Economic Success of Employment and Revenue Generated from
Research Commercialization Activities
Samuel Amponsah Odei
University of Pardubice, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Studentska 95, Pardubice, Czech Republic
Keywords: Spin Offs, Entrepreneurial Universities, Commercialization, Patents, Innovation.
Abstract: The concept of entrepreneurial universities has gained more attention from policy makers and academics due
to its perceived prospect of contributing to innovation and economic growth. Spin offs companies helps
universities to commercialize their knowledge and technological developments. The commercialization of
academic research results through academic spin-offs is becoming an important and increasingly reliable
source of revenue for universities. Universities also contribute to employment creation when they establish
new spin off firms or help to revamp existing ones. Universities and industries usually cooperate and
engagement themselves through joint research projects and this helps universities to commercialize and
exploit research results by way of patents licensing and spin-offs. The main focus of this paper is to establish
the relationship that exits between the economic successes of spin offs in terms of employment and revenue
generation and their spillover effects of contributing to regional growth and development. Using the linear
regression method, this paper has demonstrated that, spin offs firms contribute better to employment creation
than revenue generation. Spin offs that are partially owned by higher educational institutions and those termed
social enterprises contribute better to employment creation than those without the full control of university’s
management. Spin offs do contribute insignificantly to revenue generation.
1 INTRODUCTION
The idea of academic entrepreneurship has gained
increased scholarly attention in recent years.
Academic entrepreneurship basically involves
universities taken measures to promote research
commercialization and contributing to the
development of their neighboring regions (Siegel and
Wright, 2015). The
creation of firms from
universities and other research organizations
constitutes an excellent way of commercializing
public research results, as well as allowing
universities to contribute to socioeconomic and
regional development (Bellini et al., 2000).
University spin-offs are deliberately established to
commercialize new technologies that usually
emanates from academic research (Zahra,Van de
Velde and Larraneta, 2007). The firms that are
established and affiliation to universities are referred
to as academic spin-off firms. Spin off companies
transfer technology from their attached universities to
themselves, and also from themselves (spin offs)
companies to customers. Spin-off firms born from
university researchers initiatives are the dominant
mode of commercialization of university research
(Landry, Amara and Rherrad, 2006). The creation of
spin-off companies is considered as the basis for the
commercialization of university research and also a
noticeable way of fulfilling the entrepreneurial dream
of universities (Clarysse and Moray, 2004).
University innovations policies encourage their
contribution to the development of local economies
by establishing new industries, promoting product
development and directly contributing to
employment and wealth generation (O’Shea, Chugh
and Allen, 2008).
The choice of universities to venture into research
commercialization represents a shift from the
traditional mission of universities that have longed
remained teaching and research. The commercialize-
tion of academic research results or the fulfillment of
third mission (entrepreneurial duties) has positioned
universities in different role in society (Rasmussen,
Moen, and Gulbrandsen, 2006). Universities have in
recent times become key players in the economy
because of their direct role in establishing innovative
spin-off companies and cooperating with existing
firms to create new products. The collaboration
between universities and industry is of significant
importance in the stimulation of technological
Odei S.
Economic Success of Employment and Revenue Generated from Research Commercialization Activities.
DOI: 10.5220/0006499201510157
In Proceedings of the 9th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (KMIS 2017), pages 151-157
ISBN: 978-989-758-273-8
Copyright
c
2017 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
change, economic development and competitiveness
in industries (Mansfield and Lee, 1996; Stejskal and
Hajek, 2016). The combination of the traditional as
well as this new mission has resulted in the
emergence of what has become the ‘entrepreneurial
university’ which is now multi tasked universities
combining research, teaching, as well as direct
contributing to the local economy (Clark, 1998).
Spin offs firms emanating from “academic
entrepreneurship,” are established to exploit the
results of academic research or intellectual property
created at the university (Shane, 2004; Klofsten and
Jones-Evans, 2000). A spin off is “a company that is
founded (1) by a faculty member, staff member, or
student who left the university to start a company or
who started the company while still affiliated with the
university; and/or (2) around a technology or
technology-based idea developed within the
university” (Smilor, Gibson and Dietrich, 1990, p.
63). These spin off firms are important and beneficial
to the national and local economies due to the fact that
they provide jobs and other economic opportunities.
Besides their economic contribution, these firms tend
to have a high turnover in terms of profits and offering
high-wages to their employees. Spin offs helps
university teachers to diversify their sources of
income because these spin offs mostly rely on the
expertise of academic inventors who are highly
qualified staff with long experience from their
research, this helps to reduce the likely of lecturers
quitting the teaching job (Toole et al, 2015).
Universities the world over are deeply engaging
in commercialization activities as a way of
contributing to economic development of their
regions and this is also necessitated by the fact that
there is growing decline in public investment for
funding traditional teaching and research of
universities, so universities have to look elsewhere
for reliable funding alternatives and spin offs seems
to be the solution (Chiesa and Piccaluga, 2000).
The main objective of this paper therefore is to
establish the relationship that exits between the
economic successes of spin offs in terms of
employment and revenue which have the spillover
effects of contributing to regional growth and
development. It will also identify which spin off type
contributes better in terms of employment and
revenue generation. With the above mentioned
objective, I therefore want to assess whether spin offs
are successful in generating employment or turnover.
The following research question will accordingly be
answered by this paper. Do spin off firms contribute
better to job creation or revenue generation?
The paper is organized in the following order:
section 2 constitutes the theoretical background
providing reviews of literature, section 3 is devoted to
the data and methodological aspect and section 4
presents the empirical analysis and its findings.
Section 5 concludes the paper and draw attention to
some policy implications.
2 THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND
Research commercialization is the process whereby
academic findings and inventions are transformed
into profit-making products and services for social
benefits. The commercialization of research plays an
important role in economic growth, job creation and
society’s structural change. Spin-off companies are
important means of commercializing technology and
academic research (Roberts and Malone, 1996). Spin
offs are new firms established by an academic to
transform newly generated knowledge from
universities and other public research organizations
into market products that can generate revenue and
offer employment opportunities. These spin-off firms
transform scientific knowledge into commercial use
to benefit individuals and other economic agents. The
accumulation of knowledge has become a vital factor
of production that increasingly contributes to firm’s
productivity and growth (Prokop, 2015). Spin-off
establishment is an essential component in the
knowledge transfer process, and this positions
university better to solving economic and societal
problems (Prokop and Stejskal, 2015). Establishing
new spin off firms is increasingly seen by universities
as evidence of their entrepreneurial quality and
training.
One of the possible ways through which spin offs
can contribute to the economic development of their
respective regions and national economies is through
job creation (Shane, 2004). Spin-offs serve as the
means to transfer technology from research
organizations and can contribute significantly to jobs
and wealth creation (Steffensen, Rogers and
Speakman, 2000). Spin offs entrepreneurship is
arguably one of the best ways to create employment
in recent times (Buenstorf, 2009). As evidenced by
(Niosi, 2006) spin off companies are capable of
generating employment and raising revenues.
According to a research by Smith and Ho (2006), spin
offs established by the Oxford university created and
employed about 9000 people constituting
approximately 3.5% of total local employment in the
Oxford region of the United Kingdom. In addition to
the above mentioned, the Catholic University of
Leuven in Belgium has been very successful in
establishing about 61 spin-off companies and these
companies combined employed over 2000 people
annually (MachoStadler et al., 2008). In a similar
dimension, the Chalmers University of Technology
located in the Swedish city of Gothenburg has also
been successful in establishing spin offs that
contributes to the economic development of the city.
Spin off firms from Chalmers University of
Technology successfully offered about 2800 people
employment in the year 1993 alone (Dahlstrand,
1997), they also directly contributed to creating about
10% of employment or created 70 new jobs annually
(Wallmark, 1997). The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) is among the leading
entrepreneurial universities in the world. A study
conducted by the Bank Boston acknowledged that
about 4,000 spin-offs companies associated to the
MIT employed 1.1 million people (Boston, 1997).
These employments and revenues can contribute
directly to individuals and national economic
development. Academics and their student can
diversify their incomes sources when they directly
engage in spin off creation. Some students may stand
the chance to benefit from temporal employment
offered by spin offs due to the fact that most spin offs
are in close proximity to the parent institution (Egeln,
Gottschalk and Rammer, 2004). Spin-offs firms are
capable of generating almost 40% of local jobs as
compared to non-spin off firms, this makes spin off
firms a significant contributor of jobs (Wallin and
Dahlstrand, 2006; Perez and Sánchez, 2003).
Spin offs created by universities and their
academic staff can be a reliable way to raise
additional revenues to supplement the dwindling
university sources of income (Van Geenhuizen and
Soetanto, 2009). Universities can raise additional
revenue by renting out their laboratories for
experiments and also allow their staff to engage with
industries and get some revenue. The
commercialization of academic research outcomes by
spin-offs in the form of license fees constitutes an
essential source of income for universities.
Academic patent is also an alternative means of
revenue for universities and academics (Etzkowitz et
al, 1998). The products and services of spin offs can
be sold to raise money for the company, staff and the
parent university.
Academic capitalism (Slaughter and Leslie, 2001)
has become core component of universities policies,
they permit their academic staff to engage in market-
like or profit oriented behaviours. Academics stand
the chance to benefit from market behaviours through
patenting activities, royalties, licensing agreements
among others. A study by Smith and Ho (2006) has
shown that spin off firms are greater revenue
generators. Their study found out that the spin-offs
companies established by Stanford University in the
USA were able to generate about 42% or about US$
106.3 billion of all revenue that accrued to 150 firms
in The Silicon Valley in 2001. The MIT spin offs
were also able to generate $232 billion from its annual
sales (Steffensen, Rogers and Speakman, 2000).
It is not surprising that one of the criteria used to
measure the success of spin off firms is their revenue
generation ability. Spin offs firms are very fruitful at
generating revenue, they accounted for about 99.4%
of overall revenues generated by startups (Franco and
Filson, 2006). In some instances, spin offs can
generate a turnover of about 350 million Euros in a
year (MachoStadler et al., 2008). In the United
States, the Colombia University made a turnover of
about $143 million through licensing income and this
accounted for roughly 15% of all U.S. university
income earned from patents (AUTM, 2001).
3 METHODOLOGY AND
SOURCES OF DATA
Data for this paper was collected from the Higher
Education Statistics Agency (HESA) 2014/2015-
2015/2016 survey. HESA provides consistent
information on higher education by conducting data
collection and analysis on UK higher education.
HESA conducts an annual Higher Education -
Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI)
survey on all knowledge transfer activities of all
higher education providers (Jörg et al, 2014). HE-BCI
record is collected annually from all UK publicly
funded higher education institutions (HEIs) and a
number of alternative providers (APs), collectively
referred to as higher education providers (HEPs) by
HESA. This paper used the HESA-HEBCI data to
analyze the economic success of UK universities
commercialization activities in relation to their
contribution to economic development by way of
employment and income generation. This paper
focused on the employment and revenue generation
potential of these entrepreneurial universities. The
data consist of about 161 higher education providers
engaging with industries in various ways.
To measure the relationship between the
economic success of employment and revenue
generation from universities commercialization
activities, this paper used the linear regression
analysis. The linear regression model helps to
describe the relationships that exist between the
dependent variables and the independent variables in
a simplified and straightforward mathematical form
(Schneider, Hommel and Blettner, 2010). The Linear
regression analysis is the most commonly used
statistical technique for measuring relationship that
exists between two or more variables (Matthews et al,
1990). Additionally, the linear regression was used to
ascertain the prospect of how universities through
their spin offs contributes to job creation and revenue
generation. First of all, the paper compared the
employment and revenue turnover that spin offs
created. These two variables we compared to each
other to find out which spin offs were good at
generating or creating.
The general formula for the linear regression
equation is usually in the form
Y = a + bX (1)
Where
X is the explanatory variable
Y is the dependent variable
b slope of the line
a is the intercept
4 RESULTS
The main aim of this paper is to measure the
relationship that exist between spin offs (universities
commercialize-tion activities), job creation and
revenue turnover that these spin off firms generate by
way of their contribution to economic development
(fulfilling their third mission of contributing to
society).
The results of the linear regression analysis are
shown in the table below.
Table 1: Variables Entered/Removed
b
.
Model Variables Entered
Variables
Removed Method
1 Rev_SE,
Emp_GSU,
Rev_SNHEPO,
Rev_SHEPO,
Emp_SE,
Emp_SSU,
Rev_GSU,
Emp_SNHEPO,
Emp_SHEPO,
Rev_SSU
Enter
a. All requested variables entered.
b. Dependent Variable: HESO
Legend: HESO- Higher Education Spin Offs,
Emp_SHEPO- employment from spin-offs partially
owned by HEP, Emp_SNHEPO- employment from spin-
offs not HEP owned, Emp_SSU- employment from Staff
start-ups, Emp_GSU-employment from graduate start-
ups, Emp_SE-employment from Social enterprises,
Rev_SHEPO-revenue from HEP owned spin-offs,
Rev_SNHEPO-revenue from spin-offs not HEP owned,
Rev_SSU-revenue from staff start-ups, Rev_GSU-
revenue from graduate start-ups, Rev_SE-revenue from
social enterprises.
Table 2: Model Summary.
Model R
R
Square
Adjusted R
Square
Std. Error of
the Estimate
1 .745
a
.554 .525 1.5978
a. Predictors: (Constant), Rev_SE, Emp_GSU,
Rev_SNHEPO, Rev_SHEPO, Emp_SE, Emp_SSU,
Rev_GSU, Emp_SNHEPO, Emp_SHEPO, Rev_SS
Table 2 above elaborates on the summary of the
model used for this analysis. The results in Table 2
have shown that the R= 0.745, R
2
=0.554, Adjusted
R
2
= 0.525 (rounded to 3 decimal places), which can
be interpreted that the independent variables are 53%
of the variability of the dependent variable i.e. Higher
Education Spin offs. The Adjusted R
2
is also an
estimation of the effect size, which at 0.525 (53%) is
indicative of a medium effect size, according to
Cohen's (1988) classification. Accordingly this model
has demonstrated that it is statistically significant at F
= 18.75, significance level = .000. This indicates that
in the nutshell, the model applied is statistically
significant and it can predict the dependent variable,
HE spin offs.
Table 3 below presents the results of the empirical
analysis of the variables used in this model, it can be
Table 3: Coefficients
a
.
Model
Unstandardized Coefficients
Standardized
Coefficients
t Sig.B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) .336 .147 2.277 .024
Emp_SHEPO .007 .001 .684 6.322 .000
Emp_SNHEPO .000 .002 -.017 -.207 .836
Emp_SSU .019 .010 .657 1.868 .064
Emp_GSU .001 .001 .084 1.127 .262
Emp_SE .017 .005 .265 3.477 .001
Rev_SHEPO -1.684E-5 .000 -.170 -1.814 .072
Rev_SNHEPO -6.372E-6 .000 -.034 -.378 .706
Rev_SSU .000 .000 -.648 -1.824 .070
Rev_GSU -1.413E-5 .000 -.055 -.736 .463
Rev_SE .000 .000 -.093 -1.513 .132
a. Dependent Variable: HESO
Source: Authors own
seen that when it comes to employment and
turnover from spin offs and their spillover effects on
economic development, spin offs contribute
significantly to employment creation than revenue
generation. The results show that universities
commercialization activities contribute more to
employment significantly. In all spin offs that are
partially owned by higher educational providers
contributed to employment generation with
statistical significance of (.000). Again spin offs that
constitute social enterprises generate employment;
they are statistically significant at (.001). The
employment generated by graduate startups, staff
startups and spin offs with no HE ownership did not
contribute significantly to employment creation.
On the hand when we compare the revenue
generation prospect of HE spin offs, we can see that,
the contribution of spin offs to revenue generation
was very insignificant. The significance level of
revenue generation by spin offs is showed no
significance. The results of this analysis supports
the claim that spin offs are good at contributing to
employment than revenue. The results also show
that when it comes to measuring the success of spin
offs, it can be seen that spin offs perform better in
employment than revenue. The reason why they
perform better in employment generation than
revenue generation can be attribute to their small
and not competitive nature. Spin offs face stiffer
competition from well established firms that are
financially well positioned in the market. This can
explain why spin offs are better or successful at
generating employment than revenue.
5 CONCLUSION
This paper sought to measure the relationship
between economic successes of spin off firm’s
contribution to fulfilling their third mission of
contribution to economic growth. The main aim of
this paper was to assess spin off firms and their
contribution to job creation and revenue generation
as a means through which they fulfill their third
mission. The measure of success used in this paper
was limited to the job creation and the prospect of
profitability of spin offs.
As seen above, the empirical results from the
analysis have demonstrated that, spin off firms are
very successful in contributing to socioeconomic
development of their regions. They do this
successfully by offering employment opportunities.
Empirically, university spin offs are very successful
with their contribution in the form of employment
creation than generating revenue for staffs, students
and others. The employment contribution of spin
offs was significant for spin offs that have a HE
ownership and those characterized as social
enterprises. Conversely, when it comes to the
prospect of revenue generation, the results proved
that, spin offs did not generate more revenue as
expected. Through employment, spin offs help to
reduce the high rates of unemployment and also
they can be a way for individuals to earn some
income. Since spin off companies partially owned
by HEP and those termed social enterprises
contribute significantly to job creation, it therefore
calls for policy measures to support universities in
their entrepreneurial quest because the
commercialization and commodification of
academic research can generate employment. This
policy dimensions can be tailored in the directions
of sustainable funding for universities to carry out
more research that will be beneficial to industries
and society as a whole. Again industries can also
provide some financial support to universities to
carry out business research. These financial
schemes can strengthen university industry
collaboration.
The results of this paper therefore call for further
research on the other possible dimensions
universities can help contribute to the economic
development of their respective regions. Additional
research is also needed to ascertain why the
remaining types of spin off do not contribute
significantly to employment.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by a grant provided by
the scientific research project of the Czech Sciences
Foundation Grant No: 17-11795S and Student
Grant Competition of University of Pardubice in
year 2017.
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