Rowing against the wind: how do times of austerity shape academic entrepreneurship in unfriendly environments?

[EN] Academic spin-offs (ASOs) help universities transfer knowledge or technology through business projects developed by academic staff. This investigation aims at analyzing the critical factors for spin-off creation at universities operating in crisis-raven, entrepreneurship-unfriendly environments. Such factors revolve around four types of resources: environmental, institutional, organizational, and personal. Focusing on a Southern European context, as an example of an unfriendly environment affected by economic crisis, an entrepreneurial university (the Technical University of Valencia in Spain, UPV) is our research setting. Through a case study approach, we examine the potential of UPV as a springboard for ASOs. Our results show an adverse local environment, a rather favorable influence of institutional and organizational drivers, and a mixed role of personal factors. Our findings illustrate that UPV consistently supports spin-off creation due to a greater (rather positive) reflexivity from its institutional, organizational and personal resources than the (negative) imprinting of the unfriendly environment. This helps counter-balance the structural unfriendliness for academic entrepreneurship, and trigger a crisis-led risk-taking attitude by academic staff. Hence, UPV should continue with its current strategy of supporting academic entrepreneurship, and might transfer best practices to other universities also affected by unfavorable environmental conditions. Generally speaking, we would advise universities facing adverse circumstances to develop rules and mechanisms for academic entrepreneurship, carefully revise and improve malfunctions, and become involved throughout the whole process of spin-off development. All in all, our study advances understanding of how the different drivers for ASO creation can be revamped by universities located in unfriendly environments, having in mind the key role that universities play in fostering social and economic development through academic entrepreneurship in such environments.The authors would like to thank the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (grant PAID-06-12-0916), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant ECO2011-29863), for their financial support for this research.Seguí-Mas, E.; Oltra, V.; Tormo-Carbó, G.; Sarrión Viñes, F. (2017). Rowing against the wind: how do times of austerity shape academic entrepreneurship in unfriendly environments?. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal. 1-42. doi:10.1007/s11365-017-0478-zS142Acs, Z. J., Audretsch, D. B., & Lehmann, E. E. (2013). The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 41, 757–774.Alemany, L. (2011). 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The French Version of the CAGE Mythology (Competitiveness—Attractiveness—Globalization—Excellence) and Some Ideas on How to Escape from It

International audienceThe recent period is characterized by the emergence of an attractive mythology in the field of economic development: the deepening of globalization would plunge all territories into an imperative of competitiveness, with only a few very big cities able to compete to attract the talents and leaders of tomorrow, which should therefore be supported by concentrating efforts on excellence. We summarize it by the acronym CAGE for Competitiveness, Attractiveness, Globalization and Excellence. A careful analysis of the different components of the CAGE shows that as reassuring as it can be, it tends to lock thought into conceptions that do not stand the test of facts. Despite this, and to a greater or lesser extent influenced by certain researchers and private or public analysis and advisory bodies, it underlies a whole range of public policies; it has even structured part of the debates around the results of elections in different countries. Enclosure in the CAGE causes adverse effects. As public resources are limited, dedicating them strongly to a few actors (start-ups, researchers deemed “excellent” …) or to a few places (“global” cities) leads to reinforcing socio-spatial inequalities. Some elements for reflection on possible alternatives, which seem healthier to us, will be presented in order to help escaping from it