Fostering Academic Entrepreneurship: New Insights into Incubation from An Evolutionary Perspective

This paper addresses the growth of academic spin-off and the incubation policies concerned. To this purpose it presents theory of firm growth and policy theory based on evolutionary principles. This is followed by an empirical analysis of learning by spin-off firms to overcome barriers to growth and of factors that influence growth. Spin-off from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands serves as a case study. The results indicate that the main barriers are concerned with knowledge (skills) in interaction with the market and in dealing with uncertainty in management, a situation that can be explained by a major change in required routines. Further, the results indicate needs of spin-off firms for external networking and diversity in preventing (solving) problems. This situation points to a preference for incubation policies that have moved away from comprehensiveness and centralisation to policies of customized support and some degree of self-organisation. Key words: academic spin-off; evolutionary approaches, learning, financial capital, growth, incubation policy models