Research On The Growth Mechanism Of ASOs

In the process to enhance the economic development,science and technology are the primary forces with innovation as indispensable driving forces.For the sake of economic restructuring and industrial transformation and upgrading,promoting the transformation of scientific and technological achievements has become an initiative for high-quality economic development and supply-side structural reform.As one of the most important ways to transforrm scientific and technological achievements,academic spin-offs(ASOs)have played an important role in the process to promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into social productivity.In recent years,the number of ASOs in the world is skyrocketing.Even in Europe and America,agglomeration effect is shaping up gradually.In China,a series of typical ASOs have also appeared,such as Lenovo Group Ltd,THTF Co.,Ltd,IFLYTEK Co.,Ltd,QuantumCTek Co.,Ltd and Cambrian Co.,Ltd.While ASOs are developing rapidly,there are also many failure cases.Especially,after the bankruptcy and reorganization of Peking University Founder Group Co.,Ltd.,the growth of ASOs has aroused widespread concern in society.Then,why do ASOs achieve different growth performance?What factors makes ASOs perform better?To explore these issues,this study conducts the following sub-studies.(1)This study is started with the status of ASOs development in China.In the process of ASOs development in China,some ASOs are trapped in dilemmas,like poor management,low survival rate and poor ability to deal with risks.Even the role and status of ASOs have also been challenged.Therefore,in order to clearly understand the development status of ASOs in China,this paper is based on the data of listed companies and the survey data from Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS).(2)Based on qualitative research method,this paper sheds light on the research of academic entrepreneurs'impact on ASOs.In order to explore the role of academic entrepreneurs in the growth of ASOs in China,the method of grounded theory is employed in the current paper.(3)This study empirically explores the relationship among social capital,human capital and the growth of ASOs.Based on the conclusion of case study and together with the theory of entrepreneur capital and composition-based view,this paper brings forward the hypothesis that academic entrepreneur capital positively affects the growth of ASOs.The current work selects ASOs of the CAS as research samples and collects data through questionnaires to verify the hypothesis.(4)In order to further reveal the influence mechanism of academic entrepreneur capital on the growth of ASOs,based on the strategic choice theory,the hypothesis that entrepreneurial orientation plays an intermediary role between academic entrepreneur capital and the growth of ASOs is proposed,and empirically,the relationship among academic entrepreneur capital,entrepreneurial orientation and the growth of ASOs is investigated.There are the following findings.(1)While the overall development of ASOs is good,some of them have great operational risks.Through the empirical analysis of the data of A-share listed companies in China,it is found that the listed ASOs in China have good growth performance.Based on the research data of ASOs of the CAS,it is found that although the number and scale of ASOs are developing rapidly,there are also great operational risks.(2)With the means of the exploratory analysis of case studies,it turns out that the social ties and personal characters of academic entrepreneurs make positive impact on the growth of ASOs.(3)After the empirical analysis on the data of some ASOs of the CAS,it is found that the social capital and human capital of academic entrepreneurs positively influence the growth of ASOs.Moreover,social capital and human capital make different contributions.In addition,the study also finds the influence of external environment and parent organization support as moderator variables on the growth relationship between academic entrepreneur capital and ASOs.(4)The study further reveals the influence mechanism of academic entrepreneur capital on the growth of ASOs.It not only turns out that academic entrepreneur capital has a significant influence on entrepreneurial orientation,but also that entrepreneurial orientation can positively influence the growth of ASOs.Besides,entrepreneurial orientation mediates between academic entrepreneur capital and the growth of ASOs.The main contributions of this study are as follows:(1)Based on the perspective of academic entrepreneurs,this paper systematically studies the growth mechanism of ASOs in China with the methods of case study and empirical data test,which promotes the development of academic entrepreneurs and ASOs.(2)Based on the composition-based view of firm growth,this study establishes the relationship between entrepreneur capital and enterprise growth and identifies the influence of social capital and human capital of academic entrepreneurs on the growth of ASOs,which enriches the research of entrepreneur capital.(3)This paper analyzes the relationship between entrepreneur capital and enterprise growth with trait activation theory and strategic choice theory.The analytical framework,academic entrepreneur capital-entrepreneurial orientation-ASOs growth,is constructed and tested empirically,which broadens the application of trait activation theory in the field of organizational research and enhances the explanatory power of strategic choice theory.In a word,the growth of ASOs is a compound organism of various factors' interaction.This study attempts to guide individual academic entrepreneurs,the government,scientific research institutions,universities,and other forces to play more active roles in promoting the growth of ASOs.