Institutional Factors for Academic Entrepreneurship in Publicly owned Universities in Japan: Transition from a Conservative Anti-industry University Collaboration Culture to a Leading Entrepreneurial University

Abstract

The establishment of university spin-offs differs across schools as a result of the interactions among different intuitional settings. This study examines the role of institutional factors in the context of state-controlled universities, which are the majority in East Asia, but have not been the focus of the existing literature. The University of Tokyo experienced a significant shift from an anti-industry university collaboration culture to a leading entrepreneurial university in the mid-2000s. This study proposes a chronological investigation of the policies and culture of this state-owned top research university and addresses its significant efforts to create an entrepreneurial environment. First, despite the regulatory constraints, the university has established an incubator and early-stage investment resource, benefiting from prior experimental experiences in an independent research centre. Second, it opened a special non-degree entrepreneurship education programme for students and postdoctoral researchers. These facts show the importance of an organisational initiative even in a state-controlled context. Regarding the reasons why such changes did not cause internal cultural conflict, our case studies suggest that the academic and commercial bicultural system introduced by the University of Tokyo balanced the fulfilment of traditional academic roles with the drive for innovation.

Inovação e empreendedorismo no ambiente acadêmico: um estudo sobre universidades empreendedoras e os resultados dos relatórios de gestão

“…Almeida et al (2020), além das mudanças tecnológicas, surgem, paralelamente, concepções inovadoras que envolvem os alunos, professores e as metodologias. Para Barnard, et al, (2019) (Clark,1998(Clark, , 2006Etzkowitz, 2013;Urbano & Guerreiro, 2013;Riviezzo et al, 2018;Krabel, 2018;Yoshioka-Kobayashi, 2019) à performance empreendedora, que implica mensurar autonomia, inovatividade, assumir riscos, proatividade e agressividade competitiva (Lumpkin & Dess, 1996).…”

An assessment of the determinants of licensing of university patents: a survey of Spanish universities

“…Among the institutional factors, previous works have highlighted the important role of technology transfer offices (TTO) (Markman et al, 2005;Ambos et al, 2008;Greenbaum and Scott, 2010;Calder on-Mart ınez and Garc ıa-Quevedo, 2013;Wu et al, 2015), the incentives existing in each university for researchers to opt to commercialize their research results (Macho-Stadler et al, 1996, 2007Jensen and Thursby, 2001;Lach and Schankerman, 2004;Link and Siegel, 2005;Baldini et al, 2007), and the existing regulations in each university regarding the transfer of results (Owen-Smith and Powell, 2001;Yoshioka-Kobayashi, 2019). Some authors have demonstrated the influence of the existence of financial support from the industry in pre-patent research (Friedman and Silberman, 2003), while others analyze the effect of the scientific field on the transfer of research results (Azoulay et al, 2007).…”

Multiple-case Research on University: Enterprise Innovation Chain ‘Fractures Repair’ in China

“…Intermediaries were underdeveloped and conditions for product tests were not good enough (Poppen & Decker, 2018). A good cultural climate for university entrepreneurship was in shortage (Yoshioka-Kobayashi, 2019). Organisations and structures did not collaborate well with each other (Wirsich et al, 2016).…”