TY - JOUR
T1 - Spin doctors vs the spawn of capitalism
T2 - Who founds university and corporate startups?
AU - Coad, Alex
AU - Kaiser, Ulrich
AU - Kuhn, Johan
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the social science research program “The Socioeconomic Impact of Research in Denmark” of the Novo Nordisk Foundations. Alex Coad gratefully acknowledges support from the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF- 2018S1A3A2075175 ). This research benefited from helpful comments by Hans Christian Kongsted, Martin Murmann, Thomas Blomgren Hansen, Martin Junge, Ammon Salter, Cédric Schneider, Sotaro Shibayama, Paula Stephan and Valentina Tartari, as well as three anonymous referees, and participants of the workshops on “Investments, Incentives and the Impact of Danish Research” held in Copenhagen June 10, 2018, and the “Socioeconomic Impact of Research” held in Hillerød Jan. 16-17, 2019.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - We compare individuals presently employed either at a university, or at a firm from an R&D-intensive sector, and analyze which of their personal-specific and employer-specific characteristics are related to their choice to leave their present employer for an own startup. Our data set combines the population of Danish employees with their present employers. We focus on persons who at least hold a Bachelor's degree in engineering, sciences and health and track them over 2001-2012. We show that (i) there are overall few differences between the characteristics of university and corporate startup entrepreneurs, (ii) common factors associated with startup activity of both university and corporate employees are education, top management team membership, previous job mobility and being male, (iii) it is primarily human capital-related characteristics that are related to startup choice of university employees while (iv) the characteristics of the present workplace are the foremost factors of entrepreneurial activity by corporate employees.
AB - We compare individuals presently employed either at a university, or at a firm from an R&D-intensive sector, and analyze which of their personal-specific and employer-specific characteristics are related to their choice to leave their present employer for an own startup. Our data set combines the population of Danish employees with their present employers. We focus on persons who at least hold a Bachelor's degree in engineering, sciences and health and track them over 2001-2012. We show that (i) there are overall few differences between the characteristics of university and corporate startup entrepreneurs, (ii) common factors associated with startup activity of both university and corporate employees are education, top management team membership, previous job mobility and being male, (iii) it is primarily human capital-related characteristics that are related to startup choice of university employees while (iv) the characteristics of the present workplace are the foremost factors of entrepreneurial activity by corporate employees.
KW - Corporate startups
KW - Employee retention
KW - Founder characteristics
KW - Human capital
KW - University startups
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U2 - 10.1016/j.respol.2021.104347
DO - 10.1016/j.respol.2021.104347
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85114705774
SN - 0048-7333
VL - 50
JO - Research Policy
JF - Research Policy
IS - 10
M1 - 104347
ER -
