Top management team heterogeneity and economic performance: a micro-foundations perspective of academic business venturing

Abstract

PurposeThis research focuses on the relationship between Top Management Team heterogeneity (TMT) and University Spin-Offs (USOs) economic performance according to a micro-foundational perspective. The purpose consists in exploring whether a high academic representation in TMTs may improve USOs’ performance and how their competencies and backgrounds affect USOs’ economic success.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employed data from the Italian platform Netval to identify the entire population of USOs in southern Italy. They selected both pure and hybrid spin-offs that had at least one academic member on the TMT. Applying these conditions to our sample selection, the authors came to a population of 136 firms. They applied a hierarchical regression analysis to test the hypotheses.FindingsOur main findings reveal that the USOs’ economic performance improves with more academicians in the TMT and even in the same scientific field. Our data also shows that CEO duality has a negative impact on economic performance.Originality/valueThis work takes for the first time a micro-foundational perspective to analyze individual-level factors that affect USOs’ performance. The authors tried to bridge a research gap in the USO literature, shedding light on the relationship between TMT composition and new venture performance, considering some significant interactions between team members. Our expected findings also contribute to the general literature on entrepreneurial teams in new ventures and suggest a means to reconcile some inconsistent literature results on TMT heterogeneity and USO performance.

Not just numbers! Improving TTO performance by balancing the soft sides of the TQM

“…In the first step, data on the performance inputs of Italian TTOs were collected through the Netval database. The Netval database is a wellrecognized database that provides data on the technology transfer activities of all Italian universities, public research organization and research hospitals (Cucino et al, 2021;Hockaday and Piccaluga, 2021;Micozzi et al, 2021;Muscio et al, 2016;Sciarelli et al, 2022). In particular, Netval every year performs a survey of Italian universities, public research organizations, and research hospitals to monitor their technology transfer activities.…”

Industry 4.0 and industry 5.0: can clusters deal with the challenges? (A systemic approach)

“…This was due to the fact that within entrepreneurial universities, there is space for an effective dialogue between various educational, scientific, business and public authorities (Gogorishvili and Zarandia, 2021;Seturidze and Topuria, 2021; Vesperi and Gagnidze, 2021b). Moreover, these authorities can quickly commercialise research, introduce the results to the market, and retrain fully qualified specialists (Guerrero et al, 2016;Kharadze et al, 2021;Lekashvili and Bitsadze, 2021;Papachashvili et al, 2021;Sciarelli et al, 2022;Sobolieva et al, 2021). Due to their relevance, below a few key factors have been identified that contribute to the efficient functioning of entrepreneurial universities, namely: the creation of an "entrepreneurial environment, entrepreneurial staff as well as entrepreneurial teaching and learning; a strong entrepreneurial vision and the presence of leaders; the need for an environment of awareness to support spin-off creation; identifying factors that determine continuous organisational success" (Dominici and Gagnidze, 2021, p. 24).…”

“…, 2016; Kharadze et al. , 2021; Lekashvili and Bitsadze, 2021; Papachashvili et al., 2021; Sciarelli et al. , 2022; Sobolieva et al.…”