Spinning off new ventures: a typology of facilitating services

This study analyses the spin-out activity in seven technology transfer units, which are considered to be successes in Europe: Crealys in France, the Top Initiative of the university of Twente in the Netherlands, Leuven R&D at the KUL in Belgium, Business Develop-ment at IMEC in Belgium, BioM in Germany (Munich area), Technology Transfer Partners (TTP) and Scientific Generics, both in Cam-bridge, UK. In each of these institutes, an in depth analysis is made of how they organise the following activities: (1) sensibilisation and Detection of opportunities, (2) management of IPR, (3) selection of spin-out projects, (4) incubation and business plan preparation, (5) financing of these spin-outs and finally (6) the follow-up of spin-outs after start-up. Based upon the analysis of these activities, three different models have been defined: a self selective model, a supportive model and a protective model. In the first model, the specific aim is to generate as many start-ups as possible. Stimulating general entrepreneurship rather than financially or economically attractive companies are thus the goal. This means that sensibilisation and opportunity seeking is the main activity. In the second model, the emphasis lies on creating economically attractive companies with a transitional starter profile. These companies might not yet have a financially attractive business plan but have the ambition to make one in the future. Usually they are based upon the IP generated in the mother institute. Management of IPR and business plan preparation are crucial activities in this model. Finally, the protective model focuses on the creation of financially attractive companies, which receive VC-money at start. In addition to the previous activities, also financing activities are of crucial importance here. In addition to analysing the activities developed in each of these models, also theresources necessary to organise these activities are examined. In the first model, the crucial resources seem to be an experienced entrepreneur as manager who can sensibilise students, researchers and professors to start up a company and public money to facilitate this start up. In the second model, a financially autonomous organisation is needed which is strongly supported by the top management of the university in its activities. This organisation needs to have a minimum critical mass of people specialised in legal issues, IPR and business plan development. In addition, a public-private early stage. Capital fund is needed to support the start-ups. Finally, the protective organisation needs a worldwide recognised leading research team in a particular technology. The tech transfer or business development unit needs to be able to incubate the organisation and facilitate the recruitment of external management, attraction of international early stage venture capital and the formation of the company's intellectual property base

A Configuration Taxonomy of Business Process Orientation

Organizations strive to develop a variety of capabilities to improve and measure business processes. Researchers have used various maturity models to investigate the development of a business process orientation (BPO), and most have argued that such a development comes in stages. Current literature underestimates the interrelationships between BPO capabilities and fails to consider multidimensional or non-linear paths to maturity. To refine the features of maturity models, this study relies on configuration theory to uncover different archetypes for BPO development and quantitatively evaluate them by examining performance differences among archetypes based on a large-scale international dataset. The resulting empirical taxonomy with seven BPO archetypes establishes important performance differences between organizations at a similar maturity level. Besides strengthening the theoretical foundations of BPO and making maturity assessments more multifaceted, the results help organizations give their managerial efforts a focus by enabling comparison with peers in the same archetype and showing various paths for BPO improvement

Teachers’ acceptance and use of digital learning environments after hours : implications for work-life balance and the role of integration preference

While a growing number of teachers use information and communication technology (ICT) for work tasks outside the formal working hours and premises, research is inconclusive how this relates to their work-life balance. Following calls to examine the antecedents and moderating mechanisms of such behavior, the present study aims to examine how technology acceptance relates to work-related ICT use after hours (WIA) and work-life balance, as well as how employees' integration preference affects these relationships. Data was collected among 288 secondary school teachers in Flanders (Belgium) concerning their use of digital learning environments (DLE) beyond school grounds and school hours. Structural equation modelling shows that social influence reduces teachers' work-life balance mediated by WIA. While there was no support for other technology acceptance factors or the moderating role of integration preference, performance expectancy of the DLE and integration preference were associated with a higher work-life balance. Hereby, this study contributes to research on WIA by integrating the technology acceptance framework with boundary theory and work-life research. Overall, the findings show that DLE have an impact on teachers’ work-life balance independent of technological factors or their personal preference, underscoring the importance of school policies that cement the use of DLE in the private domain

Entrepreneurial origin, technological knowledge, and the growth of spin-off companies

We contribute to the literature on corporate spin-offs and university spin-offs by exploring how different characteristics in the technological knowledge base at start-up influence spin-off performance. We investigate how the technological knowledge characteristics endowed at start-up predict growth, taking into account whether the knowledge/technology is transferred from a corporation or university. We use a novel, hand-collected dataset involving 48 corporate and 73 university spin-offs, comprising the population of spin-offs in Flanders during 1991-2002. We find corporate spin-offs grow most if they start with a specific narrow-focused technology sufficiently distinct from the technical knowledge base of the parent company and which is tacit. University spin-offs benefit from a broad technology which is transferred to the spin-off. Novelty of the technical knowledge does not play a role in corporate spin-offs, but has a negative impact in university spin-offs unless universities have an experienced technology transfer office to support the spin-off