the evolution of university entrepreneurship: building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent...

12
The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building Innovation Capabilities for Changing Times Dr. Sarah Lubik & Rizwan Qaiser Beedie School of Business Simon Fraser University Surrey, B.C., Canada Abstract: In an era where the rate of technological change is ever increasing and governments seek to invest heavily in innovation, it is important to look at the instruments and organizations that are being depended on to drive that change, and the capabilities they need to create. In particular, universities remain at the forefront of the national conversation, though this conversation has largely not moved past its initial focus on technology transfer capabilities and faculty entrepreneurship. Recent work has suggested the necessity for a shift in focus towards developing innovation capabilities among graduate students rather than faculty members, which may improve innovation output from universities. We extend this work by examining entrepreneurial activity across the entire university population, comparing the capabilities required to support existing models, such as technology transfer and faculty-led spin-out creation, against capabilities required to support less well- examined populations such as grad student-led spin-outs and undergraduate entrepreneurship. We show context by providing a dataset of current university entrepreneurial activity at Simon Fraser University and then examine case studies of each model. We find that supporting the development of innovation capabilities in the wider university population may benefit from an extension of the services provided by traditional technology transfer offices towards more proactive, educational services, and may also benefit from investing in more education-oriented incubation facilities. INTRODUCTION Universities have long been understood to be powerful drivers of economic and social development, knowledge creation and, more recently, knowledge translation or technology transfer (Etzkowitz, 2002). In Canada, particularly with the current federal government’s focus on innovation and the resulting job, wealth and capability creation, universities are being asked to play key roles in the creation of new ideas and new technologies, the creation of talent, and the creation of incubators and innovation hubs. While it is becoming clearer which activities are being emphasized technology transfer, incubation and talent creation there remains less structured evidence and guidance on what capabilities a university needs to create and adapt in order to support these activities and their desired outcomes. In this paper, we look at innovation capabilities at universities and what activities they support, and we seek to understand if there needs to be an evolution of thinking around university innovation capabilities as more universities seek to build and strengthen them. Traditionally, university entrepreneurship has largely focused on how to transfer knowledge and commercialize university research (Christensen, Musso et al., 2004; Shane, 2004; Mustar, Renault et al., 2006; Minshall, Wicksteed et al., 2008). A significant amount of literature on university entrepreneurship tends to focus on patent activities (Siegel and Wright, 2015), spin-out activity and faculty entrepreneurship (Shane, 2004; Rasmussen, Mosey et al., 2011), and current reporting on university incubation tends to focus on the amount of funding secured and number of jobs created by resident companies (Dee, Livesey et al., 2011). However, the recent work done by councils of the Canadian government (Expert Panel on Youth Employment, 2017) has highlighted the importance of talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore the role of students in university entrepreneurship and tech transfer, particularly graduate students (Astebro, Bazzazian et al., 2012). As university entrepreneurship initiatives shift and expand, it would stand to reason that the innovation

Upload: others

Post on 22-Sep-2020

3 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building Innovation Capabilities for Changing Times

Dr. Sarah Lubik & Rizwan Qaiser Beedie School of Business Simon Fraser University Surrey, B.C., Canada Abstract: In an era where the rate of technological change is ever increasing and governments seek to invest heavily in innovation, it is important to look at the instruments and organizations that are being depended on to drive that change, and the capabilities they need to create. In particular, universities remain at the forefront of the national conversation, though this conversation has largely not moved past its initial focus on technology transfer capabilities and faculty entrepreneurship. Recent work has suggested the necessity for a shift in focus towards developing innovation capabilities among graduate students rather than faculty members, which may improve innovation output from universities. We extend this work by examining entrepreneurial activity across the entire university population, comparing the capabilities required to support existing models, such as technology transfer and faculty-led spin-out creation, against capabilities required to support less well-examined populations such as grad student-led spin-outs and undergraduate entrepreneurship. We show context by providing a dataset of current university entrepreneurial activity at Simon Fraser University and then examine case studies of each model. We find that supporting the development of innovation capabilities in the wider university population may benefit from an extension of the services provided by traditional technology transfer offices towards more proactive, educational services, and may also benefit from investing in more education-oriented incubation facilities.

INTRODUCTION Universities have long been understood to be powerful drivers of economic and social development, knowledge creation and, more recently, knowledge translation or technology transfer (Etzkowitz, 2002). In Canada, particularly with the current federal government’s focus on innovation and the resulting job, wealth and capability creation, universities are being asked to play key roles in the creation of new ideas and new technologies, the creation of talent, and the creation of incubators and innovation hubs. While it is becoming clearer which activities are being emphasized − technology transfer, incubation and talent creation − there remains less structured evidence and guidance on what capabilities a university needs to create and adapt in order to support these activities and their desired outcomes. In this paper, we look at innovation capabilities at universities and what activities they support, and we seek to understand if there needs to be an evolution of thinking around university innovation capabilities as more universities seek to build and strengthen them.

Traditionally, university entrepreneurship has largely focused on how to transfer knowledge and commercialize university research (Christensen, Musso et al., 2004; Shane, 2004; Mustar, Renault et al., 2006; Minshall, Wicksteed et al., 2008). A significant amount of literature on university entrepreneurship tends to focus on patent activities (Siegel and Wright, 2015), spin-out activity and faculty entrepreneurship (Shane, 2004; Rasmussen, Mosey et al., 2011), and current reporting on university incubation tends to focus on the amount of funding secured and number of jobs created by resident companies (Dee, Livesey et al., 2011). However, the recent work done by councils of the Canadian government (Expert Panel on Youth Employment, 2017) has highlighted the importance of talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore the role of students in university entrepreneurship and tech transfer, particularly graduate students (Astebro, Bazzazian et al., 2012). As university entrepreneurship initiatives shift and expand, it would stand to reason that the innovation

Page 2: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

capabilities would also evolve. Moreover, as more universities look at developing these capabilities, it is useful to think about what capabilities they already possess, which can be leveraged, and the outcomes of these traditional capabilities. Unfortunately, our review of the literature found little existing work that examines the evolution of these capabilities and strategies at the university level.

This exploratory paper looks at each identified type of university entrepreneurship and uses selected case studies from Simon Fraser University to investigate the different innovation capabilities required of entrepreneurial universities to create value, including idea source, mode of exploitation, systems, learning and culture (Lubik, Khater et al., 2012), depending on which outcomes they hope to foster. While these capabilities may not be mutually exclusive and may be pursued concurrently, they appear to require different resources and capabilities to be built or extended. Some capabilities seem to be useful across most groups, such as learning-oriented incubation, although they may need different methods of implementation in order to be effective. Other capabilities, such as services of the technology transfer office, may benefit from new activities. We also provide examples of programs that have been created and deployed for each evolutionary stage, as well as suggested directions for future work.

LITERATURE University entrepreneurship is commonly viewed as an important economic driver around the world (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000; Shane, 2002; Shane, 2004) and in Canada (Rasmussen, 2008). It encompasses a wide range of activities, including patenting and licensing, the creation of incubators, science parks, university spin-outs and investment in startups (Thursby and Thursby, 2002; Rothaermel, Shanti et al., 2007), and it has been evolving as a concept for some time, showing several models of university entrepreneurship that also touch on education (Astebro, Bazzazian et al., 2012). In the following, we briefly review the literature on each model before employing an innovation capabilities framework to explore each model through exemplars.

Model 1: Licensing Licensing activity around university technologies, including invention disclosures, patent filings and licensing, has increased in recent history, which Thursby and Thursby (2002) attribute to changing university and faculty attitudes towards commercialization, as well as a growing propensity of firms to source research and development (R&D) externally. Transferring technology out of the university and to an established firm for commercialization is often seen as an attractive way to get university knowledge into valuable use by leveraging capabilities that already exist in these established firms (Lambert 2003), as well as to generate licensing or royalty income for the university. This is traditionally the role of the Technology Transfer Office (TTO), also known as the Industry University Liaison Office (UILO), or in the case of SFU, the Industry Partnerships Office. The TTO must be capable of filing and assigning intellectual property (IP), as well as being able to facilitate these interactions and to transcend cultural barriers between university and industry − all shown to be important for the successful translation of research (Siegel, Waldman et al., 2003). This may be a straightforward relationship but may also require additional innovation skills development from faculty (Thursby, Fuller et al., 2009).

As the name suggests, the TTO’s traditional role has been seen as translating university ideas for industry. Therefore, performance is often measured by spin-out formation or licensing activities. But it should be noted that other suggested ways to measure the performance of the TTO include invention disclosures and research contracts, showing the university’s depth of relationships (Rothaermel, Shanti et al., 2007).

There exists a common narrative that TTO activities will also increase revenue to the university, but there is substantial evidence that licensing activities rarely lead to significant revenue and are often

Page 3: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

sources of cost due to legal and personnel fees for the activities (Thursby and Thursby, 2002; Astebro, Bazzazian et al., 2012), with the exception of known outliers such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

However, it is also important to note that licensing does not always happen between the university and an established firm. The university can also license technology back to faculty members and/or students for commercialization, leading to spin-out companies, further complicating performance measurement.

Model 2: Spin-Out Creation To date, a significant amount of university entrepreneurship has focused on university spin-out companies (i.e., firms created to commercialize intellectual property and research), but not all of these companies are expected to grow. Instead, they may serve another key purpose, particularly those based on new science: the university spin-outs are vehicles to test the application of new discoveries and to get them into a form where they are more attractive and easily absorbed by established firms. This is often the case with science-based firms, such as biotech startups (Pisano, 2006).

While highly important to early commercialization, these spin-outs may face significant challenges. Some entrepreneurially inclined faculty members are driven by prestige or other rewards, and many universities reward faculty based on publications rather than commercial activity. As a result, it may not be in the faculty member’s best interest to focus significant time on launching a company (Siegel, Westhead et al., 2003; Shane, 2004). That said, recent research suggests grad students may help address this challenge. (Astebro, Bazzazian et al., 2012).

In the 1990s, government policies strongly encouraged universities to produce University Spin-Outs (USO) and thereby generate university royalties. A wave of university spin-out companies were launched, but most universities failed to produce a significant number of firms that survived, and in most cases they reaped little financial reward. Soon after, an important UK policy report recommended that universities focus on fewer spin-outs, only those likely to survive, and on licensing to established firms (Lambert, 2003). Even with potential prestige and university priorities, most universities do not spin-out a large number of companies, with the median number being 2, while the top performer (MIT) generated 23 spin-offs in 2006 (Thursby and Thursby, 2012).

Clarysee et al. (2005) suggested that university spin-outs and their supports were not one-size-fits-all, but instead depended on the strategy of the university and the resources it was willing to expend. Garnsey and Heffernan (2005) point out that spin-out activity, even when unsuccessful, is valuable as it produces skilled labour and follow-on entrepreneurial ventures, and as such, it should be encouraged. It follows that this talent creation, irrespective of firm success, could also be a strategic goal for an entrepreneurial university.

Model 3: Grad-Led Entrepreneurial Activity Comparatively less literature has been found on entrepreneurial graduate students. Florida (1999) looked at spin-out activity, as well as where university research was being used in the US, and protested that the creation of a critical mass of entrepreneurial grad students (and thus talent in the region) leads to not only the creation of research-based spin-outs, but also to the generation of capacity in the region to make use of new knowledge and the relocation of companies for that type of talent and innovation. Specifically, Florida discourages public policy from being too narrowly focused on the creation of tech and not focused on training the people and crating the capacity necessary to use and create value from technological advances. The work of Garnsey and Heffernan (2005) at the University of Cambridge shared similar thoughts.

More recent work by Astebro, Bazzazian et al. (2012) points out that while many university programs still seem to be focused on faculty-led spin-outs, grad students were far more likely to start spin-out

Page 4: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

companies than faculty. While the study focused only on science and engineering startups, it showed grad student commercialization to be a potentially powerful engine for entrepreneurial economic development, leading to higher quality spin-outs due to the networks created by the grad students while in the university.

Model 4: Entrepreneurship & Incubation Education In that same vein, from spin-outs to entrepreneurial training, the focus on university entrepreneurship has been widening. Academic entrepreneurship programs have seen a dramatic increase, from a select few in the 1970s to over 1,600 in 2005. Their numbers continue to grow, with many different models having been proposed, from largely traditional to much more experiential, and numerous questions left to be answered around effectiveness (Rideout and Gray, 2013). Multiple universities are now investing in university-wide entrepreneurship programs, often based around a methodology called the Lean Startup (Ries, 2011).

While these programs were traditionally aimed at students in science and technology disciplines, they are now increasingly aimed at students in fields where patentable IP and technology-based ventures (Kuratko, 2005) play a less significant role. A recent study at SFU (Lubik and Maine, 2016) showed that 73% of university entrepreneurship activity was coming from faculties outside of applied science. Sixty-five per cent of the ventures that had come out of the university community – including undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff and recent alumni – were not based on ideas generated through university activities (including classes and research)1. Little research has been conducted on the type of university capabilities beyond teaching that are required to support such activity, which appears significantly different from traditional tech transfer or science-based activities.

In summary, it appears that each generation and model of university entrepreneurship is based on different objectives and players, and each requires different university capabilities. Unfortunately, far less literature has explored student entrepreneurship (grad and undergrad), and the capabilities required for such activity have not been compared to the mechanisms and capabilities that would support more traditional activities.

METHODOLOGY In order to compare these models and the capabilities required, we used selected case studies and analyzed them through an innovation capabilities framework.

Case Studies The case studies were chosen because they exemplify each model and are theoretically rather than statistically representative (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). This approach is widely applicable to studies where the phenomena have not been examined in depth and where evidence is required for recommendations (Eisenhardt, 1989). These cases have been anonymized to prevent the identification of the venture in question, and to ensure that the participants could give full disclosure of their interactions with the university.

Conceptual Framework We used a conceptual framework developed by Lubik, Khater et al. (2012) to map innovation capabilities at the firm level, and then we modified some of the factors so they better matched the university context. The framework in question also laid out environmental factors such as national strategies, but we chose to focus on internal capabilities for the scope of this work. The capabilities as they apply to firms and how we are applying them to universities are laid out in Table 1, below.

1 Based on a sample of 149 ventures started within the previous five years.

Page 5: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

Factor Within the firm Within the university

Source of knowledge • Absorption of external ideas vs. development of internal ideas

• Development of research outputs vs. non-research ideas

Exploitation

• Internal (example: improved products) vs. external (example: spin-outs, joint ventures or licensing)

• Licensing vs. startup formation

Culture • Attitudes towards learning • Openness • Knowledge sharing

• Teaching focus • Attitudes towards entrepreneurship2

Strategy • Cohesive strategy • Goals • Rewards

• Incubation strategy •

Structures & Systems • Organizational structure • Knowledge management

• Industry collaboration • TO model

Table 1- Factors influencing innovation capabilities

It should be noted that we did not wish to delve into the goals of the university for the purposes of this exploratory study, as we are focused on the university capabilities as they were experienced by the entrepreneurs. We did not focus on rewards because the only rewards given by the university appeared to be through entrepreneurship competitions.

Data Collection Three of the four cases were collected as part of a larger study on university entrepreneurship at SFU where 149 cases of university-related entrepreneurship were identified and founders were interviewed. Open-ended questions and opinion scales were used to understand where university entrepreneurship was coming from, which resources were being accessed, and how university entrepreneurship support was viewed. The interviews occurred from 2014-2016, and sources were found through university incubators as well as student and faculty networks and referrals. The exemplars below are drawn from those interviews. The one exception was the example of university licensing, which was out of the scope of the original study. The data on that exemplar was provided by SFU’s Industry Partnership Office and the material made available online.

Limitations There are several limitations to this study that should be noted. As this is an exploratory study to set the scene for more data collection, it is not mean to be statistically representative (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). The examples in this paper are from a specific university, thus context- and region-specific. More work is required to gain a broader set of examples across Canada and around the world. These cases are also largely successful (insofar as they are still active), meaning that comparison with ventures that have ceased operation could be highly insightful in future studies (Hofer and Bygrave, 1992).

EVIDENCE Context: Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) was founded in 1965 as the second university in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland. Nicknamed the “Radical Campus”, SFU has a longstanding reputation for 2 Addressed in context section

Page 6: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

innovation and was the first university in western Canada, and the second in Canada, to establish a student incubator. That incubator now serves students, faculty, staff and recent alumni. At the time of writing, SFU’s undergraduate entrepreneurship programs were open to every undergraduate student regardless of Faculty, and its graduate commercialization program was open to all science and technology grad students, post docs, faculty members at SFU and its neighbour university, the University of British Columbia, as well as science and technology researchers from industry.

A snapshot of entrepreneurship at SFU, based on a sample of 149 interviews with faculty, staff, students and alumni, found that the Faculty of Applied Science (engineering, computer science and mechatronics engineering) had produced the most entrepreneurs (27), followed closely by the Beedie School of Business (22). The Faculty of Communications, Arts and Technology (FCAT) produced 19 entrepreneurs, with the other five Faculties having far fewer. Of all these entrepreneurs, most were alumni (44), followed by undergraduate (22), and graduate (14) students, with faculty and staff having less activity. By number of ventures, the Faculties of Business (43) and FCAT (43) led, followed closely by Applied Science (39).

The university has launched more than 75 companies and has a range of experience licensing intellectual property, making it a fertile terrain for our exploratory study, though it should also be noted that SFU is also a convenient place to study and gain access as it is the home university of the authors.

Exemplars Exemplar 1: Licensing In Exemplar 1, the development of pest control solutions within a university research group was sponsored by a local industry partner that came to the lab with a problem they needed to address. Through a multi-year collaboration, the research group developed a solution that could be commercialized, and the industry partner worked closely with the lab group to bring it to market. The lead scientist is also looking to apply the solution in other applications.

Industry collaboration: The research group in question and the lead scientist are explicitly focused on both scientific advancement and developing products and services. Deep relationships with industry started from within the research group, which included sponsored positions and payment for IP costs. The industry partner took responsibility for further commercialization and integration into existing product lines.

TTO model: Extensive use of patenting services with patents assigned to the industry partner.

Teaching focus: Nothing explicit was found, but the lead researcher has strong teaching capabilities.

Incubation focus: This project did not make use of any incubation facilities.

Exemplar 2: Faculty Spin-Out Exemplar 2 was founded in 2014 to commercialize software created by a faculty member and his graduate students. They have since secured several initial clients and development partners, including a major engineering firm.

Industry collaboration: There is a significant commercialization focus in the founding lab and cultivation of deep relationships between the lab and several global firms while still doing initial research as a lab group, as well as through the testing and commercialization processes.

TTO model: As the venture and personnel developed IP, they used the services and guidance of the TTO to put these measures in place.

Page 7: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

Incubation focus: This venture made substantial use of the university’s early-stage incubator for space and resources. They received ongoing mentorship as well, citing the guidance and introduction to experts as helpful.

Teaching focus: While none of the founding team was provided education beyond incubator mentorship, they were still able to make use of several educational programs: they employed several co-op students through the university and served as a live case study for an innovation class, thereby receiving additional marketing and commercialization assistance in exchange for the learning experience.

Additional notes: For future work, it may be relevant to note that this venture also participated in a program in another local, non-university incubator for the purposes of networking.

Exemplar 3: Graduate Student Commercialization Exemplar 3 was founded in 2016 by a grad student with the support of his supervisor to commercialize a clean tech platform technology developed in the Faculty of Science. The company has secured its initial IP and financing and begun development of partnerships with large global players.

TTO model: Extensive use of IP protection services as well as guidance on patent strategy. The head of the TTO (or Industry Engagement Office) was also an instructor in the teaching programs discussed below.

Industry collaborations: The lab in which the technology was developed has significant ties to industrial partners. Further connections were established through incubation and education programming. For scientific and prototyping equipment, they also accessed a large materials science centre located at and run by the university.

Incubation focus: This venture was accepted into the early stage incubator and linked to a mentor and serial entrepreneur who would later become chair of the company. The venture accessed mentorship, workshops and networking, as well as early funding through competitions.

Teaching focus: In addition to the mentorship provided through the early stage incubator, the grad student, who would become the venture’s CEO, accessed the Invention to Innovation commercialization program. The program is run by the Beedie School of Business and is where grad students, researchers, faculty and industry representatives learn commercialization skills, using their own research as a live case.

Exemplar 4: Undergraduate Student Venture Exemplar 4 was founded in 2016 to continue commercialization of a personal health capstone (final) project out of the Technology Entrepreneurship@SFU (Tech e@SFU) program. A joint program between the Mechatronics School of Engineering and the Beedie School of Business, Tech e@SFU linked technology-skilled students to entrepreneurship students to create market- and solution-driven hardware products and ventures.

TTO model: The student team used IP guidance as well as guidance on patent strategy. They have filed one provisional patent. The team won legal services in a competition; the patent and other legal work was eventually done by an external firm.

Industry collaborations: Industry contacts were used for early testing of assumptions and came through the business school’s career management centre, through the early stage incubator (which was involved in supporting the classes) and through the course instructors. Some of these relationships deepened as the product developed, while others were not contacted again.

Incubation focus: This venture was accepted into the early stage incubator and connected to a serial entrepreneur for mentorship. The entrepreneur would later contemplate becoming an investor (not

Page 8: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

complete at time of publishing). The venture was given access to prototyping funds and office space to continue development, as well as linked to further programs and competitions for additional funding. They were part of an early experiment by the Technology Entrepreneurship program, the early stage incubator funded by the provincial government, which allowed the university to give the student team a semester-long paid co-operative education (work-integrated learning) working on their own startup. They also continued to access the capstone lab for product development.

Teaching focus: The program Tech e@SFU that spun out this venture was originally called an incubator, due to its hands-on approach and intention to create interdisciplinary teams. The students were treated as entrepreneurs while still getting course credit. In addition to the mentorship provided through the early stage incubator, the head of the early stage incubator was also an instructor to the student entrepreneurs in their final class.

DISCUSSION Each of the above models suggests different, though not mutually exclusive, capabilities that are required for university support of entrepreneurs. We summarize the findings below (Figure 1). In addition to the capabilities identified in the methods sections, we present the models by type of actor being counted on for entrepreneurial activity (y-axis) and how close to market (in this case, how easily translatable into application) the innovations in question are likely to be. Rather than different capabilities, each model appears to require additional capabilities.

Figure 1 - Framework for university entrepreneurship capabilities

The Role of Industry Collaboration Each model still required industry collaboration, though depth of communication with industry depended on the players involved and was shorter to start with in the case of student projects at the intersection of entrepreneurship and education.

Page 9: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

The Role of the TTO In all cases, the TTO was still a key player, but its function was different in each case. In the faculty-focused licensing model, the role of the TTO appeared largely as traditionally expected, focusing on IP protection. However, while it still provided IP-related services to student- and community-focused ventures, it also provided additional, more educational benefits when dealing with both faculty spin-outs and student startups. This partially aligns with the work of Jain and George (2007) who discuss the additional, more involved roles for technology transfer offices when translating research into spin-out companies.

The Role of Teaching Contrary to what was recommended by Thursby et al. (2009), there did not appear to be a great deal of additional teaching or innovation capability building by the faculty researchers in the licensing exemplar, as the sponsoring firm had worked closely with the lab and took responsibility for commercialization. In all other cases, teaching innovation capability was required, not only for student ventures but also for inexperienced faculty, showing common needs between faculty and student spin-outs. The faculty spin-out also showed it could be useful for teaching as a case study and co-op employer, but it is worth noting that this is rarely measured in incubator metrics (Dee, Livesey et al., 2011).

The student-focused ventures selected as exemplars emerged from programs, and in the case of Exemplar 4, a program and a lab, so there was much more overlap between courses, incubation and venturing, discussed further below.

The Role of Incubation In the case of incubation, we saw few examples in the licensing model, as would be expected given that the technology was translated directly to industry through a partner. However, the faculty, grad students and undergrad students were making good use of the same early stage incubator for assistance, suggesting that developing early incubation capabilities needed for faculty and students when commercialization begins may be much more similar than anticipated. While work by Nelson and Byers (2005) examining the governance of Stanford University suggests that tech transfer, incubation and education should operate independently, there may still be specific points of complementarity where purposeful collaboration would be beneficial. This also raises questions about the roles and resulting performance metrics around university incubation, as educational outcomes are often at odds with traditional incubation metrics such as job creation or funds raised (Dee, Livesey et al., 2011), though they may be looked at as useful lead metrics.

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK As governments in Canada and around the world increasingly view university-based entrepreneurship as a key strategic investment for leadership in emerging industries, it seems important to note that there are a number of models for universities to choose from, depending on what type of activity they are hoping to nurture, and those activities will require different innovation capabilities. Specifically, the capabilities that universities seek to develop to support more traditional licenses and faculty spin-outs appear to be different from those required for more long-term investment in the larger population, which includes graduate students and the wider university community (specifically undergraduates and non-STEM students). That said, the small sample we have examined also showed that those initial capabilities could be extended or modified if the university chose to focus on talent creation in addition to technology transfer, and that these activities appear to be complementary.

We offer a framework (Figure 1) that lays out the necessary innovation capabilities the university requires to support entrepreneurial activity by the actor or actors depended on for the entrepreneurship and stage of development required. We also give case studies as exemplars to further

Page 10: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

guide universities. We have further shown that as university entrepreneurship evolves, so too might the role of the TTO. In contrast to existing work (Jain and George, 2007), there may be more intentional, useful overlap between technology transfer and educational activities if the university is focused on talent creation. However, given that intellectual property and companies were also produced from the student ventures, it appears these metrics may not be in opposition to each other as earlier literature suggests. If entrepreneurship education at the university is hands-on, as it is in the focal university, an expansion of TTO services towards education and guidance and, perhaps, a use of industry links for validation of early assumptions, may be useful. We also see that while the licensing exemplar did not require substantial focus on learning or building personal innovation capabilities, the lab had explicit learning and commercial objectives. All three of the other groups (faculty, grad students and undergrad students) made successful use of similar early-stage incubation services, again suggesting an extension of the services and capabilities that may be seen as education, and thus could be offered more widely to students by a university wishing to see more of that type of activity.

This paper has also identified a number of avenues for future research. While illustrative, the exemplars here are not exhaustive and can vary by context or region. In particular, a comparison of grad student entrepreneurship or wider community or undergraduate entrepreneurship between different regions could be informative as universities build their own capabilities and strategies, and as partners and governments allocate funds. Our findings also illustrate that there are clearly different stages and uses for university incubation, including earlier-stage and more education-focused incubators, which is still an area ripe for inquiry and more extensive data collection. Our small data set would also argue that there is a wide variety of sophistication of actors, even within each model, from serial entrepreneurs who are students or faculty members who may be less likely to use university systems, to university faculty who have significant knowledge of their field but may benefit from similar educational services as student entrepreneurs. These examples are also relatively successful, as they are still active, though success rates, unsuccessful examples to compare against, and serial entrepreneurs in each group could also give further insight into innovation capabilities required by universities.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors gratefully acknowledge the useful feedback, insight and assistance of Dr. Iain Begg and Dr. Elicia Maine. This work has been made possible in part by the Federal Government’s Canada Accelerator Incubator Program (CAIP) delivered by the National Research Council -Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) and Simon Fraser University’s SFU Innovates Strategy.

Page 11: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

SOURCES

Astebro, T., et al. (2012). Startups by recent university graduates and their faculty: Implications for university entrepreneurship policy. Research Policy, 41, 663-667.

Christensen, C., et al. (2004). Maximizing the returns from research. Research Technology Management, 47(4), 12-18.

Clarysee, B., et al. (2005). Spinning out new ventures: A typology of incubation strategies from European research institutions. Journal of Business Venturing, 20, 183-216.

Dee, N., et al. (2011). Incubation for growth: A review of the impact of business incubation on new ventures with high growth potential. NESTA. Retrieved from https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/incubation_for_growth.pdf

Eisenhardt, K. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550.

Eisenhardt, K., and Graebner, M. (2007). Theory building from cases: Opportunities and challenges. Academy of Management Review, 50(1), 25-32.

Etzkowitz, H. (2002). Incubation of incubators: Innovation as a triple helix of university-industry-government. Science and Public Policy 29(2), 115-128.

Etzkowitz, H., and Leydesdorff, L. (2000). The dynamics of innovation: From national systems and “mode 2” to a triple helix of university-industry-government relations. Research Policy, 29(2), 109-123.

Expert Panel on Youth Employment (2017). 13 ways to modernize youth employment in Canada: Strategies for a new world of work. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/corporate/youth-expert-panel/report-modern-strategies-youth-employment.html#letter

Florida, R. (1999). The role of the university: Leveraging talent, not technology. Issues in Science and Technology, XV(4).

Garnsey, E., and Heffernan, P. (2005). High-technology clustering through spin-out and attraction: The Cambridge case. Regional Studies, 39(8), 1127-1144.

Hofer, C., and Bygrave, W. (1992). Researching entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, Spring, 91-100.

Jain, S., and George, G. (2007). Technology transfer offices as institutional entrepreneurs: The case of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and human embryonic stem cells. Industrial and Corporate Change, 16(4), 535-567.

Lambert, R. (2003). Lambert review of business-university collaboration: Final report. Norwich, UK: HM Treasury.

Lubik, S., Khater, M. et al. (2012). Competing on innovation: A framework of firm-level innovative capabilities. University of Cambridge Centre for Strategy and Performance Working Paper Series.

Lubik, S., and Maine, E. (2016). Turning invention into innovation: Strategies for scientist-entrepreneurs and universities. Presented at R&D Management Conference, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

Page 12: The Evolution of University Entrepreneurship: Building ...€¦ · talent creation, and more recent studies have begun to explore role of students in university the entrepreneurship

Minshall, T., et al. (2008). The role of spin-outs within university research commercialization activities: Case studies from 10 UK universities. New Technology-Based Firms in the New Millennium, 6, 185-201.

Mustar, P., et al. (2006). Conceptualizing the heterogeneity of research-based spin-offs: A multi-dimensional taxonomy. Research Policy, 35(2), 289-308.

Nelson, A., and Byers, T. (2005). Organizational modularity and intra-university relationships between entrepreneurship education and technology transfer. Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Growth, 16, 275-311.

Pisano, G. (2006). Can science be a business? Lessons from Biotech. Harvard Business Review, 84(10), 114-125.

Rasmussen, E. (2008). Government instruments to support the commercialization of university research: Lessons from Canada. Technovation, 28(8), 506-517.

Rasmussen, E., et al. (2011). The evolution of entrepreneurial competencies: A longitudinal study of university spin-off venture emergence. Journal of Management Studies, 48(6), 1314-1345.

Rideout, E. and D. Gray (2013). Does entrepreneurship education really work? A review and methodological critique of the empirical literature on the effects of university-based entrepreneurship education. Journal of Small Business Management, 51(3), 329-351.

Rothaermel, F., et al. (2007). University entrepreneurship: A taxonomy of the literature. Industrial and Corporate Change, 16(4), 691-791.

Shane, S. (2002). Executive forum: University technology transfer to entrepreneurial companies. Journal of Business Venturing, 17(6), 537-552.

Shane, S. (2004). Academic entrepreneurship: University spinoffs and wealth creation. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Siegel, D., et al. (2003). Assessing the impact of organizational practices on the relative productivity of university technology transfer offices: An exploratory study. Research Policy, 32(1), 27-48.

Siegel, D., et al. (2003). Assessing the impact of university science parks on research productivity: Exploratory firm-level evidence from the United Kingdom. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 21(9), 1357-1369.

Siegel, D., and Wright, M. (2015). University technology transfer offices, licensing, and start-ups. In A. Link, D. Siegel and M. Wright (Eds.), The Chicago Handbook of University Technology Transfer and Academic Entrepreneurship. Chicago, USA: University of Chicago Press.

Thursby, J. and Thursby, M. (2002). Who is selling the ivory tower? Sources of growth in university licensing. Management Science,

Thursby, M., et al. (2009). An integrated approach to educating professionals for careers in innovation. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 8(3), 389-405.