Approaching the Agora – Determinants of scientists' intentions to pursue academic entrepreneurship

This study investigates predictors of scientists’ intentions to commercialize their research through business founding. Analyzing a cross-sectional sample of 496 German scientists, we develop and test an intentions-based model of academic entrepreneurship combining personal and contextual factors. Empirical results demonstrate that intentions to start a science-based new venture are shaped by some personal characteristics (i.e., personal attitudes toward research commercialization, entrepreneurial control-beliefs, entrepreneurial self-identity, and prior entrepreneurial experience). Moreover, we find that the research context itself – i.e., normative influences of academic workplace peers – does not show a strong direct effect on entrepreneurial intentions. Moderator analyses deliver that peers have an influence primarily by person-context interactions via scientists’ sense of identification with these peers. A mediation analysis further indicates that gender-related differences in entrepreneurial control-beliefs might help explain the widely-observed low proportion of female scientist-entrepreneurs.