Seizing Spin-offs’ and Parent Universities’ Resources and Capabilities: An Intertemporal Resilience

Abstract

This study theorises and offers new insights into how organizational capabilities and resources are used intertemporally by spin-offs to provide a resilient response in a forced-digital context. By using unique multi-level and longitudinal datasets in a forced-digital context period (May 2020, August 2020, November 2020, and February 2021) of 722 UK university spin-offs in emerging sectors where digitization is commonplace, our analysis reveals the seizing of parents’ resources (infrastructures and incomes) and spin-offs’ capabilities (fundraising, scaling-up, intellectual property) that explain the building of resilience in defining the strategies for undertaking forced-digital operations. Several implications about responding to external shocks and building an intertemporal strategy for spin-off will build on firm-specific and parent characteristics that emerge from this study.