Academic Entrepreneurship, Knowledge Transfer, and Academic Spin-offs

Abstract

Academic entrepreneurship literature has been covering a wide array of subjects, including studies on the role of universities in the process of transferring knowledge, the role of governments in spin-off processes and on the creation of new companies (start-up) and also with several scopes of research, such as the role of university policies in the creation, development and relative performance of spin-offs. These new companies are an important mechanism for transferring knowledge, but their performance/survival rate is considered low. Despite their importance in knowledge transfer, there are still few studies on this mechanism, which demands further research. In this chapter, the aim is to understand the phenomenon of academic entrepreneurship in its diverse dimensions, the process and the different mechanisms of knowledge transfer; and to ultimately understand the role of academic spin-offs in the conversion of knowledge produced in universities.