Can Perceived Support for Entrepreneurship Keep Great Faculty in the Face of Spinouts?

Despite the recent increase in academic entrepreneurship research, we still know relatively little about the degree of involvement of academic inventors in university spinouts. In this study, we distinguish between academic inventors who leave the university after the creation of a spinout (academic exodus) and those who maintain their university affiliation (academic stasis). Drawing from the literature on innovation-supportive climates and from organizational support theory, we argue that perceptions of institutional support and departmental norms regarding entrepreneurship are associated with the exodus versus stasis decision. We find that inventors who have higher perceptions of institutional support for entrepreneurship are less likely to leave. This relationship is enhanced by perceptions of favorable departmental norms toward entrepreneurship. We discuss the implications of our work for the literature on academic entrepreneurship, innovation-supportive climates, and perceived organizational support. Our study has clear policy implications for universities, policymakers, and funders who aim to stimulate academic entrepreneurship, but are concerned about losing entrepreneurial faculty. Specifically, we advise universities and policymakers to actively support academic inventors wishing to spin out and to monitor this support in a customer-friendly manner, in order to ensure that the inventors' perceptions of support are favorable. It is also important for universities to look out for inconsistencies between a supportive environment for entrepreneurship at the institutional level and unfavorable norms toward entrepreneurship at the departmental level; such inconsistencies can lead good faculty members out of academia. More broadly, universities can pursue an aggregation strategy that aims to retain both a research and commercialization identity while building strong links between them