| In order to accelerate innovation and improve the efficiency of transformation of scientific and technological achievements,more and more countries begin to encourage teachers to change their concepts to commercialize the developed new knowledge,new technology or invention.This also applies to china.To encourage academic entrepreneurship in terms of funding and ownership of results,the government has issued a series of documents since 2012,including “Guidance Opinions of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security on Supporting and Encouraging Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Professionals in Public Institutions” and so on.Therefore,some scholars started their own businesses,such as Wang Xiaodong,founder of BEIGENE,foreign academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences,academician of US National Academy of Sciences and director of Beijing Institute of Life Sciences,and Yu Kai,co-founder of AISPEECH,Shanghai "Orientalist" and professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.In this paper,the above-mentioned teachers or researchers who have been or are currently engaged in scientific research and teaching in scientific research institutions and have founded start-ups are called academic entrepreneurs.Compared with other entrepreneurs,the firms founded by academic entrepreneurs are often closely related to their majors and can give full play to their advantages in professional fields.Through entrepreneurship,academic entrepreneurs can not only commercialize their personal technological achievements as soon as possible,alleviate the problem of low efficiency of transformation of scientific and technological achievements,promote the rapid development of high-tech industries,but also act as a bridge for the development of scientific research institutions and industries,and accelerate the integration process of production,education and research.But at present,the entrepreneurial enthusiasm of Chinese researchers is not high.According to “2019 China Patent Survey Report”,only 25.5% of the researchers in universities and 38.5% of the researchers in scientific institutions are willing to“Discover advanced technology and patent it in a regular research project,and set up enterprises for industrialization”.At the same time,the domestic scholars’ research on academic entrepreneurship is relatively backward,and there are only a few articles about academic entrepreneurship.Until now,it is not clear why researchers in universities and research institutes engage in entrepreneurial activities under the background of Chinese system.The answer to "how to stimulate the entrepreneurial motivation of researchers,fully mobilize their entrepreneurial enthusiasm,and promote the development of their entrepreneurial activities" is also unknown.Therefore,this paper comprehensively uses case study method,questionnaire survey method and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method to carry out theoretical construction and empirical analysis,in order to clarify the underlying logic of researchers’ entrepreneurship.This paper focuses on the following three questions:(1)Why do academics engage in entrepreneurial activities in the Chinese context,and what is their entrepreneurial motivation?(2)How to quantify the entrepreneurial motivation of academic entrepreneurs?(3)What are the paths to trigger high-level entrepreneurial motivation of academic entrepreneurs? To solve the three problems,the following studies are carried out in this paper:Firstly,based on the semi-structured interviews conducted by 14 academic entrepreneurs for 30 to 120 minutes each,and secondary data obtained from public websites,the theoretical model of entrepreneurial motivation of academic entrepreneurs is explored in accordance with the analysis steps of open coding,spindle coding and selective coding.The results show that there are two main types of entrepreneurial motivation for academic entrepreneurs: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.Among them,intrinsic motivation includes self-actualization motivation and Mission motivation from identity,extrinsic motivation includes wealth motivation and independence motivation.In particular:(1)Self-actualization motivation refers to proving oneself and improving oneself by completing difficult and challenging things,so as to realize self-worth.Self-actualization motivation includes three aspects: challenge oneself,prove oneself and make greater personal achievement;(2)Mission motivation from identity refers to the motivation generated by academic entrepreneurs because of their identity as scholars in universities,specifically including applying research results to production practice and making contributions to the development of industry/country/society through the transformation of results;(3)Wealth motivation,which means that academic entrepreneurs start their own businesses in order to obtain more wealth;(4)Independent motivation refers to the temporary or long-term independence of academic entrepreneurs from the current working environment through entrepreneurship.There are two main reasons for independent motivation: boredom in your current job and the gap between promotions.According to the logic of "Consciousness/Goal---Situation/Conditional---Behavior/Result",this paper finds that the entrepreneurial activities of academic entrepreneurs can be divided into three types: Proactive entrepreneurship for selfimprovement,Responsible entrepreneurship for the identity mission,Passive entrepreneurship for escaping the institutional environment.Secondly,according to the qualitative research results and existing research of academic entrepreneurial motivation,the initial items of the scale of academic entrepreneurial motivation are designed preliminarily based on the dual logic of induction and deduction method.Through questionnaire survey,we obtained 112 questionnaires of academic staff and 120 questionnaires of academic entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial motivation.Using the data obtained from the questionnaire,we conducted exploratory and confirmatory analysis on the entrepreneurial motivation scale of academic entrepreneurs,and adjusted the items according to the analysis results.Finally,this paper obtains the Academic Entrepreneurship Motivation Scale in Chinese context,which contains 8 items and 3 dimensions.The first dimension is selfactualization motivation,which includes three items :(1)to improve yourself;(2)to prove their ability;(3)achieve greater personal achievements.The second dimension is identity mission motivation,including two questions:(4)apply research results to practice;(5)Contribute to the development of the industry/country/society through the transformation of achievements.The third dimension is extrinsic motivation,which includes three items:(6)to obtain economic returns and improve the quality of life;(7)Dissatisfied with your current job;(8)In the gap period of career promotion.It is verified that the academic entrepreneurial motivation scale obtained in this paper has good structure validity and content validity.Thirdly,based on the case data of 117 academic entrepreneurs,this paper selects the policy support for academic entrepreneurship at the provincial level,the policy support for academic entrepreneurship at the university level,and the gender,age,academic level and financial status of academic entrepreneurs to explore the path to stimulate the high-level entrepreneurial motivation of academic entrepreneurs.The results based on the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis(fs QCA)show that there are six paths leading to strong entrepreneurial motivation of academic entrepreneurs,and there are two core conditions.The two core conditions are gender and regional institutional environment respectively,indicating that these two factors have a more prominent impact on academic entrepreneurial motivation.Combining the two core conditions and several edge conditions,it is found that academics with the following characteristics have a high level of entrepreneurial motivation:(1)Older male academics with higher research level;(2)Younger male academic with lower research level and poor financial status;(3)Male academics with higher research level and good financial status,who in scientific research institutions that support academic entrepreneurship;(4)Older academics with higher research level and good financial status,who in provinces that support academic entrepreneurship;(5)Male academics with lower research level and poor financial status,who in provinces with strong support for academic entrepreneurship and universities with weak support for academic entrepreneurship;(6)Male academics with lower research level and poor financial status,who in provinces with weak support for academic entrepreneurship and universities with strong support for academic entrepreneurship.The results of configuration analysis for different dimensions of entrepreneurial motivation show that the results of strong entrepreneurial motivation in each dimension are not different from the results of total entrepreneurial motivation.In addition,according to the core conditions and the explanatory logic hidden behind the six paths for triggering high-level entrepreneurial motivation,this paper finds that the combination of the six variables can be summarized into three types: High entrepreneurial motivation under the logic of gender dominance,high entrepreneurial motivation under the logic of institution dominance and high entrepreneurial motivation under the logic of gender and institution dual.In addition,it is found that :(1)for male academics,a strong entrepreneurial motivation is likely to occur in both the early and late stages of the scientific research life cycle;(2)regardless of gender,good regional institutional environment is the core factor that leads to high academic entrepreneurial motivation;(3)for male academics researchers with low academic level and poor financial status,favorable regional institutional environment and favorable university institutional environment play a substitute role in triggering high entrepreneurial motivation.The contributions of this paper are as follows:From the perspective of theory,it expands the research content of academic entrepreneurial motivation and fills the deficiency of domestic academic entrepreneurial motivation research.At present,domestic research on academic entrepreneurship is not only relatively scarce,but also relatively scattered and unsystematic.The research on academic entrepreneurship in China is still in its infancy.However,with the gradual development of academic entrepreneurship in China,it is more and more urgent to explore the results and influencing factors of academic entrepreneurship under the background of Chinese system.Through field interviews and surveys of academic entrepreneurs,this paper constructs a model of academic entrepreneurial motivation,develops a scale of academic entrepreneurial motivation,and analyzes the path to stimulate high-level academic entrepreneurial motivation.This not only expands the research content of academic entrepreneurship in China,but also lays a foundation for subsequent empirical research on academic entrepreneurial motivation.From the perspective of practice,it not only provides a reference for understanding the fundamental motivation of academic entrepreneurship,but also provides a reference for the formulation of incentive policies of government departments.Under the impetus of the tide of academic capitalism and the encouragement of the policies of relevant departments,some university scholars have begun to engage in entrepreneurial activities.But up to now,the fundamental motivation of university researchers to engage in academic entrepreneurship is not clear to the practical and academic circles.As an important driving force of entrepreneurial activities,entrepreneurial motivation is not only a key factor to distinguish entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs,but also an important starting point to identify the entrepreneurial process and understand the entrepreneurial decision.By studying the connotation and influencing factors of academic entrepreneurial motivation in China’s institutional environment,this paper provides reference for the practical and theoretical circles to better identify potential academic entrepreneurs,understand the entrepreneurial choice and entrepreneurial process of university researchers,and provide reference for government departments to promulgate more targeted incentive policies. |
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