The Integration of Market and Science Logics for the Development of Academic Spin-offs

In an attempt to answer a recent call from the academic community and policy makers on the controversial role of academic spinoffs to economic development, this paper provides evidence on the contribution of firm and university level factors to the growth of UK academic spinoffs. Building upon the institutional logics theory we contend that university integrates minority (market) logic when dealing with the creation of academic spin-offs. This work sheds light on the university and firm level factors associated with the integration of the minority (market) logic into the dominant science logic within Higher Education Institutions. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 664 academic spinoffs originated from 71 UK universities in the period 2004-2011. Results show that organisations’ resources and strategies contribute to explain the variety in the degree of conformity of a non-market institutional logic towards a market-logic.