The development of university spin-offs: early dynamics of technology transfer and networking

Abstract

Measuring the contributions of ‘hi-tech’ small firms by looking only at their product sales, innovation outputs and employment generation may understate their effectiveness. Another important contribution of entrepreneurship ‘hi-tech’ firms is their catalyzing role to knowledge creation and transfer in innovation networks. This paper addresses two exploratory research questions: how active in network development and technology transfer are university spin-offs during their early years to overcome initial disadvantages? Is there any relationship between early networks development and knowledge creation and technology transfer in university spin-offs? Using data from companies spun off from a Spanish university in the period 1990–2000, the empirical results suggest that technology transfer and networking at university spin-offs decreased after their early years but at the same time the relationships with customers increased.