activities. As a result some
researchers are reluctant to put even the slightest effort into commercial activities. (Smith &
Parr, 2003) If only scientists would spend more time with industry people it would already
increase the probability of patent filing, based on empirical findings of Fini et al (2010).
From this the first proposition is derived:
Proposition 1: the more time individual spends on cooperating with industry, doing applied
research, filing patents and/or starting/working on spin-off, the higher the probability that the
individual will be an academic entrepreneur.
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2.3.1 Effort – mediating effect
Numerous studies have outlined that higher incentives do improve mean performance.
Extrinsic and intrinsic incentives can affect individual‘s attention and therefore affect
cognitive functions (Camerer & Hogarth, 1999). However, certain incentives not only
improve average performance but sometimes can also hinder it. For example, an intrinsically
motivated employee will not increase performance in an easy job if the extrinsic incentives
are raised (Camerer & Hogarth, 1999) or extrinsic incentives might even reduce creativity of
intrinsically motivated individual (Amabile, Hennessey, and Grossman, 1986). At the same
time, some studies have shown that monetary incentives do increase scientist‘s productivity.
(Lach and Schankerman, 2003) Therefore, it is very important to identify the appropriate
incentives for commercialization activities so that the individual would decide to spend more
time on it. ―Effort only improves performance if the match is good.‖ (Camerer & Hogarth,
1999) According to Owen-Smith and Powell (2001) study, academic researcher‘s decision to
disclose and commercialize his/her invention depends on the following factors: 1) perception
of personal and professional benefits of commercialization – motivation; 2) perception about
time and cost of engaging in commercialization activities – decision on the amount of effort
to devote; 3) general attitude of technology transfer/commercialization activities. Only if
individuals are motivated enough they will devote more hours for entrepreneurial activities
which will lead to commercialization outcomes. Therefore from this reasoning 2nd proposition
is derived:
Proposition 2: Level of effort is a mediating effect between individual’s commercialization

motivation and academic entrepreneurship.
2.4 Incentives of academic entrepreneurship

2.4.1 Personal income incentives
One of the reasons why academic entrepreneurship emerged was because scientists such as
creators of biotechnology firms in 1970s and 1980s realized the significant financial benefits
that potentially could come from their research outcomes. First the thought of making money
out of research results was unacceptable but with time many academics started to see the
opportunities it did provide. These advancements in science were not present only in
biotechnology but in other disciplines as well, even linguistics research found its place and
commercialization potential in computer and software industry. (Etzkowitz, 1998)
The main form of payment to academics is salary. However, this provides no incentive to
further research inventions towards commercialization since the remuneration is not tied to
the outcome of researcher‘s activities. Therefore, different monetary structures have been
introduced that link commercialization activities with performance-based payment and/or
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equity compensations. (Goldfarb & Henrekson, 2002) This has been done with the
argumentation that researchers will disclose their invention to TTO only if they see proper
benefits of patenting, start-up formation, industry collaboration (Owen-Smith & Powell,
2001) especially due to the scarcity of research resources (Markman, 2004). Monetary
compensation and profit motives are emphasized in Etzkowitz (1998) work of entrepreneurial
scientist. Some research has emphasized that universities that provide higher monetary
rewards linked to commercialization involvement shows higher individual motivation to
commercialize (patent) more (Goktepe-Hulten & Mahagaonkar, 2009). Sieget et al. (2003)
found that secondary motive of university scientist is financial gain and a desire to secure
additional research funding and if technology transfer office will be perceived as productive
and offering personal compensations for engagement, scientists will be more motivated to
disclose their inventions to TTO. Similar findings are provided by Lach & and Schankerman
(2003) that shows empirical findings that monetary rewards linked to scientist‘s inventions
increases the incentives to patent. Another argument in favour of importance of monetary
incentives is scientist reflection on commercialization barriers. According to empirical study
of Siegel et al. (2003), significant amount of scientists reported insufficient rewards to faculty
members for university-industry involvement activities. The incentive effects work both on
the level of effort and selection of academics (Baldini, 2010).
However, the view, whether personal financial incentives increase commercial activities of
academic scientists, is not unanimous since previous results have shown contrasting empirical
results (Baldini, 2010). Several studies have hypothesized for significant and high relationship
between commercialization rewards and commercialization outputs but have resulted in
minor importance (Friedman & Silberman, 2003). Colyvas et al. (2002) also find small or no
role of financial incentives on faculty member motivation to engage in innovation producing
research projects. Gulbrandsen (2005) researched on academic‘s different motivations to
patent and financial incentives were not among the most important ones. Markman and his
colleagues‘ (2004) research results showed in contrast to the theoretical predictions that
monetary incentives are actually negatively related to the number of equity licenses in young
ventures, and to the number of start-ups. Furthermore, many scientists might still have the
traditional academic mindset that is illustrated in Etzkowitz (1998) work: academic scientist
signifies purity of motives that does not have place for material concerns and
commercialization gains. The rewards for their research should not be found in pecuniary
advantages but rather from recognition from their peers.
Therefore, it is not entirely clear how important monetary incentives play role in motivating
academics to put effort in commercialization activities. As argued by Lam (2010) money
could be a hygiene factor and not a motivation factor based on ‗motivation–hygiene theory‘
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and positive psychology. Therefore, her argument is that money influences scientist‘s
satisfaction or dissatisfaction but is not strong enough to motivate people to put more effort.
A similar finding comes from Hayter (2010) who finds that financial rewards is not the
primary motivation but rather a beneficiary side effect that does cover the extra hours
individuals put in commercialization activities.
Proposition 3: Importance of financial incentives plays small or no role in motivating

scientists to spend more effort in commercialization activities and has higher likelihood of
becoming an academic entrepreneur.
2.4.2 Intellectual Challenge

Intellectual challenge refers to the intrinsic satisfaction/ curiosity fulfilment that academic
scientists gain by engaging in knowledge application and technology transfer.
Academic scientists often are characterized as dedicated individuals that desire to advance
knowledge. The motivation behind the dedication is the intellectual curiosity and the desire to
engage in creative puzzle solving. (Cotgrove, 1970) This motivation is due to the embedded
norms of science institutions – to advance knowledge by ―commitment to the disinterested
pursuit of truth‖. (Merton, 1957) Research by academics is seen as a puzzle-solving game
where solution is the reward (Stephan & Levin, 1996). According to Stephan et al (2007),
there are two key reasons why scientist engages in research – interest in solving the challenge
and importance of winning the game. Therefore, academics are seen as being intrinsically
motivated where they are enjoying the research process (Goktepe-Hulten & Mahagaonkar,
2009).
Considering general characteristics of academic scientists the same motivation of intellectual

challenge and creative puzzle solving could be applied in the context of research application
and commercialization activities (Lam, 2010). Winning the game may be considered as
creating something new which can be done by filing a patent or by starting a spin-off. This,
however, will depend on the university‘s culture and if the faculty members share the same
view on commercialization activities as being intellectually challenging. Sauermann & Cohen
(2010), who show that motives have significant effect on innovative effort and performance,
find intellectual challenge as very important motivator.
Proposition 4: Importance of intellectual challenge has positive effect on motivating scientists

to spend more effort in commercialization activities and on the likelihood of becoming an
academic entrepreneur.
2.4.3 Learning
Learning from the industry and from engagement in commercialization activities is another
motivation for the faculty members. The learning motivation may include benefits such as
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gaining novel insights, feedback on research outcome, and opportunity to access new
knowledge and technology. For example, by resolving problems in technology development
can lead to more information in research agendas, follow-up research projects and even new
science disciplines. (D‘Este & Perkmann, 2011) Applied projects with industry create
exploratory learning possibilities; it might not lead to new scientific outputs but may lead to
new research problems (Perkmann and Walsh 2009). From faculty member interviews in US,
65% of the scientists described industry collaboration as having positive influence on their
research work (Siegel et al, 2003). According to Meyer-Krahmer & Schmoch (1998) who
conducted a research on German academic scientists, found learning from the industry
together with acquisition of additional research funds as the main motive to engage with
industry. However, learning as a motivation is more evident in collaboration activities such as
collaborative research and industry consultancy and not in more commercialization driven
activities such as patent applications and spin-off formation (D‘Este & Perkmann, 2011).
The project of ―Benchmarking Industry-Science-Relations‖ identified main incentives of

academic researchers among which was also mutual learning where the public research sector
from the enterprise sector gets access to knowledge and absorption of new knowledge (Polt et
al, 2001).
Proposition 5: Importance of learning possibilities has positive effect on motivating scientists

2.4.4 Application & Exploitation of research

Similar to learning possibilities, many academic researchers want to find application and
exploitation possibilities for their research results (D‘Este & Perkmann, 2011). Some
researchers want to see wider social application of their research and therefore application &
exploitation of research outcome is especially important. Application and exploitation of
research can be seen as one part of the challenge and curiosity only in a non-traditional
academic norm setting. Scientists consider commercialization as extension of their research –
―pushing the boundaries‖ of the research. (Lam, 2011, p.15)
This motivation can also be seen as knowledge exchange, where it is important for the
scientist to advance the research and generate economic and technological development. This
motivation for entrepreneurial engagement was evident in Baldini et al (2007) work.
In addition, through the possibility of applying and exploiting further one‘s research, the
scientist creates more opportunities to find novelty and possible originality in the research
outcome which is also very important criteria in researcher‘s publications.
17
Proposition 6: Importance of research application and exploitation of research has positive
effect on motivating scientists to spend more effort in commercialization activities and on the
likelihood of becoming an academic entrepreneur.
2.4.5 Research funding

A significant motivation to engage in commercialization activities is the research grant
incentive to gather more money for continuation of existing or past research projects. (Baldini
et al, 2007) In such situations scientists see commercialization activities as means to get
research funding; however, some scientists associate industry funding as ―selling their soul...‖
(Lam, 2011). Nevertheless, acquisition of research funding has been found as one of the
primary motives in several empirical findings (Meyer-Krahmer & Schmoch, 1998. Lam,
2011).
Research grants from the industry are one of the most favoured forms of involvement by
academics since they usually can continue with their research in their lab with condition to
consider what is relevant to the grant provider. From a survey in Sweden over 50% of
respondents reported that decisions of research topics were influenced by potential research
grants and the users of the research results. (Goldfarb & Henrekson, 2002) However, such
research grants at many times take away scientist‘s time from more basic research (Geuna and
Nesta 2006, Goldfarb, 2007,).
D‘Este & Perkmann (2011) finds a distinction between different kinds of commercialization
engagement in terms of motivations. They find that joint research, contract research and
consulting are driven by academic‘s motivation for research funding; however, this
motivation does not have positive effect on spin-offs and patenting activities. Therefore, the
literature does not show unanimous findings on research funding motivation and its effect on
patenting and spin-off activities. Nevertheless, one of the main motives for commercialization
endeavours that appear in many academic papers is the desire to secure additional funds
(Meyer-Krahmer & Schmoch, 1998, Siegel et al, 2003, Meyer 2003, Lam, 2011); therefore
the derived proposition predicts a positive relationship.
Proposition 7: Importance of acquiring research funding has positive effect on motivating

scientists to spend more effort in commercialization activities and on the likelihood of
becoming an academic entrepreneur.
2.4.6 Better work conditions

The same arguments go for motivation to provide better work conditions. Etzkowitz (1998)
even argues that a prerequisite of doing science is also the ability to get access to better work
conditions (lab equipment) and better conditions for students by securing job opportunities.
From scientists‘ interviews in Siegel at el (2003) study a scientist told that his involvement
with industry allowed him to purchase better lab equipment that enabled him to conduct more
18
experiments. A widespread view is present that for researchers good work conditions with
high level lab equipment is even more important than higher salary. (Sauermann & Cohen,
2010)
Proposition 8: Importance of better work condition has positive effect on motivating scientists
2.4.7 Job opportunities for students

Since a large proportion of faculty members responsibility is on the work with students
through teaching and dissertation supervision, job provision for students can also be an
important motivator (Lam, 2011).
Proposition 9: Importance of providing work placements for students has positive effect on
motivating scientists to spend more effort in commercialization activities and on the
2.4.8 Recognition and prestige

The science institution has incorporated a reward system that is designed to recognize and
praise scientists that have fulfilled their roles to make original contribution to the knowledge
stock (Merton, 1957). The primary motive premise of faculty members is to fulfil their role
and the role fulfilment can be observed from the recognition in the scientific community. The
recognition comes from publications in top-tier journals, participation in prestigious
conferences, and national research grants. (Siegel et al, 2003) As a result, academics are
motivated by rewards of recognition and prestige from their fellow colleagues and they are
intrinsically motivated by the intellectual challenge and driven by the desire to win the game
(Merton, 1957). The need to make original contribution corresponds with patenting activity.
Patent creation shows novel scientific contribution and can show the usefulness of science
that can foster individual prestige (Owen-Smith and Powell 2001). Scientists can use patents
to indicate the newness and quality of their research results and thus increase personal
visibility and reputation (Goktepe-Hulten & Mahagaonkar, 2009).
The question is whether patents and other commercialization activities are seen as novel and
useful by scientist peers. Scientist merits are not evaluated by the commercialization activities
and it does not improve the promotion possibilities within university, at least in traditional
universities. Therefore, scientists that are surrounded by traditional academic views that
promote open science would be less motivated to engage in commercialization activities.
(Goktepe-Hulten & Mahagaonkar, 2009) If commercialization activities do not receive the
same amount of peer recognition as research activities it is important for TTO and university
administration to encourage the faculty members to disclose their inventions (Thursby et al.,
2001).
19
Despite the open science counterargument of invention disclosure, Baldini et al (2007) found
that Italian academic inventors valued ―prestige/visibility/reputation‖ as the main motivator to
engage in university patenting activity. As already referred, the most important motivation
together with intellectual challenge is the ability to win the game that gives scientists the
prestige and recognition (Stephan et al, 2007).
Proposition 10: Importance of gaining recognition and prestige has positive effect on
motivating scientists to spend more effort in commercialization activities and on the
2.4.9 Personal and professional network

Scientists are becoming not only interested in receiving recognition from fellow peers but also
from wider external university network (Lam, 2011). Strong network (diverse network with
interactive relationship and partnership) is especially important to succeed in start-up
formation (Meyer, 2003). By opening a strong personal and professional network will enable
scientist to succeed both in academic and commercialization activities (Debackere &
Veugelers, 2005).
Proposition 11: Importance of gaining personal and professional network has positive effect
on motivating scientists to spend more effort in commercialization activities and on the
2.4.10 Independence
Looking at entrepreneurship literature, independence has played an important role to
individuals as a motivator to start a new company (Hayter, 2010). Also employees working in
R&D centres are incentivized to engage in patenting behaviour by independence motivator
(Hessels et al. 2008). At the same time, engagement with industry collaboration in many cases
might not give faculty members with more independence. On contrary, these scientists would
be constrained in their research focus to meet the paying party‘s interest. Therefore, the
importance of independence might not have positive results on commercialization activities
such as industry collaboration. However, forming a spin-off is seen as a means of preserving
autonomy since the researcher can proceed with his own research and activities independently
from a larger company sponsorship. (Lam, 2011) Furthermore, if patent application is
considered as potential step towards firm formation then independence motivation would also
apply as a driver force.
Proposition 12: Importance of gaining independence does play a role on motivating scientists
A summary of empirical findings on academic entrepreneurship motivators from current

literature is outlined in the table 1 bellow. Even though some of the empirical findings also
20
find negative or insignificant results, as outlined in the propositions the expected effect from
all the motivators is positive on the likelihood of academic entrepreneurship.
Table 1: Empirical findings on academic entrepreneurship motivators
D’Este, P., Sauermann, Baldini, N., Goktepe- Lam, A.

Markus, H., Cohen, Grimaldi, Hulten, D., (2010)
P. (2011) W.M. R., Sobrero, Mahagaonkar,
(2007) M. (2007) P. (2009)
Personal income Positive Positive Significant Negative Positive
but small
importance
Challenge Positive Not
significant
Learning Not Positive
significant
Application & Not Positive Positive
Exploitation of significant
research
Recognition & Positive Positive Negative
prestige
Better work Negative Positive
conditions – e.g. lab
equipment
Research funding Not Positive Positive
significant
Work placements for Negative
students
Personal & Negative
professional network
Independence Positive
2.5 Individual-level factors

In order to make the theoretical model more complete and account for other influential
predictors of academic entrepreneurship, other individual-level factors are considered.
Many scientists are still confronted with the idea of basic or fundamental research where the
research outcome should be open and publicly available to everyone (Gulbrandsen, 2005).
Attitude towards commercialization activities was mostly negative in the early stage of
entrepreneurial university development. Many scientists did not realize that they had a choice
of both doing science and also making money from their research. (Etzkowitz, 1998) The
attitude of scientists is very important determinant of academic entrepreneurship (Baldini,
2010) and by some empirical evidence has been found that personal attitude is the most
significant determinant of the actual academic entrepreneurship behaviour (Renault, 2006).
21
According to academic life cycle theory, academic scientists develop their human capital and
reputation during the first phases of their career and once these aims have been fulfilled they
look to engage in entrepreneurial activities for financial gain (Lam, 2011). It is also consistent
with Shane and Khurana (2003) findings that researcher‘s highest academic rank has positive
effect on individual‘s commercialization endeavours.
Different academic papers have observed the effect of age on the likelihood of
commercialization engagement. Some claim that younger scientists are more inclined to
engage in commercialization activities since they are not yet pushed into academic-norms and
are more open to entrepreneurship (Owen-Smith & Powel, 2001); however, other view
advocates that more experienced professors are more likely to patent and form spin-offs since
they have acquired bigger social capital and are not pressured by tenure acquisition (Renault,
2006). Since it is found by previous studies that higher academic rank has positive effect on
the likelihood of engaging in academic entrepreneurship activities, it is also more likely that
age has the same relationship.
Scientist‘s research quality also influences patent and new spin-off formation. The so called
―star scientists‖ are more likely to be successful in both academic and commercial activities.
(Di Gregorio & Shane, 2003) In addition, scientists skills and knowledge plays an important
role on academic entrepreneurship.
Despite several findings that show positive commercialization results coming from basic
research, these researchers are mostly ―hands-off‖ researched focused and are less likely to
engage in academic entrepreneurship activities (Gulbrandsen, 2005). Empirical findings
support the claim that Researchers that are not engaged in applied research and mostly focus
on basic research are less inclined to engage in commercialization activities (Lam, 2011).
A lot of research has been done on gender differences on academic performance in terms of
scientific achievement, rank advancement, productivity and publication amount but not so
much on the commercialization performance. Nevertheless, gender seems to also play a role
in the prediction since it is found that female scientists have negative likelihood on
engagement in academic entrepreneurship activities. (Azoulay et al, 2007)
2.6 Environmental factors

One of the main differences on organization-level is the type of discipline. This factor has
been found to have influence on the level of interaction and collaboration with the industry
(D‘Este & Perkmann, 2010). Type of discipline determines the focus of the research and how
closely it can be related to the industry and entrepreneurial activities (Lam, 2011). Faculty
members from life sciences are expected to be more entrepreneurial compared to faculty
members from engineering sciences (Renault, 2006). According to Lam (2011), computer
22
sciences and medical sciences should have higher probability that an academic will become
an academic entrepreneur relative to academics from physical sciences.
Technology transfer office plays an important role in fostering academic entrepreneurship

(Clarysee et al, 2011). The expertise, culture, experience and support that it can provide has
direct positive effect on academic entrepreneurship activities (Baldini, 2007). External
funding has also positive effect on commercialization activities within university
(Ponomariov, 2007).
2.7 Summary of literature

Academic entrepreneurship is influenced by many various factors but as already mentioned
before less focus has been put on micro-level factors that influence academic researcher‘s
decision to engage in commercialization activities. As argued by academic literature a large
proportion can be explained by individuals‘ incentives, which has received the attention when
building the theoretical model.
Since entrepreneurship literature has identified indirect effect of motivation on

commercialization activities (Shane et al, 2003b), a mediating factor (effort towards
commercialization activities) has been included in the theoretical model that has not been
much examined in academic entrepreneurship context. Therefore, the influence of the
incentives has been predicted to have both direct and indirect effect on academic
entrepreneurship.
Apart from the incentives and the mediating factor, most influential individual-level and
environmental factors have been identified and included in theoretical model. As already
described individual level factors include faculty member‘s attitude, academic status, age,
gender, researcher‘s productivity (―star scientists‖), knowledge, skills and their work context
– basic vs. applied research. Environmental factors include academic discipline, TTO age, its
size, its experience and quality, amount of research funding, university culture, and
experience in technology transfer and commercialization activities. The theory that is
summarized above is illustrated in figure 2.
23
Figure 2: Theoretical framework
Incentives
Personal income
Challenge
Learning
Effort towards
Academic
commercialization
Application & entrepreneurship
activities
exploitation of research
Personal income
Recognition & prestige Individual-level factors Environmental factors

Attitude Academic discipline
Better work conditions
Status
Available funding TTO
Age
Funding
Work placement for
Gender
students
University culture
Independence Productivity
Experience
Basic research
Skills
Knowledge
2.8 Research framework

The research framework apart from theoretical framework does not account for many of the
environmental factors since the research is conducted in one university where these
environmental factors are the same for university‘s faculty members and thus can be
controlled for. The only environmental factor included is the scientific discipline since other
factors listed in the theoretical model are relatively the same for faculty members within one
university. The only difference is for the research funding for which unfortunately accurate
numbers across all departments was impossible to acquire because of confidentially reasons.
In addition, not all individual-level factors are controlled for, namely skills and knowledge,
since, first, these factors are very hard to measure and, second, these factors might be more
influential in later stages of commercialization activities that would influence the performance
of commercialization activities. The focus in this research framework is on the actual decision
to engage in commercialization activities, therefore, skills might also play lesser role in this
academic entrepreneurship stage.
24
The research framework is outlined in figure 3. This theoretical framework outlines the
predicted probabilistic relationship of incentives on academic entrepreneurship that is
mediated by effort towards commercialization activities. The dashed boxes represent
variables that will be controlled for to estimate the effect of incentives and effort on
involvement in academic entrepreneurship.
Figure 3: Research framework
Incentives
Personal income
Challenge
Learning
Effort towards
Academic
commercialization
Application & entrepreneurship
activities
exploitation of research
Personal income
Recognition & prestige Individual-level factors Environmental factors

Attitude Academic discipline
Better work conditions
Status
Available funding
Age
Work placement for
Gender
students
Independence Productivity
Basic research
25
3 Theory testing
3.1 Methodology
As already described this research aims at estimating probabilistic relationship between
researcher‘s incentives and academic entrepreneurship and to what extent it is mediated by
level of effort towards commercialization activities. Since faculty member‘s decision to
engage in commercialization activities is influenced also by several other individual and
environmental level factors, the most likely influencers are controlled for when estimating the
probabilistic relationship for incentives.
Since this research framework is designed with the interest in only the first step of the
commercialization (presence of patents or spin-offs or the decision to engage in one) and not
observing the performance of commercialization activities, this paper tests mostly only
individual-level factors.
According to Dul et al (2008, p.70), probabilistic relationship between concepts A

(independent variable) and concept B (dependent variable) can be formulated by: ―if A is
higher, then it is likely that B is higher‖. For this research, if the motivation is higher it is
more likely that an academic researcher will be an academic entrepreneur. This relationship is
predicted to have either direct effect on academic entrepreneurship or an indirect effect,
which is researched less but by some is reasoned to have only indirect effect (Shane et al,
2003b). The indirect effect goes through the level of effort – hours spent on
commercialization activities. From this predicted relationship that is also shown in the
propositions 1-12 in the theory building part the following hypothesis are derived:
Hypothesis 1: An academic researcher who spends more hours on cooperating with industry,
doing applied research, filing patents and/or starting/working on a spin-off is more likely to
be an academic entrepreneur.
Hypothesis 2: Amount of hours spent on industrial consultancy, technology transfers, patent

formation, and spin-off activities is a mediating factor between the level of incentives and
presence of academic entrepreneurship.
Hypothesis 3: The higher is academic researcher’s motivation to engage in

commercialization activities because of the “importance of personal income”, the higher the
likelihood that this individual will spend more hours on industrial consultancy, technology
transfers, patent formation, and spin-off activities and is more likely to be an academic
entrepreneur.
26
commercialization activities because of the “importance of intellectual challenge”, the higher
the likelihood that this individual will spend more hours on industrial consultancy, technology
entrepreneur.

commercialization activities because of the “importance of learning possibilities”, the higher
entrepreneur.

commercialization activities because of the “importance of research application and
exploitation of research”, the higher the likelihood that this individual will spend more hours
on industrial consultancy, technology transfers, patent formation, and spin-off activities and
is more likely to be an academic entrepreneur.

commercialization activities because of the “importance of acquiring research funding”, the
higher the likelihood that this individual will spend more hours on industrial consultancy,
technology transfers, patent formation, and spin-off activities and is more likely to be an

commercialization activities because of the “importance of better work condition”, the higher
entrepreneur.

commercialization activities because of the “importance of providing work placements for
students”, the higher the likelihood that this individual will spend more hours on industrial
consultancy, technology transfers, patent formation, and spin-off activities and is more likely
to be an academic entrepreneur.

commercialization activities because of the “importance of gaining reputation and prestige”,
the higher the likelihood that this individual will spend more hours on industrial consultancy,
27
commercialization activities because of the “importance of gaining personal and professional
network”, the higher the likelihood that this individual will spend more hours on industrial
consultancy, technology transfers, patent formation, and spin-off activities and is more likely
to be an academic entrepreneur.

commercialization activities because of the “importance of gaining independence”, the
higher the likelihood that this individual will spend more hours on industrial consultancy,
The best data collection method for testing probabilistic relationship is experiments, however,
this is not feasible for the theoretical framework, and therefore the next most suitable - survey
method - was used. (Dul & Hak, 2008)
3.1.2 Sample selection and sample description

In order to test the research framework it needs to be tested among university faculty
members. Most of empirical research on academic entrepreneurship is done in United States
and is mostly reflecting success stories like in MIT (Etzkowitz, 1998). Even though empirical
research in Europe is starting to receive more attention it rarely tests the theory in medium
level universities. The theory cannot be generalized based on successful outcome only.
Therefore it is important to test the hypothesis in an environment where academic
entrepreneurship has not had such vast experience.
The research was done in Latvia using a sample from Latvian University – the biggest
university in Latvia. Data collection was done only in one university to hold the
environmental factors constant since the theoretical framework is measuring individual-level
factors. The sample consisted of full-time faculty members in academic departments that
classify as technology field departments. These academic departments were aggregated into 5
technology fields;
 Biological Science (Biology, Microbiology and Biotechnology),

 Chemical Science,
 Physical Science (Physics, Polimer Mechanics, Solid State Physics, Chemical
Physics, Mathematics, Geodesy and Geoinformatics),
 Computer Science,
 Medical Science (Medicine, Experimental and Clinical Medicine, Cardiology).
Faculty members that matched the requirements – full-time employee and working in
academic department of technology field – were 382. Basic information of these scientists
28
was publicly available on Latvian University website. It also included information on
university‘s patents and spin-offs from university that amounted to over 100 faculty members
over the last three years. This information guaranteed sufficient size of the sample. However,
the respondents were selected with a random sampling approach.
3.1.3 Data gathering

In order to receive satisfactory high response rate the data collection was not done though a
web questionnaire. Therefore the preferred data collection was personally administered
questionnaires. This methodology guarantees questionnaire collection within short period of
time (Sekaran, 2003) and also higher response rate since this method is more effective than
sending electronic online forms that many people tend to ignore. Personal administration also
ensures possibility to explain unclarities and monitor questionnaire outcome. Furthermore, all
academic departments were clustered within one city; therefore, it was relatively easy to reach
most of the faculty members.
Questionnaires were short and took only 5-10min of individual‘s time. In few of the cases
when it was not possible to freely approach the faculty members, questionnaires were left at
department‘s secretary‘s office and collected after a few days.
The content of the questionnaire mainly covered all the explanatory, dependant and control
variables which are explained more in detail in variable‘s section. Before conducting the
research, the questionnaires went through pre-testing phase with 6 faculty members and 2
university administration members and one TTO office member. It helped to rephrase some
of the questions from faculty members‘ point of view, revise format, take one of the questions
out, and to revise scale for individual‘s motivation from 1-5 to 1-4. The questionnaire is
shown in Appendix A (first is the English version and then the questionnaire in Latvian – the
language in which surveys were conducted).
3.1.4 Measurements
(a) Dependant variable

Academic Entrepreneur The dependant variable measures whether faculty members have
shown entrepreneurial behaviour in time frame of 2007 - 2011. The time frame was chosen 3
years to ensure sufficient response of academic entrepreneurs. Four proxies are used to
measure entrepreneurial activity: 1) patent ownership, 2) spin-off formation; 3) intention of
patent application and 4) intention of start-up formation. To find the entrepreneurial activity
faculty members were asked following four questions:
1. Since 2007 have you been named as an inventor on any application for a patent?
29
2. Do you intend to apply for a patent on any of the discoveries resulting from your
existing or past research projects?
3. Since 2007 have you started or been part of a new spin-off company?
4. Do you intend to start a spin-off or be part of a spin-off based on existing or past

research projects?
The variable is dichotomous metric that is positive if at least one of the four questions asked
is answered with ―yes‖. Otherwise if all questions are answered with ―no‖ the academic
researcher does not qualify as academic entrepreneur.
Quantity Effort The population of interest in this study are academic scientists whose
primary work is at the university – full time faculty members. Therefore, their effort/time
spent for commercialization activities significantly varies. Some faculty members spend time
for industry consultations, technology transfer activities, patent applications, or even spin-off
formation and ownership in addition to their academic position. To measure what is the effort
level spent in commercialization activities1, researchers were asked to self-report average
number of hours spent in a typical week to industrial consultancy, technology transfer, patent
formation and spin-off activities between 2007–2011. The proxy for effort was taken from
Yang & Chang (2009).
The limitation of this measure is that individuals are rating their own performance and this
can result in self-reporting bias (Podsakoff et al, 2003). However, it is believed that initiative
taker is the one who can assess the best the amount of effort since peers and superiors have
different observational opportunities which in most of the situations is incomplete information
about individual‘s effort. (De Clercq et al, 2010)
(b) Independent variables

Motivators for commercialization engagement Academic scientists were asked to rate the
importance of a set of motivators for engagement in commercialization activities.
Commercialization activities were defined as activities that ranged from cooperating with
industry, doing applied research, filing patents and starting/being part of a spin-off company.
Respondents were asked to rank the bellow listed factors in a four-point scale: (1) not
relevant, (2) slightly relevant, (3) important, (4) very important.
 To increase research funding

 To create better work conditions – lab equipment
1
Note: commercialization activities are not the same as academic entrepreneurship. Commercialization
activities include industrial consultancy, technology transfer, patent formation and spin-off activities
and academic entrepreneurship refers to 1) patent ownership, 2) spin-off formation; 3) intention of
patent application and 4) intention of start-up formation
30
 To apply & exploit research results
 To satisfy intellectual challenge
 To build personal and professional network
 To provide work placement for students
 To increase personal income
 To raise recognition and prestige
 To create learning opportunities
 To create individual independence
(c) Control variables

In order to find the relationship between individual incentives and entrepreneurial behaviour,
it is important to control for individual and environmental level variables.
Personal Attitude whose predicted influence is outlined in theory building part. To test
individual‘s attitude of commercialization engagement from university a method applied by
Lam (2011) was used that identifies four entrepreneurship engagement categories. These
categories identifies an individual by traditional versus entrepreneurial values.
The traditional-oriented researchers are the ones believing that industry and university should
remain separate; however in this group 2 separate categories can be distinguished: Type 1
―Pure traditionalists‖ and Type 2 ―Pragmatic traditionalists‖. The difference between the two
lies in the engagement with the industry. The ―Pure traditionalists‖ are against any industry
collaboration and strictly pursues academic activities. ―Pragmatic traditionalists‖ does engage
in industry collaboration but only for the sake of traditional research. ―Pragmatic
traditionalists‖ can see the benefits that industry collaboration can bring – e.g. securing funds
for further research. However, they are not advocating the collaboration since it is not in line
with tradition norms and values of academic science and even contradicts them.
In contrast to traditional-oriented researchers, entrepreneurial faculty members do not see the

need for a strict border between the industry and university because they see the benefit and
need for cooperation. Entrepreneurial scientists see the possibility to incorporate
commercialization activities in their academic role or even see commercialization as part of
their role. Entrepreneurial-orientation is categorized in two more groups: Type 3 ―Hybrids‖
and Type 4 ―Entrepreneurial‖. ―Hybrid‖ scientists believe in the importance of university-
industry collaboration but they are engaging in commercialization activities primary to
advance the academic knowledge – thus remaining committed to core academic values. While
―Entrepreneurial‖ academics do not see the need for boundaries of academia and industry in
order to exploit and apply the academic knowledge.
31
Age A dummy variable was included which is equal to one if an individual is older than 40
and zero otherwise – ―Age40‖.
Academic Status Findings show that researcher‘s highest academic rank has positive effect
on individual‘s commercialization endeavours. Thus a dummy variable was included that
looks if an individual is a professor or a lead researcher or not – ―Professor+LeadR‖
Productivity To measure the scientist‘s quality the number of publications within time period
of 2007 – 2010 was used – ―Publications‖. (Renault, 2006)
Basic Research A dummy variable was included if the scientist did not devote at least 10%
of his/her time for applied research or development activities – ―Primary_Basic‖
Since the faculty members are represented from the same university then the quality of the
institution is the same – have the same technology transfer office. Therefore the control
variable included only the type of discipline.
Academic Discipline The division of the type of disciplines are into five groups:
1) Biological Science
2) Chemical Science
3) Physical Science
4) Computer Science
5) Medical Science
External and state funding for different academic departments has great influence as well;
however, university‘s administration was not eligible to reveal this information therefore it
was not included in the regression model.
The list of all variables, their names and type are outlined in Appendix B.
3.1.5 Data Analysis and Conclusions

The empirical analysis will follow a five stage process. First, non-response bias will be tested
by comparing respondents and non-respondents on individual-level characteristics - gender,
age, academic position, and academic department.
Second, outcome of the respondent‘s sample will be presented by illustrating descriptive

statistics, comparing means between academic entrepreneurs and non- entrepreneur
academics. Correlation matrix will be performed to test whether explanatory variables are
highly correlated and there is a need for factor analysis. However, factor analysis is not
desirable since this study wants to estimate unique effects of each individual motivator and
not aggregation of intrinsic and extrinsic factors.
32
Third, regression analysis is performed measuring probabilistic relationship on mediation
variable (amount of effort) from motivation variables. Since effort is expressed as number of
hours and is a continuous variable ordinary least square regression model is preformed. The
assumption behind the model is that standard errors are normally distributed.
Fourth, probabilistic relationship is measured on the dependant variable – academic

entrepreneurship. Academic entrepreneurship is measured by presence of patenting and/or
spin-off behaviour. This measure is dichotomous representing presence or absence of the
entrepreneurial behaviour. Therefore binary logistic model is used to test which of the
motivators have a significant impact on probability that an individual will be academic
entrepreneur. This model also assumes that the error terms follow standard normal
distribution.
Finally, it will be tested whether variable ―effort‖ is a mediating effect between motivators
and likelihood of being academic entrepreneur. Since the dependent variable is dichotomous
variable a Sobel test will be used. The Sobel test is used to test simple mediation. This tool
compares the strength of the indirect effect of independent variable on dependent variable.
The indirect effect of independent variable (X) on dependent variable (Y) is defined as the
product of the XM (mediator) path and the MY path. (Preacher & Hayes, 2004) In
addition, to Sobel test bootstrap test will be performed since Sobel test is receiving more and
more criticism for not identifying indirect effect (Zhao et al, 2010). All statistical analysis is
performed using SPSS statistical software program.
3.2 Results
3.2.1 Sample and respondents’ characteristics
The response rate of the Latvian University (LU) academics was 38% with 145 complete
usable questionnaires out of the whole sample of 382 technology discipline academic
researchers. Table 2 illustrates the comparison of the whole sample and responders by
illustrating representation of gender, age, academic position and academic discipline.
Personal characteristics did not outline any significant differences between the two groups
with 56% male representation from all researchers and 58.6% from respondents. The average
age of the full sample is 46 similar to the respondents‘ average age of 48.5.
Both from the full sample and the respondents sample the highest representation of academic
positions are from researchers – 20% from all LU academics and 22% from the respondents.
These numbers are very close to the amount of professors, associate professors and docents
both in the full sample (14%, 17%, and 16%) and in the respondent‘s sample (17%, 15%, and
16%).
33
The academic disciplines from technological sphere were divided into 5 groups. Biologic
Science is performed by 28% of the respondents, 33% fall in the Physical Science category,
12% of respondents are working for Computer (ICT) Science, 12% in the Chemical Science
and Medical Science is represented by 15% of the responded individuals. The only significant
difference between the full sample and the responders lies in the academic discipline
representations, more precisely between Physical Science (25%) and Medical Science
(Medical Science).
Table 2: A comparison of respondents vs. the whole academic researcher sample
All academics Respondents Difference tests

(N=382) (N=145) (d/f/) – t-test
Gender (males) 56% 58,6% 0.59
Age 46 48,5 0.05*
Academic position:
Professor 14% 17% 0.33
(n=53) (n=25)
Associate professor 17% 15% 0.66
(n=64) (n=22)
Docent 16% 16% 0.98
(n=61) (n=23)
Researcher 20% 22% 0.63
(n=77) (n=32)
Lead researcher 13% 10% 0.32
(n=49) (n=14)
Lecturer 9% 12% 0.31
(n=36) (n=18)
Assistant 11% 8% 0.25
(n=42) (n=11)
Academic discipline:
Biological Science 27% 28% 0.84
(n=102) (n=40)
Physical Science 25% 33% 0.06*
(n=95) (n=48)
Computer Science 10% 12% 0.68
(n=40) (n=17)
Chemical Science 11% 12% 0.71
(n=43) (n=18)
Medical Science 27% 15% 0.005
(n=102) (n=22)
3.2.2 Dependent and explanatory variable description

The researchers were classified as academic entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneur academics,
which is represented by a binary dependant variable. Based on the questionnaire answers,
46% of the responders were classified as academic entrepreneurs. This number consists of
those individuals who have since 2007 successfully filed a patent (26%), and/or are planning
to file a patent based on past research results (22%), and/or started a spin-off (11%) and/or are
34
planning to start a spin-off based on the past research results (6%). Descriptive statistics of
entrepreneurship measure is shown in table 3. Even though this might seem as quite high
representation of academic entrepreneurs and potentially signal for selection bias, these
results are consistent with Renault (2006) findings that 50% technology science faculty
members have ever or planned to file a patent and 15% had a spin-off or were planning to
start one. This proportion is also supported by a study of Agrawal and Henderson (2002).
Furthermore, Latvian University TTO has published information on who has patented their
inventions or started a spin-off and these commercialization activities have been represented
by over 100 individuals. This information represents only already filed patents or formed
spin-offs and not intentions; therefore entrepreneur and non-entrepreneur ratio in the sample
seems adequate.
Table 3: Descriptive statistics: academic entrepreneurship measure
Academic Entrepreneurship measure N Sum Mean S.D.

Patent 145 38 26% 0,411
Plan to patent 145 32 22% 0,416
Spin-off 145 16 11% 0,314
Plan to spin-off 145 8 6% 0,229
Academic Entrepreneurs 146 67 46% 0,500
Industry collaboration 145 103 71% 0,455
Non-Academic 145 78 54% 0,500
The descriptive statistics of the dependent, exploratory and control variables of the
respondent‘s sample can be found in Appendix C. These variables will later on be used in the
OLS and logistic regression analysis. From the outcome of descriptive statistics one variable
was combined – pure traditionalists with pragmatic traditionalists since only 7 faculty
members indicated pure traditionalism as their attitude towards commercialization
engagement.
Before regression analysis the means of these variables were compared between the two
groups – academic entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs (the rest of academics). The amount
of effort – hours spent for commercialization activities – was significantly higher for
academic entrepreneurs (6.19) compared to the rest of the academics (2.33). The highest
ranked motivator among both academic entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurial academics was
the incentive for ―additional research funding‖ and surprising to the theory the mean was
higher for non-entrepreneurs (2.94 compared to 2.85). However, the difference of the two
values was not statistically significant. The lowest value of motivation for both groups was
the importance for ―independence” (2.12 for academic entrepreneurs and 1.99 for the non-
entrepreneurs) and the importance for ―personal and professional network‖ opportunities
(1.91 for academic entrepreneurs and 2.03 for the non-entrepreneurs). In addition, the means
35
of these two motivators are not significantly different between academic entrepreneurs and
non-entrepreneurs. The only motivators that are significantly different between the two
groups are the importance for ―research exploitation”, importance for ―challenge” and
importance to provide ―job possibilities for students”. However, the importance to provide
―job possibilities for students‖ is lower for academic entrepreneurs (2.15) compared to non-
entrepreneurs (2.44).
Regarding the control variables the means are significantly different for dummy variable that
illustrate the combination of type 1 and type 2 academics who are pure or pragmatic
traditionalists in their attitude towards industry-university collaboration and the difference is
significant for type 4 academics that are pure entrepreneurs in their beliefs and attitudes.
Obviously academics who are advocating type 1 and type 2 beliefs are mostly non-
entrepreneurs and the ones who are entrepreneurial in their beliefs are mostly academic
entrepreneurs. The 3rd category of hybrid academics that is advocating industry-university
collaboration is slightly more represented in academic entrepreneur group but do not have
significantly higher representation. As predicted, faculty members that are higher in their
rank, namely professors and lead researchers, are more represented in the academic
entrepreneurship group. Similarly to already existing findings, academics that engage
primarily in basic research only are more represented in the non-entrepreneur group and has
only small amount present in the academic entrepreneur group.
Regarding the academic discipline, the highest number of academic entrepreneurs comes
from the Chemical Science, Biological Science and then considerably less are from Physical,
Medical and Computer Sciences. This is in contradiction with the theory that predicts higher
level from Computer Sciences and Medical Sciences, at least relative to Physical Sciences
(Lam, 2011). More details of descriptive statistics are outlined below in table 4.
Table 4: Descriptive statistics: comparison between academic entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs
Academic Entrepreneur Non-Entrepreneur Significance

Variable Mean S.D. N Mean S.D. N (t-test)
Commer_h 6,19 5,829 2,33 3,880 ***
Funding 2,85 0,723 67 2,94 0,690 78 n.s.

Work_Cond 2.40 0,780 67 2,35 0,803 78 n.s.
Exploitation 2,64 0,847 67 2,28 0,719 78 **
Challenge 2,43 0,821 67 2,13 0,779 78 **
Network 1,91 0,793 67 2,03 0,664 78 n.s.
Job_Stud 2,15 0,744 67 2,44 0,695 78 **
Income 2,28 0,714 67 2,42 0,712 78 n.s.
Recogn 2,25 0,804 67 2,10 0,749 78 n.s.
Learn 2,51 0,859 67 2,33 0,750 78 n.s.
Independ 2,12 0,769 67 1,99 0,747 78 n.s.
36
Publications 6,07 7,388 67 4,38 6,253 78 n.s.
Att_Pure+Pragm 12% 0,327 67 47% 0,503 78 ***
Att_Hybrid 46% 0,502 67 38% 0,490 78 n.s.
Att_Entrep 42% 0,497 67 14% 0,350 78 ***
Professor+LeadR 40% 0,494 67 15% 0,363 78 ***
Biological Sc 27% 0,447 67 28% 0,453 78 n.s.
Physical Sc 15% 0,359 67 10% 0,305 78 n.s.
Chemical Sc 37% 0,487 67 29% 0,459 78 n.s.
Computer Sc 9% 0,288 67 14% 0,350 78 n.s.
Medical Sc 12% 0,327 67 18% 0,386 78 n.s.
Age40 64% 0,483 67 59% 0,501 78 n.s.
Male 63% 0,487 67 55% 0,501 78 n.s.
Primary_Basic 9% 0,288 67 32% 0,470 78 ***
*p<0.1 **p<0.05 ***p<0.01
For all of the above variables a correlation analysis is performed (see correlation matrix in
appendix C). Some of the explanatory variables are quite correlated reaching a little over 0.3
correlation.
3.2.3 Regression analysis

Effort
Appendix D illustrates the outcomes of the effort regression measured by ordinary least
square regression. The regression is performed by three models, one that includes only
motivation factors, the second includes all control variables and the third model includes only
those control variables that had significant effect from model 2. Out of the 10 explanatory
variables only two show significant effect on the amount of hours spent on commercialization
engagement activities. These motivators are importance for ―personal and professional
network” development and importance for ―independence‖. Importance of gaining
―independence‖ as predicted has a positive effect on the amount of effort. However, the
hypothesis predicting positive relationship between importance of ―network” development
and effort did not confirm. The results of these two variables are consistent when control
variables are included. In model 2 another variable has significant influence on the amount of
effort, namely the importance of ―research exploitation‖. Contrary to hypothesis, this variable
has negative effect on the level of effort.
Also control variables show some significant results. Researcher‘s attitude has significant
effect on the level of effort. Individuals that lie in the third (―hybrid‖) or fourth type
(―entrepreneurial attitude‖) are more likely to spend higher amount of hours for
commercialization activities. The relationship is especially strong for the most open attitude
for entrepreneurship (type 4). Logically, basic research as primary work activity for faculty
members have negative effect on the number of hours spent on commercialization
engagements. In addition, scientists from physical sciences are less likely to engage in
37
commercialization activities, show negative relationship on the effort variable which
coincides with other empirical findings (Lam, 2011). However, other technology sciences do
not show significant relationship on amount of effort.
These results are derived assuming faculty members have some discretion over how much
time they actually spend on commercialization engagements, if this holds then only
independence incentive works as a stimuli for more commercialization effort.
Since the data is random sample, there is still large uncertainty in the findings. In order not to
draw conclusions only because the coefficients show insignificant results which may be
because of the sample problems – confidence intervals are used to show the effect size.
(Schwab et al, 2011) Figure 4 shows 95% confidence interval for B coefficient for motivation
variables from model 2. As can be seen the effect size of the motivators ―research funds‖,
―better work condition‖, ―jobs for students‖ and ―personal income‖ is roughly in the same
interval from -1.3 to +1.4, showing that these motivators does not seem to explain increase in
the level of effort. Slightly higher positive effect is for motivators of ―challenge‖ and
―recognition‖ with relatively smaller negative impact. However, the variables that were
significant also showed the highest effect size confirming that these motivators (―research
exploitation‖, ―network‖, ―independence‖) actually influence the level of effort.
Figure 4: Effect size for B coefficients with 95% confidence interval
95% Confidence Interval for B

4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000 Lower Bound
0,000 Upper Bound
-1,000
-2,000
-3,000
Academic Entrepreneur
Appendix E shows 4 models of binary logistic regression. The standard logistic regression is
used since the dependant variable is binary indicating whether the academic researcher is an
academic entrepreneur or not. The assumption behind this model is that the variances are
logistic. The first model in Appendix E shows only the explanatory motivators in the
38
regression, the second model in addition to the motivator variables includes the effort variable
and the last two models include combination of control variables.
From model 1 out of 10 exploratory motivators only 5 have significant impact on probability
of being academic entrepreneur. The importance of ―research exploitation” (0.672) and
importance for ―challenge‖ (0.416) show positive probability on being an academic
entrepreneur which coincides with the hypothesis 4 and hypothesis 6. However, three of the
variables are not in line with the predicted hypothesis. The ―network acquisition‖ (-0.626),
―job for students‖ (-0.509) and ―personal income‖ (-0.400) motivators are negatively
associated with academic entrepreneurship.
After including effort variable in model 2 the proportion of variance explained by the
predictors increases since Nagelkerke R square is now 0.421 (compared to 0.217 in model 1),
Model Chi Square increases from 25.174 to 54.917, and the overall percent of the cases that
are correctly predicted increases from 68.3% to 76.6%. Effort variable is significant at 1%
significance level and has positive effect on probability of academic entrepreneurship. This
supports hypothesis 1 that the more individual spends time on commercialization activities
(industrial consultancy, technology transfer, patent formation and spin-off activities) increases
the likelihood that one will be an academic entrepreneur. Model 2 is consistent with the
significant motivators from model 1 with even higher coefficients of the motivators except for
―network‖ variable with a very slight decrease in the coefficient. However, in model 2 two
additional motivators have significant relationship with the dependant variable. The
―additional research funds‖ (-0.453) is significant at 10% significance level and very
surprisingly has negative relationship with academic entrepreneurship. On the other hand, as
predicted, increase in variable ―better work conditions‖ has positive effect on probability of
being an academic entrepreneur.
In model 3 all control variables are added. This results in some changes of the exploratory
variable coefficients. ―Additional research funds‖ is now significant at 1% significance level
and has higher negative odds on academic entrepreneurship (-0.689) that is still contradicting
hypothesis 3. ―Better work conditions‖ has still positive likelihood on probability of academic
entrepreneurship, however, the coefficient is smaller compared to model 2 and the result is
not significant at 10% significance level. ―Research result exploitation‖, ―Challenge‖, and
―Network‖ does not substantially change the coefficients compared to model 2 and
―Recognition‖ and ―Learning‖ variables are still insignificant results and small coefficients
that signifies that these motivators do not play role on decision of academic entrepreneurship.
The variable ―Job for students‖ in model 3 has a much higher coefficient (-1.024) which is
substantially higher than other explanatory variable coefficients. However, the largest change
of variable coefficients is for ―Income‖ variable that goes from -0.613 in model 2 to -0.006 in
39
model 3. To observe the reason behind the substantial change in the ―Income‖ variable‘s
coefficient and significance, the correlation matrix is used (Appendix C). From the correlation
it can be observed that ―Income‖ is correlated with the age40 dummy variable and with
Computer Science dummy variable where importance of personal income is evaluated much
higher compared to other Science disciplines. Since age40 dummy variable is not significant
in model 3 and Science disciplines even though show some significant results are still only
control variables, these variables are taken out in model 4. As a result ―Income‖ variable
returns to significant coefficient. Another change in model 4 for explanatory variables is for
―Better work conditions‖ variable that has positive and significant coefficient (0.502).
Regarding the control variables, as predicted the attitude towards entrepreneurship and
university-industry collaboration has high and significant influence of the probability of being
an academic entrepreneur. Individuals that fall in type 3 (Hybrid attitude) has higher odds of
being academic entrepreneur (1.334), the same relationship and even stronger coefficient is
for individuals that are the most open towards entrepreneurship within university (type 4 –
entrepreneurial attitude) (2.075). Academic status also confirms expectations that being
faculty members at their highest posts (professors and lead researchers) increases the
probability of being an academic entrepreneur. Age does not show significant relationship for
the dependant variable, neither does gender and publication amount. However, despite
insignificance gender surprisingly show that women have higher odds of being academic
entrepreneurs. Contrary to expectations basic research as primary activity does not show
significance that illustrate that also scientists with high focus on basic research can produce
commercialization outcomes such as patents. Still higher odds are that researchers not in basic
research will produce commercial output based on the sign and size of the coefficients.
Academic science area also did not show very significant relationship and was not in line with
expectations, for example, Computer science did not show positive relationship on the
probability of dependant variable and Physical Science was expected to have negative
relationship on the odds but the regression models show the opposite results. In general, even
though academic discipline coefficients are not significant at 10% significance level, the size
of the coefficients is much higher than the coefficients for motivation variables which signify
that they certainly do play a role.
Even though the dependant variable is defined as a combination of commercialization

activities, namely patent and spin-off behaviour, and the explanation for combining these two
activities is provided in the literature review section (Concept – Academic Entrepreneurship),
the dependant variable was broken down into each separate activity to observe the possible
differences. Appendix F show regression results that illustrate first model with dependant
variable as patent behaviour (patent ownership or planning to file a patent), second model
40
with dependant variable as spin-off activity (started a spin-off or planning to start one) and
final model that is the repetition of Appendix E model 3 results. ―Research exploitation‖ has
significant and to a great extent higher coefficient in the spin-off behaviour regression
compared to patent behaviour regression. However, both of the coefficients have positive
effect. More important difference between the variables is for the ―Network‖ factor that shows
completely opposite signs. ―Network‖ factor has positive effect on probability of spin-off
while it has a negative effect on probability of patent. This can be explained that for spin-off
creation strong network is a necessity which is not so prevalent in patenting activity. All other
variables either have the same signs or do not show significant impact. Therefore, this
regression analysis supports the decision that patenting and spin-off activities can be
combined to measure motivation of initial commercialization activity engagement.
As in the OLS regression with effort as dependant variable the effect size was also observed
using the 95% confidence interval. Figure 5 shows the effect size of motivation variables and
effort variable in the form of 95% confidence interval for Exp(B). The black line over the
value of one is drawn to separate the positive increase in the likelihood of being an academic
entrepreneur and the decrease in the odds. As can be seen only effort variable shows positive
effect – with increase in the number of hours spent for the commercialization activities
increases the odds of being an academic entrepreneur. The completely opposite effect is for
motivation of ―research funds‖, ―network‖, and ―jobs for students‖ where the effect size is
negative and is also very negative. The highest positive effect is for motivation of ―research
exploitation‖ and ―challenge‖. Even though motivation ―better work conditions‖ did not show
significant results, this variable reaches very high positive value. Exp(B) interval for ―better
work conditions‖ is 0.595 to 3.173 indicating that academic researchers are between 0.595 to
3.173 times as likely to turn out as academic entrepreneurs with an increase in the motivation
by one point (4-point scale). Therefore, there is still quite high probability of the negative
effect but even higher positive effect, especially compared to other variables.
41
Figure 5: Effect size for Exp(B) coefficients with 95% confidence interval
95% Confidence Interval for Exp(B)

5,000
4,500
4,000
3,500 Lower
3,000 Bound
2,500
2,000 Higher
1,500 Bound
1,000
,500
,000
3.2.4 Mediation effect – effort

Presence of mediation is considered when a variable holds an effect of a given explanatory
variable to a given dependant variable. Therefore, mediation can be observed if 1)
explanatory variable affects mediator; 2) explanatory variable affects dependant variable; 3)
mediator has unique effect on dependant variable; and 4) the effect of explanatory variable
declines by including the mediator. The effects of explanatory variables (motivators) on the
mediator (effort) are shown in Appendix D and the effect of explanatory variables and
mediator on dependant variable (academic entrepreneurship) can be seen in Appendix E. As
can be seen from these regression models, effort has a significant effect on academic
entrepreneurship. The explanatory variable that would generally fit the above mentioned
criteria for mediation is only ―independence‖.
To test the significance of the mediation between ―independence‖ and academic

entrepreneurship, Sobel test was performed for ―independence‖ and also for the other
explanatory variables even though from regression analysis there does not seem to be an
indirect relationship. This is also confirmed by running the Sobel test - only with
―independence‖ a significant indirect effect was observed with 5% significance level (one-
sided).
Zhao et al (2010) indentifies 5 types of mediation, namely, complementary mediation,

competitive mediation, indirect-only mediation, direct-only mediation and no-effect
mediation. He proposes to use bootstrap approach developed by Preacher and Hayes (2008)
42
that compared to Sobel test identifies each path of mediation simultaneously. The result of the
test is outlined in table 5 bellow showing a, b, and c coefficients.
Table 5: Outcome of bootstrap mediation coefficients
a b c a x b interval axbxc
Funds 0.228 0.240*** -0.173 -0.5446 – 0.2244 positive
(0.621) (0.055) (0.238)
WorkCon 0.030 0.240** 0.092 -0.2559 – 0.2895 Positive
(0.554) (0.055) (0.212)
Exploit -0.518 0.250 0.592*** -0.9022 – 0.1078 Negative
(0.546) (0.057) (0.223)
Chal 0.174 0.244*** 0.481** -0.1804 – 0.3465 Positive
(0.540) (0.056) (0.216)
Netw 0.547 0.236*** -0.222 -0.4660 – 0.0741 Positive
(0.601) (0.055) (0.223)
JobStud -0.511 0.236*** -0.516** -0.4790 – 0.1038 Positive
(0.600) (0.056) (0.241)
Income 0.776 0.248*** -0.280 -0.1274 – 0.6098 Negative
(0.610) (0.056) (0.238)
Recog 0.451 0.234*** 0.255 -0.1755 – 0.5254 Positive
(0.562) (0.054) (0.218)
Learn -0.172 0.241*** 0.274 -0.3439 – 0.1601 negative
(0.544) (0.055) (0.211)
Independ 0.910* 0.237*** 0.233 0.0063 – 0.7543 positive
(0.560) (0.055) (0.222)
*p<0.1 **p<0.05 ***p<0.01
Following the steps of Zhao et al (2010) the type of mediation is identified for each
motivation variable. This is done by several steps that includes identifying whether indirect
path is significant from the bias corrected and accelerated confidence interval and whether
direct effect is significant or not and whether the product of a x b x c is positive or not. This
results that ―independence‖, as identified by the Sobel test, is mediated by effort and the type
of the mediation is indirect-only mediation. What is surprising is that 6 out of 10 variables
qualify as no-effect (non-mediation) type, implying neither direct nor indirect effect. These
motivation variables are ―research funds‖, ―better work conditions‖, ―network‖, ―personal
income‖, ―recognition‖, and ―learning‖. The other three variables qualify as direct only (non-
mediation) effect. These variables are ―research exploitation‖, ―challenge‖ and ―jobs for
students‖. For these variables only direct effect has been identified; therefore, as suggested by
Zhao et al (2010), the research framework might have omitted mediator problem. This
definitely might be the case since already Shane et al (2003b) implied that motivation might
work through skills and self-efficacy that is not observed in this paper.
These results imply that motivation for independence is mediated by effort on academic
entrepreneurship and other explanatory variables have only direct effect on the dependant
43
variable or even no effect if taken separately. Therefore hypothesis 2 is rejected with only one
exception – motivation for ―independence‖ with consideration to adjust the theoretical model
by including other mediation variables.
3.2.5 Factor Analysis

By looking at the correlation matrix in Appendix C relatively high correlation between some
of the motivation variables can be identified. Therefore considering remarks from Schwab et
al (2011) that high correlation may result in a good fit to the data when actually it is because
of correlating error terms and that simpler models tend to be more accurate and reliable,
factor analysis was performed as well. The result of the factor analysis is outlined in table 6
Factor 1 is composed of motivators: ―research funds‖, ―better work conditions‖, ―jobs for
students‖ and ―personal income‖. This factor is basically composed by extrinsic incentives.
Factor 2 is composed of motivators: ―challenge‖, ―recognition‖ and ―learning‖. This factor is
composed by a combination of intrinsic incentives and social incentive. Factor 3 is composed
of motivators ―research exploitation‖ and ―network‖ which is combination of intrinsic and
extrinsic incentive.
Table 6: Factor analysis
Mean S.D. Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3

Funds 2,90 0,704 0.672
WorkCon 2,37 0,790 0.737
Exploit 2,45 0,799 0.788
Chal 2,27 0,810 0.628
Netw 1,97 0,726 0.621
JobStud 2,30 0,730 0.600
Income 2,36 0,714 0.603
Recog 2,17 0,776 0.868
Learn 2,14 0,804 0.550
Rotation sums of square loading 1,901 1,693 1,402
Proportion of variance explained 21,123 18,815 15,578
Cumulative proportion of 21,123 39,938 55,516
variance explained
The same regressions are run with the three composed factors and ―independence‖ variable
that did not fit in the three factors. The outcome of the regression analysis is outlined in
Appendix G. In addition, the 95% confidence intervals are outlined for both regressions in the
figures 6 and 7 bellow.
44
Figure 6: Effect size for coefficients with 95% confidence interval with composed factors
95% confidence level for B in Effort regression

3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500 Lower
1,000 Bound
,500
,000
Upper
-,500 FAC1_1 FAC2_1 FAC3_1 Indep Bound
-1,000
-1,500
-2,000
-2,500
Only the third factor shows significant influence on the effort variable which despite the
prediction has negative influence on effort variable. ―Independence‖ as already shown before
the factor analysis shows very high influence on the level of effort.
Figure 7: Effect size for coefficients with 95% confidence interval with composed factors
95% confidence interval for Exp(B)

3,000
2,500
2,000 Lower
Bound
1,500 Upper
Bound
1,000
,500
,000
FAC1_1 FAC2_1 FAC3_1 Indep Comm_h
Factor 1 that is composed of extrinsic incentives has negative influence on the odds of being
an academic entrepreneur while factor 1 with intrinsic and social incentives show very high
positive effect on odds of being an academic entrepreneur. Third factor seems to have as high
45
negative as positive influence and does not seem to explain academic entrepreneurship. Even
though ―independence‖ motivation does not have significant effect on academic
entrepreneurship, the confidence interval includes very high upper bound; therefore, it should
not be discarded as possible motivator for academic entrepreneurship.
Overall from factor analysis it can be concluded that academic researchers with intrinsic
motivation has higher likelihood of being academic entrepreneurs, however, having extrinsic
motivation has the negative effect.
3.3 Discussion
In this paper I investigate the impact of motivators on faculty member commercialization
effort and engagement in commercialization behaviour. The outcome of statistical analysis is
transferred into rejection or confirmation of proposed hypothesis and a revised theoretical
framework is proposed that will be explained later on in this section. Appendix H outlines the
expected and empirically observed effect of explanatory variables and effort on academic
entrepreneurship.
From the outcome of statistical analysis only three motivators have shown high positive
impact on the likelihood of commercialization. These motivators are importance for
―Challenge‖, ―Research exploitation and application‖, and ―Better work conditions‖. These
motivations support the theory that majority of scientists are mostly intrinsically motivated
and that intrinsic motivation can be applied also for commercialization endeavours. Merton
(1957) states that scientists are driven by the puzzle solving activities and by desire to
advance the knowledge. Motivation of pushing the boundary and seeking for research
advancement and exploitation may lead to commercial outcome such as a patent or a spin-off.
This way commercialization represents a new opportunity to realize a broader spectrum of
their current science. The intrinsic motivation is also supported after running regressions with
the derived factors where the combination of intrinsic and social incentives shows positive
relationship to the odds of being an academic entrepreneur. This factor is composed of
―Challenge‖, ―Learning‖ and ―Reputation‖ insentives that are characterized by primary
academic researchers‘ motivations (Etzkowitz, 1998). Regarding the third motivator ―Better
work conditions‖ confirms theory that higher personal financial gains are not as important as
ability to work in a good lab with the newest equipment. This can be also seen by other
examples where some researchers have accepted lower salary if lab is equipped with the best
technology. (Sauermann & Cohen, 2010)
Contrary to expectations and contrary to already outlined support for intrinsic motivation
importance, ―learning‖ motivation did not show significant results on individual‘s likelihood
46
to be academic entrepreneur. According to Meyer-Krahmer and Schmoch (1998) learning
should even be the main motivator. I will not argue against the importance of learning
motivation for playing a role in academic‘s decision to engage in commercialization activities
but I will reason why this factor might not play a role in Latvian academic scientist‘s
population. As discussed with ―Connect Latvia‖ director, Latvian scientists‘ community lacks
good success stories of research commercialization. ―Without the success stories Latvian
scientists will not associate learning possibilities from commercialization engagement.
Therefore, most of them do not see possibilities to learn more about their research from the
industry and academic scientists are not very inclined to take part in commercial training
programs that are organized by ―Connect Latvia‖. Lack of success stories and only 6 years of
Technology Transfer Office experience might explain why faculty members do not see
learning opportunities as commercialization engagement motivation. Another explanation to
this finding might be due to methodological reasons. In random samples variables are likely
to be correlated that influences the accuracy and reliability of the results (Schwab, 2011).
After the factor analysis, ―learning‖ was composed in factor 2 that showed positive effect on
the odds of being an academic entrepreneur. Therefore, the results do not reject the theory but
might be either methodological problem or a result of specific population issues that also
should be considered.
As already discussed commercialization activities are contradicting traditional science norms

and values. In 1970s with biotechnology emerging start-ups in US, many academics that were
not part in these start-ups, saw commercialization as unacceptable or even condemned it.
(Cooper, 2009) However, with time this view had changed and many academics started to
realize that they do not need to sacrifice their research and found out that entrepreneurship is
compatible with basic research (Etkowitz, 1998). As a result expectation of gaining reputation
through commercialization activities and that it is promoting academic entrepreneurship has
been found to be present in Germany (Goktepe & Mahagaonkar, 2009). Unfortunately Latvia
does not have such long history of academic entrepreneurship and therefore importance of
―recognition and prestige‖ seems that does not play a role in individual‘s likelihood to
become academic entrepreneur. Even though the research results might be due to Latvian
population specific problems, the explanation could be because of methodological problems
as in the possible case of ―learning‖ variable. ―Recognition and prestige‖ was combined in the
same factor as ―learning‖ and did show positive effect on academic entrepreneurship.
Regression results indicated negative relationship between some of the motivators and
academic entrepreneurship. Very surprisingly importance of ―research funding‖ as a
motivator decreased the likelihood of commercialization. From academic entrepreneurship
literature this motivator should be one of the most important drivers to engage in
47
commercialization activities. The same applies for motivation of providing ―jobs for students‖
which in the binary logistic model have the highest negative coefficient. The explanation of
these results could again be due to Latvian specific environment. As discussed with Latvian
University TTO director, European Union structural funds for science development has been
a substantial research fund provider. Most of the money for teaching purposes comes from
state-funds; however, research provision is mostly supported by the European Union money.
Therefore, the motivation to acquire research funds stimulates contract research and not
commercialization activity engagement. Winning money from European Union structural
funds also ensures job placements for students; therefore, this largely explains the negative
relationship. This argumentation might contradict the finding that importance of ―better work
conditions‖ (better laboratory and equipment) has significant and positive effect. Possible
explanation of the difference here is that European Union structural fund resource provision is
very strict and in many cases not the best but the cheapest equipment are bought. Therefore,
because of these constraints, motivation for ―better work conditions‖ plays a role for
commercialization engagement decisions.
The relationship between ―income‖ incentive and commercialization engagement in academia

has been largely discussed with two-opposing views. The empirical outcome of this study
supports the view that pecuniary incentives have negative impact on scientist‘s likelihood to
be an academic entrepreneur. However, I would not draw strong conclusion towards the
negative relationship between this motivation and commercialization outcome for general
scientist population. There are possible contextual factors that might influence this result.
First, Latvian scientists do not have long experience of research commercialization and might
not associate entrepreneurship with possibility to gain higher income relative to their salary or
relative to the salary from engaging in European Union structural fund projects. And as Siegel
et al. (2003) found that financial income motive will play positive role with the condition that
TTO is perceived as productive and offering personal compensations for commercialization
activities. Therefore, the situation in Latvia does not seem to fulfil this condition. Second,
Latvia lacks academic entrepreneurship success stories and there are very few patents that
actually earn licence fees. These reasons might explain why academic scientists are not
motivated by ―income‖ to engage in commercialization endeavours.
The negative relationship might also be explained not because of Latvian population specific
reasons but because of extrinsic incentives that in the theory have shown possible negative
effect on the innovative performance (Sauermann & Cohen, 2010). After factor analysis the
factor 1 consisting of extrinsic motivators, namely ―research funds‖, ―better work
conditions‖, ―jobs for students‖, ―income‖, showed negative effect on odds of being an
48
Despite the negative relationship found between ―network‖ and commercialization I still do
not doubt the theory that personal and professional network acquisition is an important
motivator. Owen-Smith & Powel (2001) reflect the view of scientists where their goal is not
to earn money but to transfer the technology, build the relationship, and educate students.
Therefore, the hypothesis of ―network‖ as positive motivator is not rejected for the general
population but it might not be applied for Latvian academic scientists. The reason behind is
possible cultural differences and the lack of industry engagement. According to TTO director
in Latvian University and ―Connect Latvia‖ director, Latvians are very cautious people and
they face fear that their research will be stolen by others. Some scientists have not even filed
patents because they have not wanted to reveal their know-how.
Incentive for ―independence‖ was the only motivator that had an indirect effect on
commercialization activities through amount of effort as a mediator. As anticipated, amount
of effort had significant and positive impact on likelihood of commercialization behaviour.
However, indirect effect of motivators on commercialization behaviour was only found for
motivation for independence. Despite the little support for amount of effort being an indirect
effect of motivational traits, it does not cancel out possible other indirect effects. As described
by Shane et al (2003), motive effect in most of the situations is indirect and that motives work
through skills and ability. Possible indirect effect for other variables was also shown after the
bootstrap test that indicated probable omitted mediator problem in the research framework.
The difference of independence motivation comparing with other motivators is that it is

mostly present in entrepreneurship motivation literature and is not as common in academic
entrepreneurship. It can be argued that entrepreneurs are the ones who are spending their
spare time to pursue their ideas. To succeed one needs to be fully committed and putting the
extra hours and only then the ―independence‖ could be achieved. From entrepreneurship
literature ―independence‖ – ability to spend the hours as it is desired is among the most
important drivers for commercialization endeavours. The same could apply (and according to
empirical results it seems to be the case) for academics who put extra hours because they
want to gain independence from restrictions/regulations.
49
4 Conclusion
4.1 Consequences for the theory

The main conclusion of this research is that traditional researcher‘s intrinsic and social
incentives of ―intellectual challenge”, ―research exploitation‖, ―learning‖ and ―reputation‖
that drive their research activity are also the drivers for commercialization engagement. This
supports the traditional view that scientists are engaged in research because of the challenge
and the interest in the process (Stephan and Levin, 1992) and is supported by empirical
findings of Sauermann and Cohen (2010) and Baldini et al (2007). As described by George et
al (2009) the intrinsic motivation also justifies these academic researchers who are adopting
the new entrepreneurial identity. This finding applies to general academic scientist
population.
Even though several of the hypotheses were rejected since the empirical findings showed
negative relationship between some incentives and academic entrepreneurship, I do not reject
the theoretical framework devised from the existing literature review. It is rather the specific
environmental factors that cause different relationship between the motivators and academic
entrepreneurship. Therefore, the theoretical framework tested in this paper rather applies for
universities with wider and longer experience in academic entrepreneurship and applies more
for universities with successful experience in academic entrepreneurship. However, since the
findings of this paper do not find full support for the framework, it still should be tested
further. The findings of this research signals for possible differences between successful and
experienced universities in academic entrepreneurship and less experienced ones. Therefore,
the theoretical model might need to be devised for different academic researcher populations.
The situation in Latvia lacks examples of patent ownership where inventor is earning high
royalties or owns high profit earning spin-offs. Incentive for research fund acquisition and job
provision for students is not associated with commercialization activities but with European
Union fund acquisition. Because of the lack of experience and because of lack of appraisal
from university administration for academic entrepreneurship, scientists do not see
commercialization as a mean to gain research funding or reputation even though it is an
important incentive.
Although the findings do not support the theoretical framework devised of ten unique
motivators and their positive impact on academic entrepreneurship, the aggregation of the
motivators do show support for the current theory. The empirical findings from the factor
analysis show that the extrinsic incentive factor has high negative effect on academic
entrepreneurship. The view on pecuniary incentives is not unanimous but many academics
50
have found negative effect of money-related incentives on the innovative performance
(Sauermann & Cohen, 2010) which is also supported in this research.
4.2 Managerial Implications

Since a lot of empirical findings have been explained with Latvian population specific
environment then also the managerial implications should not be generalized and are targeted
for Latvian population.
Technology transfer offices usually lack resources and knowledge to find useful innovations
among the numerous inventions scientists produce. To overcome this problem, the institutions
that are interested in research commercialization often need to convince faculty members to
disclose their inventions and take part in commercialization engagements. (Shane et al, 2003)
This can be achieved with the right incentives. The outcome of this research provides with
some managerial implications for university policy makers and institutions that are interested
in research commercialization. It is evident that academic entrepreneurs are to a large extent
motivated by intrinsic incentives. They enjoy intellectual challenge and want to advance and
exploit their research outcome. Better work conditions are important motivator for
engagement in commercialization activities; therefore, provision of well equipped lab
requirement would result not only as physical investment in research but also act as faculty
member stimulus. Therefore, if TTO or industry representatives want to involve faculty
members they should promise and ensure research work that is intellectually challenging and
this research is an exploitation and application possibility for the researcher. This way TTO
and other involved parties can actually save money and unnecessary bureaucracy since the
individuals can be motivated by non-pecuniary incentives and without the exercise of
authority.
Furthermore, it is important to raise academic entrepreneurship recognition and importance in

university‘s culture by describing success stories and outlining the benefits. The success
stories need to be praised so that academic scientists would receive recognition from their
peers for their extra effort.
4.3 Limitations and Future Research

First, it was not possible to account for research funding across different academic
departments. Research funding is an important determinant for commercialization activity and
also for commercialization motivators. It was only possible to get partial information on state
funding but no information was freely accessible on external funding amounts for each
organizational unit. Therefore, for future research this is an important control variable that
needs to be considered.
51
Second, significant differences were observed across academic disciplines. For example,
―income‖ as a motivator was evaluated very highly by Computer Science faculty members
while in other science fields it received much lower ranking. Even though the academic
science areas were controlled for in regression analysis, more specific and targeted
managerial implication can be advised if motivators for each science field are taken
separately. This is also a suggestion by Lowe & Gonzalez-Brambil (2007) that have found
substantial differences among various disciplines and that policies and entrepreneurship
support programs should be devised for each discipline separately.
Third, measure of effort might not have given very accurate estimate. It is very hard to assess
the number of hours devoted to specific work activities especially if many activities are
largely intervened. For example, some of the responders during the survey commented that
the line between basic and applied research is sometimes dissolving.
Fourth, this study has not considered other mediators that can control for the indirect effects
and as the mediation analysis showed that the theoretical framework might have omitted
additional mediation. The research has not accounted for individual‘s ability or skills. For
example, information on past patents, past spin-off engagements or business background such
as business training might have influenced both the outcome and researcher‘s motivation. For
future research to measure individual‘s ability, I would advise to use entrepreneurial capacity
as outlined in Clarysse et al (2010) work.
Finally, this research only observed presence of entrepreneurial behaviour but did not account
for commercialization performance. This definitely is an area for future research. In general a
suggestion for future research would be to separate the entrepreneurial process into stages and
measure the motivation at each of the stage separately. In an early stage the motivation of
engaging in entrepreneurial activities and the level of effort might be much different at the
later stage when the entrepreneurial benefits may be better observed.
In conclusion this research identified possible differences between more experienced and less
experienced academic research populations in academic entrepreneurship. To confirm the
differences an expanding study with samples from experienced and less experienced
universities in academic entrepreneurship should be used.
52
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57
Appendix A - Questionnaire
Thank you for agreeing to take part in this survey. I am MSc student from Rotterdam School
of Managment, Erasmus University and I’m conducting my master thesis on topic „Academic
entrepreneurship”. All your answers will be anonymous and will not be used for third party
interest
1. Which of the following factors motivates you personally to engage in academic

commercialization activities? Commercialization activities are range from cooperating
with industry, doing applied research, filing patents and starting/being part of a spin-off
company.
Rank all factors
Not Slightly Very Extremely
relevant relevant important important
To increase research funding
To create better work conditions – lab equipment
Application & exploitation of research results
To satisfy intellectual challenge
To build personal and professional network
To provide work placement or job opportunities
for students
To increase your personal income
To raise recognition and prestige
To create learning possibilities
To create individual independence
2. The next question is about your work activities on your principal job. Which of the
following work activities occupied at least 10 percent of your time during a typical work
week on your job during last 4 years (2007 – 2011)?
Mark Yes or No for each item
Yes No
A. Accounting, finance, contracts
B. Basic research – activity towards the advancement of scientific knowledge
without specific immediate objectives
C. Applied research –activity directed primarily towards a specific commercial
or practical objective
D. Development – activity translating research into new or improved products,
services, or processes
E. Human resources – including recruiting, personnel development, training
F. Managing or supervising people or projects
G. Professional consulting services
H. Public relations
I. Teaching
J. Other – Specify
3. How many hours per week have you spent on the following activities on average during
the last 4 years (2007 – 2011)?
A. Basic research - activity towards the advancement of scientific
knowledge without specific immediate objectives ___________(hours)
B. Applied research - activity directed primarily towards a
specific commercial or practical objective ___________(hours)
C. Development - activity translating research into new or
improved products, services, or processes ___________(hours)
4. How many hours per week on average have you spent on industrial consultancy,
technology transfers, patent formation, and spin-off activities during 2007 – 2011?
NUMBER OF HOURS WORKED PER WEEK____________________
5. Since 2007 how many...

Number
A. Papers have you (co)authored for presentation at regional, national or
international conferences? (Do not count presentations of the same work
more than once.)
B. Articles, (co)authored by you, have been accepted for publication in a
refereed professional journal?
C. Books or monographs, (co)authored by you, have been published or
accepted for publication?
6. Please indicate which of the following statements best describe your professional
orientation. Read all four statements and then choose the two best (indicate your first best
and second best choice)
First Best Second Best
A. I believe that academia and industry should be distinct and I
pursue success strictly in the academic arena
B. I believe that academia and industry should be distinct but I
pursue industrial links activities mainly to acquire resources to
support academic research
C. I believe in fundamental importance of academic-industry
collaboration and I pursue industrial links activities for scientific
advancements
D. I believe in the fundamental importance of academic-industry
collaboration and I pursue industrial links activities for
application and commercial exploitation
Yes No
7. Since 2007 have you been named as an inventor on any application for a
patent?
Yes No
8. Do you intend to apply for a patent on any discoveries resulting from
your existing or past research projects?
Yes No
9. Since 2007 have you started or been part of a new spin-off company?
Yes No
10. Do you intend to start a spin-off or be part of a spin-off based on
existing or past research projects?
59
11. What is your faculty rank?
Mark one answer.
A. Professor
B. Associate Professor
C. Docent
E. Lecturer
F. Research Assistant
G. Researcher
H. Lead Researcher
I. Other, Specify__________________
12. Academic department you are working at
13. Year of graduation for the individual terminal degree

(Ph.D. or MSc.)
14. Age
15. Gender
60
1. Izvērtējiet zemāk esošos faktorus, kas varētu Jūs motivēt iesaistīties komercializācijas
aktivitātēs? Komercializācijas aktivitātes iekļauj tādas aktivitātes kā sadarbību ar
industriju, lietišķie pētījumi jeb jauna izpēte ar praktiska pielietojuma mērķi, patentu
pieteikšana, jaunu uzņēmumu veidošana.
Izvērtējiet visus faktorus
Nav Ļoti
Svarīgi Vissvarīgāk
svarīgi svarīgi
Lai palielinātu pētījumu finansējumu
Lai radītu labākus darba apstākļus –piemēram,
laboratorijas apstākļus
Pētījumu pielietojuma nolūkiem
Lai apmierinātu intelektuālo izaicinājumu
Lai paplašinātu personisko un profesionālo tīklu
Lai nodrošinātu darba vietas, vai darba iespējas
studentiem
Lai palielinātu personiskos ienākumus
Lai palielinātu sevis atpazīstamību un prestižu
Lai gūtu izaugsmes/mācīšanās iespējas
Lai radītu neatkarību un personisko
nodrošinājumu
2. Kuras no zemāk esošajām aktivitātēm aizņem vismaz 10% no Jūsu darba gada laikā, laika
posmā no 2007. – 2011. gadam?
Atzīmējiet katru aktivitāti ar Jā vai Nē
Jā Nē
K. Grāmatvedība, finanses, līgumu formēšana
L. Fundamentālie pētījumi (Basic research)- eksperimentāls vai teorētisks
darbs, kas galvenokārt tiek veikts, lai iegūtu jaunas zināšanas par parādībām
vai acīmredzamiem faktiem bez īpaša nolūka tās izmantot vai pielietot
praksē
M. Lietišķie pētījumi (Applied research) ir oriģināla pētījuma veikšana, lai
iegūtu jaunas zināšanas ar noteiktu vai praktisku mērķi/pielietojumu
N. Izstrāde – aktivitāte, kas pārvērš pētījumu rezultātus jaunos produktos,
pakalpojumos, vai procesos
O. Cilvēkresursu vadīšana – rekrutēšana, izaugsmes iespēju veicināšana,
apmācību veikšana
P. Projektu vai cilvēku vadīšana/uzraudzīšana
Q. Konsultāciju un ekspertu zināšanu pakalpojumi
R. PR aktivitātes
S. Mācīšana studentiem
T. Cits – Norādīt
61
3. Cik vidēji stundas nedēļā Jūs esat veltījuši sekojošajām aktivitātēm pēdējo 4 gadu laikā
(2007. – 2011. gads)?
D. Fundamentālie pētījumi (Basic research)- eksperimentāls vai
teorētisks darbs, kas galvenokārt tiek veikts, lai iegūtu jaunas ___________(stundas)
zināšanas par parādībām vai acīmredzamiem faktiem bez īpaša
nolūka tās izmantot vai pielietot praksē
E. Lietišķie pētījumi (Applied research) ir oriģināla pētījuma
veikšana, lai iegūtu jaunas zināšanas ar noteiktu vai praktisku ___________(stundas)
mērķi/pielietojumu
F. Izstrāde – aktivitāte, kas pārvērš pētījumu rezultātus jaunos
produktos, pakalpojumos, vai procesos ___________(stundas)
4. Cik jūs vidēji stundas strādājat nedēļas laikā pēdējo 4 gadu laika periodā (no 2007. līdz
2011. gadam)?
Stundu skaits nedēļas laikā____________________
5. Kopš 2007. gada...

Daudzums
D. Cik akadēmiskās publikācijas Jūs esat bijis (līdz)autors reģionālās,
nacionālās vai starptautiskās konferencēs? (Norādiet aptuveno publikāciju
daudzumu)
E. Cik publikācijām Jūs esat bijis (līdz)autors, kas ir publicētas
profesionālos, starptautiski atzītos profesionālos akadēmiskos izdevumos?
F. Cik grāmatas vai monogrāfijas Jūs esat bijis (līdz)autors, kas ir publicētas?
6. Lūdzu, norādiet, kurš apgalvojums norāda Jūsu profesionālo nostāju (norādiet pirmo
labāko un otro labāko variantu)
Pirmā izvēle Otrā izvēle
E. Es uzskatu, ka augstskolai un industrijai vajadzētu būt nošķirtiem
un es nodarbojos tikai akadēmiskajā vidē
F. Es uzskatu, ka augstskolām un industrijai vajadzētu būt
nošķirtiem, bet es atzīstu industrijas sadarbību, galvenokārt, lai
iegūtu resursus, kas veicina akadēmisko izpēti
G. Es ticu augstskolas un industrijas sadarbības nozīmīgumam un
sadarbojos ar industriju, lai veicinātu zinātnisko izaugsmi
H. Es ticu augstskolas un industrijas sadarbības nozīmīgumam un
sadarbojos ar industriju, lai veicinātu izgudrojumu pielietojumu
un komercializācijas realizēšanu
Jā Nē
7. Vai laika posmā no 2007. – 2011. gadam jūs esat minēts, kā izgudrotājs
kādā patenta pieteikumā?
Jā Nē
8. Vai Jūs plānojat pieteikt kādu savu izgudrojumu patentam?
Jā Nē
9. Kopš 2007. gada vai Jūs esat uzsācis vai piedalījies jauna uzņēmuma
izveidošanā?
Jā Nē
10. Vai plānojat uzsākt jaunu uzņēmumu?
11. Kāds ir Jūsu akadēmiskais amats?
62
Atzīmējiet atbilstošo
A. Profesors
B. Asociētais profesors
C. Docents
E. Pētnieks
F. Lektors
G. Asistents
I. Cits, Norādīt__________________
12. Kādā universitātes struktūrvienībā Jūs strādājat?
13. Absolvēšanas gads, kurā iegūts augstākais

akadēmiskais grāds (Doktora vai Maģistra grāds)
14. Vecums
15. Dzimums
63
Appendix B - Summary statistics for selected variables
Variable Type Obs. Mean S.D. Min Max
Dependent variables Academic_Entr Dummy 145 0,46 0,500 0 1
Commer_h Continuous 145 4,12 5,230 0 40
Exploratory variables
Funding Likert 1-4 145 2,90 0,704 1 4
Work_Cond Likert 1-4 145 2,37 0,790 1 4
Exploitation Likert 1-4 145 2,45 0,799 1 4
Challenge Likert 1-4 145 2,27 0,810 1 4
Network Likert 1-4 145 1,97 0,726 1 4
Job_Stud Likert 1-4 145 2,30 0,730 1 4
Income Likert 1-4 145 2,36 0,714 1 4
Recogn Likert 1-4 145 2,17 0,776 1 4
Learn Likert 1-4 145 2,14 0,804 1 4
Independ Likert 1-4 145 2,05 0,758 1 4
Control variables
Publications Continuous 145 5,17 6,829 0 46
Att_Pure+Pragm Dummy 145 31% 0,464 0 1
Att_Hybrid Dummy 145 42% 0,494 0 1
Att_Entrep Dummy 145 27% 0,445 0 1
Professor+LeadR Dummy 145 27% 0,445 0 1
Biological Sc Dummy 145 28% 0,448 0 1
Physical Sc Dummy 145 33% 0,472 0 1
Chemical Sc Dummy 145 12% 0,331 0 1
Computer Sc Dummy 145 12% 0,323 0 1
Medical Sc Dummy 145 15% 0,360 0 1
Age40 Dummy 145 0,61 0,489 0 1
Male Dummy 145 59% 0,494 0 1
Primary_Basic Dummy 145 21% 0,411 0 1
64
Appendix C - Correlation matrix of explanatory and control variables
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
1 Academic_Entr 1
2 Funding -0,06 1
3 Work_Cond 0,036 0,394** 1
4 Exploitation 0,225** 0,120 0,108 1
5 Challenge 0,188* 0,183* 0,114 0,231** 1
6 Network -0,079 0,117 0,224** 0,309** 0,202* 1
7 Job_Stud -0,197* 0,278** 0,224** 0,015 0,084 0,291** 1
8 Income -0,098 0,268** 0,303** 0,008 0,024 0,180* 0,136 1
9 Recogn 0,097 0,211* 0,030 0,054 0,368** 0,267** 0,005 0,251** 1
10 Learn 0,108 0,235** 0,269** 0,196* 0,286** 0,281** 0,163* 0,187* 0,352** 1
11 Independ 0,087 0,101 0,318** 0,262** 0,160 0,394** -0,014 0,315** 0,222** 0,377** 1
12 Commer_h 0,396** -0,031 0,004 -0,079 0,027 -0,076 -0,071 0,106 0,067 -0,026 0,132 1
13 Publications 0,124 0,077 0,054 -0,019 0,116 0,074 -0,088 -0,036 0,043 -0,155 -0,168* 0,034 1
14 Att_Pure+Pragm -0,383** 0,014 -0,071 -0,247** -0,168* -0,160 -0,013 -0,045 -0,015 -0,216** -0,161 -0,290** -0,089
15 Att_Hybrid 0,064 -0,056 0,029 0,002 0,020 0,032 -0,081 0,128 0,012 0,038 0,113 0,099 0,000
16 Att_Entrep 0,322** 0,067 0,049 0,225** 0,202* 0,131 0,089 -0,109 0,006 0,172* 0,023 0,186* 0,090
17 Professor+LeadR 0,280** 0,045 0,029 -0,049 0,048 -0,063 0,046 -0,043 0,026 -0,100 -0,080 0,142 0,253**
18 Biological Sc -0,015 0,091 -0,057 0,040 -0,034 -0,019 0,103 0,058 0,022 0,086 0,104 -0,041 -0,203*
19 Physical Sc 0,083 0,083 0,058 0,175* 0,002 0,088 0,009 -0,087 0,014 0,185* 0,110 -0,142 0,047
20 Chemical Sc 0,071 -0,123 -0,045 -0,054 -0,100 0,072 -0,013 -0,160 -0,003 -0,064 -0,135 -0,033 0,086
21 Computer Sc -0,080 -0,191* -0,281** -0,071 -0,015 -0,045 -0,064 0,178* -0,081 -0,161 -0,023 0,271** -0,015
22 Medical Sc -0,083 0,062 0,288** -0,166* 0,145 -0,117 -0,071 0,030 0,030 -0,146 -0,129 0,024 0,125
23 Age40 0,053 -0,077 -0,111 -0,212* -0,139 -0,246** 0,000 -0,178* 0,067 -0,262** -0,287** 0,080 0,067
24 Male 0,077 -0,064 0,024 -0,143 0,089 -0,071 -0,150 -0,049 -0,030 -0,160 0,035 0,161 0,160
25 Primary_Basic -0,281** 0,05 0,031 -0,188* 0,201* -0,027 0,037 -0,074 -0,073 0,004 -0,056 -0,344** 0,005
65
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
14 Att_Pure+Pragm 1
15 Att_Hybrid -0,564** 1
16 Att_Entrep -0,407** -0,510** 1
17 Professor+Lead_R -0,172* 0,027 0,123 1
18 Biological Dep -0,047 0,077 -0,061 0,078 1
19 Physical Dep 0,067 -0,145 0,102 -0,096 -0,434** 1
20 Chemical Dep 0,019 0,023 -0,040 0,007 -0,232** -0,265** 1
21 Computer Dep -0,059 -0,002 0,069 0,069 -0,225** -0,256** -0,137 1
22 Medical Dep 0,007 0,074 -0,083 -0,040 -0,261** -0,298** -0,159 -0,154 1
23 Age40 0,073 0,005 -0,094 0,353** 0,141 0,225** 0,084 -0,019 0,059 1
24 Male -0,102 0,052 0,068 0,257** -0,265** 0,145 -0,023 0,176* 0,004 0,024 1
25 Primary_Basic 0,159 -0,028 -0,127 -0,165* 0,092 -0,152 0,043 -0,138 0,248** -0,070 -0,006 1
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
66
Appendix D - Regression analysis – effort regression
OLS regression: Dependant variable = hours spent on commercialization activities
Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Funds -0,310 0,023 0,080
(0,727) (0,659) (0,646)
WorkCon -0,062 0,086 0,220
(0,661) (0,680) (0,658)
Exploit -0,538 -1,142** -1,318***
(0,605) (0,581) (0,559)
Chal 0,328 0,416 0,457
(0,610) (0,603) (0,580)
Netw -0,970* -0,990* -1,005*
(0,736) (0,685) (0,655)
JobStud -0,120 0,022 -0,077
(0,677) (0,625) (0,599)
Income 0,616 0,074 -0,050
(0,697) (0,682) (0,658)
Recog 0,422 0,248 0,384
(0,681) (0,655) (0,620)
Learn -0,545 -0,318 -0,543
(0,644) (0,636) (0,593)
Independ 1,356** 1,474** 1,404**
(0,716) (0,677) (0,646)
Controls
Publication 0,022 -
(0,064)
Gender (male) 0,683 -
(0,923)
Biological Sc -0,900 -0,897
(1,446) (1,399)
Chemical Sc -1,039 -0,873
(1,626) (1,596)
Physical Sc -2,166* -1,998*
(1,444) (1,787)
Computer Sc 1,686 1,998
(1,853) (1,787)
Att_hybrid 2,119** 2,428**
(0,982) (0,963)
Att_entrepre 3,511** 3,767***
(1,152) (1,118)
Age_over40 0,556 -
(0,977)
Primary_basic -4,414*** -4,337***
(1,097) (1,061)
Prof+Lead_R -0,338 -
(1,039)
Constant 4,094 3,892 5,077**
(2,725)* (3.105) (2,736)
R Square 0,062 0,327 0,325
67
Adjusted R Square -0,008 0,212 0,235
N=145
*p<0.1 **p<0.05 ***p<0.01
The reference category for disciplinary variable is Medical Science
The reference category for attitude is the combination of “pure traditionalists” with
“pragmatic traditionalists”.
68
Appendix E - Regression analysis – motivating factors for
commercialization engagement
Binary logistic regression: Dependant variable = commercial engagement (1,0)
Variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Funds -0,370 -0,453* -0,689** -0,480*
(0,306) (0,341) (0,411) (0,375)
WorkCon 0,338 0,476* 0,303 0,502*
(0,280) (0,311) (0,426) (0,352)
Exploit 0,672** 0,860** 0,717** 0,687**
(0,260) (0,292) (0,389) (0,364)
Chal 0,416* 0,464* 0,589* 0,500*
(0,266) (0,291) (0,364) (0,338)
Netw -0,626** -0,590** -0,734** -0,753**
(0,317) (0,354) (0,406) (0,391)
JobStud -0,509** -0,522** -1,024*** -0,820**
(0,289) (0,319) (0,432) (0,377)
Income -0,400* -0,613** -0,006 -0,521*
(0,309) (0,331) (0,428) (0,362)
Recog 0,279 0,260 0,168 0,376
(0,297) (0,340) (0,453) (0,402)
Learn 0,171 0,262 0,174 0,222
(0,267) (0,304) (0,399) (0,361)
Independ 0,192 0,025 0,024 0,091
(0,311) (0,344) (0,418) (0,392)
Comm_h 0,274*** 0,236*** 0,174**
(0,063) (0,076) (0,066)
Controls
Publication 0,009 0,012
(0,036) (0,033)
Gender (male) -0,562 -0,499
(0,580) (0,516)
Biological Sc 0,536 -
(0,985)
Chemical Sc 1,547* -
(1,097)
Physical Sc 1,299* -
(0,967)
Computer Sc -1,603 -
(1,285)
Att_hybrid 1,334** 1,071**
(0,638) (0,595)
Att_entrepre 2,075** 1,843**
(0,749) (0,710)
Age_over40 0,124 -
(0,625)
Primary_basic -0,616 -0,897
(0,763) (0,723)
Prof+Lead_R 1,998** 1,495**
(0,735) (0,606)
69
Constant -0,548 -1,632 -1,912 -1,378
(1,125) (1,294) (2,009) (1,595)
Cox & Snell R 0,163 0,315 0,445 0,405

Square
Nagelkerke R 0,217 0,421 0,594 0,541
square
Model Chi 25,714 54,917 85,325 75,287
Square
Significance 0,004 0,000 0,000 0,000
Classification 68,3% 76,6% 81,4% 76,6%
correct
N=145
*p<0.1 **p<0.05 ***p<0.01

70
Appendix F - Regression analysis – motivating factors for
commercialization engagement
Binary logistic regression: Dependant variable = commercial engagement (1,0)
Patenting Spin-off Academic
behaviour behaviour Entrepreneur
Variable Final model Final model Final model
Funds -1,092** -0,625* -0,689**
(0,429) (0,496) (0,411)
WorkCon 0,632* 0,360 0,303
(0,452) (0,583) (0,426)
Exploit 0,127 0,864** 0,717**
(0,376) (0,466) (0,389)
Chal 0,386 0,419 0,589*
(0,356) (0,464) (0,364)
Netw -0,932** 0,919* -0,734**
(0,414) (0,580) (0,406)
JobStud -0,564* -0,663 -1,024***
(0,427) (0,534) (0,432)
Income -0,037 -0,207 -0,006
(0,428) (0,496) (0,428)
Recog 0,498 -0,345 0,168
(0,435) (0,475) (0,453)
Learn 0,041 -0,344 0,174
(0,422) (0,482) (0,399)
Independ 0,214 -0,020 0,024
(0,397) (0,582) (0,418)
Comm_h 0,139** 0,123** 0,236***
(0,071) (0,055) (0,076)
Controls
Publication 0,058* 0,018 0,009
(0,038) (0,036) (0,036)
Gender (male) -0,633 1,221* -0,562
(0,603) (0,850) (0,580)
Biological Sc 1,337* -0,109 0,536
(1,028) (1,346) (0,985)
Chemical Sc 2,125** -0,220 1,547*
(1,130) (1,276) (1,097)
Physical Sc 1,196 0,560 1,299*
(0,998) (1,193) (0,967)
Computer Sc -1,643* 0,007 -1,603
(1,278) (1,392) (1,285)
Att_hybrid 1,789** -0,255 1,334**
(0,664) (0,820) (0,638)
Att_entrepre 2,915*** -0,138 2,075**
(0,797) (0,842) (0,749)
Age_over40 0,250 -0,285 0,124
(0,631) (0,737) (0,625)
Primary_basic -1,456** -0,197 -0,616
(0,851) (1,041) (0,763)
71
Prof+Lead_R 1,278** 0,363 1,998**
(0,660) (0,757) (0,735)
Constant -1,714 -3,997** -1,912
(2,087) (2,403) (2,009)
Cox & Snell R 0,426 0,223 0,445

Square
Nagelkerke R 0,575 0,389 0,594
square
Model Chi 80,404 36,537 85,325
Square
Significance 0,000 0,027 0,000
Classification 80,0% 88,3% 81,4%
correct
N=145
*p<0.1 **p<0.05 ***p<0.01

72
Appendix G - Regression analysis after factor analysis
Effort Academic Entrepreneur
OLS reg. Binary reg.
Variable Final model Final model
Factor 1 -0.102 -0.787***
(0.410) (0.262)
Factor 2 0.062 0.320*
(0.409) (0.233)
Factor 3 -1.061*** -0.042
(0.444) (0.252)
Independ 1.200** 0.237
(0.609) (0.355)
Comm_h - 0.224***
(0.070)
Controls
Publication 0.016 0.007
(0.061) (0.033)
Gender (male) 0.928 -0.425
(0.874) (0.526)
Biological Sc -1.257 -0.386
(1.293) (0.835)
Chemical Sc -1.369 0.536
(1.513) (0.917)
Physical Sc -2.478** 0.444
(1.296) (0.810)
Computer Sc 1.261 -2.521**
(1.591) (1.116)
Att_hybrid 2.148** 1.310**
(0.959) (0.599)
Att_entrepre 3.706*** 2.157***
(1.121) (0.698)
Age_over40 0.679 -0.045
(0.916) (0.546)
Primary_basic -3.965*** -0.780
(1.014) (0.647)
Prof+Lead_R -0.244 1.619***
(1.018) (0.632)
Constant 0.817 -2.561**
(1.944) (1.243)
Adjusted R 0.237
Square
Nagelkerke R 0.526
square
N=145
*p<0.1 **p<0.05 ***p<0.01

73
Appendix H - Expected and empirically observed effect of
explanatory variables
List of Hypothesis Expected Observed
variables sign effect
Effort Hypothesis 1: An academic researcher who spends (+) (+)

more hours on cooperating with industry, doing
applied research, filing patents and/or
starting/working on a spin-off is more likely to be
an academic entrepreneur.
Hypothesis 2: amount of hours spent on industrial (+) No indirect
consultancy, technology transfers, patent formation, effect,
and spin-off activities is a mediating factor between except for
the level of incentives and presence of academic one factor.
entrepreneurship. Possible
omitted
mediation
problems
Personal Hypothesis 3: The higher is academic researcher’s (+) (-)
income motivation to engage in commercialization
activities because of the “importance of personal
income”, the higher the likelihood that this
individual will spend more hours on industrial
consultancy, technology transfers, patent formation,
and spin-off activities and is more likely to be an
Intellectual Hypothesis 4: The higher is academic researcher’s (+) (+)
challenge motivation to engage in commercialization
activities because of the “importance of intellectual
challenge”, the higher the likelihood that this
Learning Hypothesis 5: The higher is academic researcher’s (+) n.s.
motivation to engage in commercialization
activities because of the “importance of learning
possibilities”, the higher the likelihood that this
Application & Hypothesis 6: The higher is academic researcher’s (+) (+)
Exploitation motivation to engage in commercialization
of research activities because of the “importance of research
application and exploitation of research”, the
higher the likelihood that this individual will spend
more hours on industrial consultancy, technology
transfers, patent formation, and spin-off activities
and is more likely to be an academic entrepreneur.
Research Hypothesis 7: The higher is academic researcher’s (+) (-)
funding motivation to engage in commercialization
activities because of the “importance of acquiring
74
research funding”, the higher the likelihood that
this individual will spend more hours on industrial
Better work Hypothesis 8: The higher is academic researcher’s (+) (+)
conditions motivation to engage in commercialization
activities because of the “importance of better work
condition”, the higher the likelihood that this
Jobs for Hypothesis 9: The higher is academic researcher’s (+) (-)
students motivation to engage in commercialization
activities because of the “importance of providing
work placements for students”, the higher the
likelihood that this individual will spend more
hours on industrial consultancy, technology
Recognition & Hypothesis 10: The higher is academic (+) n.s.
Prestige researcher’s motivation to engage in
commercialization activities because of the
“importance of gaining reputation and prestige”,
the higher the likelihood that this individual will
spend more hours on industrial consultancy,
technology transfers, patent formation, and spin-off
activities and is more likely to be an academic
entrepreneur.
Network Hypothesis 11: The higher is academic (+) (-)
researcher’s motivation to engage in
“importance of gaining personal and professional
network”, the higher the likelihood that this
Independence Hypothesis 12: The higher is academic (+) (+) indirect
researcher’s motivation to engage in effect
“importance of gaining independence”, the higher
the likelihood that this individual will spend more
hours on industrial consultancy, technology
75

56.baiba Dzelme - Academic Entrepreneurship Incentives of Academic Scientists To Commercialize Research Output

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Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University

Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to Latvian University administration,

The willingness to engage in commercialization activities from academics can be achieved by

1.1 Why study individual incentives?

Therefore, in order to facilitate university innovation growth and productivity, it is critical to

1.2 Research objective

Contribute to academic entrepreneurship literature by investigating the impact of a set of

Why do academics engage in commercialization activities:

Scientist‘s involvement in commercialization activities is expressed and defined quite

1. Both patents and spin-offs are categorizes as commercialization activities. For

2.2 Factors of academic entrepreneurship

Incentive system Intermediary agents

Culture Defined role & identity

Source: Rothaermel et al (2007)

2.3 Effort – Entrepreneurial commitment

Proposition 2: Level of effort is a mediating effect between individual’s commercialization

2.4 Incentives of academic entrepreneurship

Proposition 3: Importance of financial incentives plays small or no role in motivating

2.4.2 Intellectual Challenge

Considering general characteristics of academic scientists the same motivation of intellectual

Proposition 4: Importance of intellectual challenge has positive effect on motivating scientists

The project of ―Benchmarking Industry-Science-Relations‖ identified main incentives of

Proposition 5: Importance of learning possibilities has positive effect on motivating scientists

2.4.4 Application & Exploitation of research

2.4.5 Research funding

Proposition 7: Importance of acquiring research funding has positive effect on motivating

2.4.6 Better work conditions

2.4.7 Job opportunities for students

2.4.8 Recognition and prestige

2.4.9 Personal and professional network

A summary of empirical findings on academic entrepreneurship motivators from current

Table 1: Empirical findings on academic entrepreneurship motivators

D’Este, P., Sauermann, Baldini, N., Goktepe- Lam, A.

2.5 Individual-level factors

2.6 Environmental factors

Technology transfer office plays an important role in fostering academic entrepreneurship

2.7 Summary of literature

Since entrepreneurship literature has identified indirect effect of motivation on

Recognition & prestige Individual-level factors Environmental factors

2.8 Research framework

Figure 3: Research framework

Recognition & prestige Individual-level factors Environmental factors

According to Dul et al (2008, p.70), probabilistic relationship between concepts A

Hypothesis 2: Amount of hours spent on industrial consultancy, technology transfers, patent

Hypothesis 3: The higher is academic researcher’s motivation to engage in

Hypothesis 5: The higher is academic researcher’s motivation to engage in

Hypothesis 6: The higher is academic researcher’s motivation to engage in

Hypothesis 7: The higher is academic researcher’s motivation to engage in

Hypothesis 8: The higher is academic researcher’s motivation to engage in

Hypothesis 9: The higher is academic researcher’s motivation to engage in

Hypothesis 10: The higher is academic researcher’s motivation to engage in

Hypothesis 12: The higher is academic researcher’s motivation to engage in

3.1.2 Sample selection and sample description

 Biological Science (Biology, Microbiology and Biotechnology),

3.1.3 Data gathering

(a) Dependant variable

4. Do you intend to start a spin-off or be part of a spin-off based on existing or past

(b) Independent variables

 To increase research funding

(c) Control variables

In contrast to traditional-oriented researchers, entrepreneurial faculty members do not see the

3.1.5 Data Analysis and Conclusions

Second, outcome of the respondent‘s sample will be presented by illustrating descriptive

p<0.1 p<0.05 p<0.01

p<0.1 p<0.05 p<0.01

p<0.1 p<0.05 p<0.01