Abstract
Given the industrial and economic importance of start-up formation in universities, researchers have adopted a variety of theoretical approaches, including embeddedness theory, ecosystem theory, resource-based view (RBV), and competency-based view (CBV). Despite the benefits of diversity, elucidating the conceptual coherence among different theories is urgent to advance our understanding of academic entrepreneurship. Although both embeddedness and ecosystem theory stress the environmental importance of students' start-ups, the RBV and CBV studies have emphasized the different dimensions of the ecosystem components without considering coherence and interactions between them. The goal of this research is to reconcile the RBV and CBV by not only comparing their relative strengths but also elucidating their reciprocal interactions in an analytical framework. Based on a national survey data of 136 universities in South Korea, this research first investigates the positive impact of the RBV variables on the venture creation, such as university technological assets, incubator administration, and venture funds, and the CBV variables, including entrepreneurship education programs and student clubs. Second, by comparing the relative influence, this research shows that the effects of the CBV variables on start-up formation are stronger than that of the RBV variables. Third, the analyses of interaction effect show that the incubator administration strengthens the positive impact of education programs on the start-up formation, while the venture funds substitute the effect of education programs on academic entrepreneurship.
Highlights
There has been a significant increase in the role of universities in promoting economic development by transferring scientific knowledge to industries and creating start-ups [1], [2]
As crucial driver of start-up formation, this study focuses on two competency-based view (CBV) variables, including entrepreneurship education programs and student clubs
This study proposed in H1 that the resource-based view (RBV) variables positively affect the start-up formation, and the analysis result partially supports the prediction in H1-1 and H1-2 by showing in Table 3 that technological assets (β = .280, p < .05) and university venture funds (β = .196, p < .05) are positively and significantly related to the number of ventures, but rejects the prediction in H1-3 as the incubator administration had no significant effect (β = .081, n.s.)
Summary
There has been a significant increase in the role of universities in promoting economic development by transferring scientific knowledge to industries and creating start-ups [1], [2]. Creating start-ups is one of the most effective ways for universities to commercialize their scientific knowledge and technologies, thereby contributing to the development of new industries and economic growth. Addressing the growing entrepreneurial role of universities, researchers have adopted diverse theories and methods to explain academic entrepreneurship. While researchers benefited from such diversity, there are concerns about the coherence among different perspectives as they can interact and act jointly [15]. Achieving conceptual coherence is to understand the interaction and collaboration of theories in explaining the significant phenomenon in question [15]
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