Key Success Factors Positively Affecting Academic Spin-off Organizational Performance

Abstract

Universities create academic spin-offs (ASOs) as a strategy to market innovations produced through research. By their nature, ASOs are exposed to risky endeavors and often fail in achieving an adequate level of performance. In this paper, we focus on performance generation in ASOS. By way of a literature review, we contribute with the identification of nine factors associated with positive performance in ASOS: Championed start-up, heterogeneity of founders' skills, access to funding, environmental wealth, networking capital, relative size, trustworthiness, innovativeness and motivation for venturing. The paper describes and discusses the performance factors and suggests implications for research to further study performance in ASOS.