Size and survival: An analysis of the university spin-offs

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120953Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Firm size is positively associated with the USOs’ survival.

  • Exist a minimum size that, once reached, makes the failure risk of USOs not significantly dependant on size itself.

  • Determinants of survival consistently differ between micro USOs and small, medium and large USOs.

  • Survival of micro USOs is negatively affected by activities like patent or debt payment.

  • Exporting increases the survival probability of small, medium and large USOs.

Abstract

Universities have created USOs to exploit the research knowledge and contribute to the economic development of their regions in the last decades, leading to an extensive literature on the topic. However, this growing literature has widely overlooked the links between firm size and survival. This paper explores simultaneously the role of size and other firm characteristics on the likelihood of the USOs’ survival, mainly drawing on the RBV of the firm. The empirical study uses an unbalanced panel consisting of 2,220 observations from 465 Spanish USOs observed between 2005 and 2013 and event (survival) analysis techniques. The results confirm than firm size is positively associated with the USOs’ survival. Moreover, the empirical evidence seems to support the existence of a minimum size that, once reached, makes the failure risk of USOs not significantly dependent on size itself. The findings also confirm that the determinants of survival consistently differ between micro USOs and SML USOs. Thus, the survival of micro USOs is negatively affected by those activities that involve high needs of resources, like patent activity or debt payment. In contrast, exporting increases the survival probability of SML USOs.

Keywords

Size
Firm survival
Spain
Cox proportional hazards model
University Spin-Offs

Cited by (0)

David Rodeiro Pazos joined Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Galicia/Spain) as associate professor in 2009, after 7 years of working as a lecturer and researcher. He has his PhD. from the University of Santiago in 2008. His research interests are academic entrepreneurship, university spin-offs, technology transfer and venture capital. He is author and co-author of several books on entrepreneurship. He has around 60 internationally refereed papers published in journal as Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Journal of Management Development or Service Business, included in JCR. Recently, he and has been involve in European projects “Citizenergy” and “LACES”, and actually is in “FAN-BEST”.

Sara Fernández López joined the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Galicia/Spain) as associate professor in 2006, after 11 years of working as a lecturer and researcher. She is the Secretary of the Committee of Ph. D. Programme in Economics and Business since 2013. Her research interests are in two main areas: household finance and academic entrepreneurship. She has around 40 internationally refereed papers. Recently, she has published in the journals Business Services, European Journal of Finance, Feminist Economist, Spanish Journal of Finance and Accounting or Academia Revista Latinoamericana de Administración, all of them included in JCR.

María Jesús Rodríguez Gulías joined the Universidade da Coruña (Galicia/Spain) as lecturer in 2015. Previously, she combined her work as technician in the Technology Transfer Office of Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and the development of her PhD and worked for Universidade de Vigo. Dissertation on university spin-offs, defended in January 2014. Her research interests are in two main areas: intellectual property valuation and academic entrepreneurship. Recently, she has published in different journals as International Journal of Innovation and Learning, International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Journal of International Entrepreneurship or Journal of the Knowledge Economy.

Adrian Dios-Vicente joined the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Galicia/Spain) as lecturer in 2014. His research interests are in cooperatives, academic entrepreneurship and energy sector. He has participated in different congress and published in several journals.