Mode Selection Of Italian Public Research Organizations, Technology Transfer Spin-off Companies: Key Elements Of Analysis

This paper is intended to figure out key determinants during the academic spin-off creation process in Italian context. More specifically, a central question is raised: what are the key factors in common that induce the creation of spin-off companies, despite of the complexity and difference among these creation processes. The study mainly employs an inductive approach to derive a set of determinants using in depth case analysis. The cases are obtained by interviewing three Italian research based institutions actively engaging into the academic spin-off activities. This determinant set derived can be seen as a common pattern of spin-off creation now prevailing in the Italian context. And then a quantitative validation is supplemented to verify the determinant set using a dataset collected at these three institutions. The determinant set of academic spin-off creation finally includes 1) the strong personal willingness towards entrepreneurship of the academic researchers. 2) the non-codifiable or non- patentable nature of the intellectual property, 3) available market for the spin-off in order to survive, 4) the policy and strategy of transferring technology adopted by the associated institution. These four elements largely determine the birth of new spin-off company, while the first three elements are the impetus of the creation and the fourth factor has an indirect influence on the creation.