Marc Wouters

2017

Literature about university spin-offs (USOs) has extensively researched the situation of USOs operating in various environments by analyzing commercialization problems of these USOs and giving recommendations for their situations. However, all these prior studies ignore the relationship of parent universities to the markets of their USOs and therefore neglect the situation of USOs operating on markets where parent universities have little experience. Since this USO type has not been investigated in literature before, it’s unclear if these USOs face the same commercialization problems as other USOs and if recommendations and conclusions of prior studies can be applied to this kind of USO. My study analyzes the commercialization problems of this type of USO and tests the applicability of recommendations from prior studies by investigating the case of one USO operating on a market where its parent university has little experience. I show that this USO type has to face specific commercialization problems that intensify general commercialization problems of USOs. Additionally, my study demonstrates that these specific problems limit the applicability of recommendations for USOs, parent universities and technology transfer offices (TTOs) from prior studies to the situation of this USO type. Thus, some literature recommendations have to be adjusted to this situation.