Ecuaciones primitivas.
5.2.2. Técnicas de anidamientos y parametrizaciones.
In this thesis I tried to produce an initial integrative work on public research spinoffs in the Bologna area. I started my study of this subject by presenting in Chapter 1 a definition of what a public research spinoff is and by proving it. Then, I cited eleven main reasons for the importance of public research spinoffs, which had already been demonstrated in other studies by most important scholars in the field of entrepreneurship science. I also related accounts of the most successful and the most famous examples of public research spinoffs worldwide. Finally, I presented a picture of the spinoff situation in Italy, explaining its history, and the trends currently and their characteristics.
In Chapter 2, I reviewed the entrepreneurial literature in this field concerning several different sub-topics in entrepreneurship. The choice of this thesis has been to concentrate the analysis on individual related factors, because it has been cognizant of the opinion expressed by several scholars that they are more important than other factors in small new companies. Nonetheless I have tried also to include environmental characteristics in order to obtain an integrative framework for entrepreneurship. I integrated several scholars works starting from that of Schumpeter. Primarily, I concentrated the analysis of literature on the work scholars in the subject which concerns the personal dimension of the entrepreneur, in particular focusing on tenacity, motivations, passion, risk taking propensity, need for achievement, prior knowledge, attitudes, and individual skills. Thereafter the literature regarding external factors was reviewed, in particular four different external factors: (1) local context factors, (2) goverment support mechanisms, (3) industry and technology related characteristics, (4) university support mechanisms were distinguished. Both these two spheres contribute to the emergence of entrepreneurial orientation in individuals, which subsequently leads to the manifestation of entrepreneurial behavior. Both these two constructs were analyzed and discussed.
In Chapter 3 I presented the features of the entrepreneurs interviewed for this survey. I explained more specifically when it was carried out, what were the modalities of the interviews, what were the aims of the survey, and how the sample of the 77 entrepreneurs was chosen. Moreover, I described the stucture of the questionnaire administered and provided the references which contributed to its creation. I described the different approaches used by previous scholarly investigations in this field. Finally, I provided details of the 34 spinoff companies now present in the Bologna area, which were contacted for this survey. I explored some features concerning these companies such as the year of their foundation, the IPO rate, the industrial sectors in which they operate, the institution from which they originate and the legal form take by the company. On the other hand, I did not mention, out of discretion, the names of the 77 entrepreneurs who participated in this survey. They are hovever present in the eaw data and would therefore be available for examination if the sources of this thesis were ever to be disputed.
In Chapter 4 I thoroughly analyzed the results of the survey in all its various different features and constructs as introduced in Chapter 2. I presented a descriptive resuls of the different questions posed to the interviewees. Many different features have been the object of this analysis starting with the constructs of tenacity, passion, propensity for risk taking, entrepreneurial orientation, and going on to attitudes, expectations of future growth and increase in the number of employees. The descriptive analysis includes features that have not been investigated by previous scholarly works, such as whether the entrpreneurs work part-time or full-time for their spinoff. I found that the answer to this question had a correlation to their passion for it. Moreover, I also provide data on the risk taking attitude of entrepreneurs, the competitive strategy of their firms, as well as the obstacles and supports entrepreneurs encounter. Further tables included in this chapter are concerning motivations, prior knowledge, academic status, past job experience, type of degree, and also change in annual revenue one year after the establishment of the company.
In order to complete this work more intensive research was carried through. Three different categorizations of the sample of 77 entrpreneurs was effected in order to understand possible correlations among specific groups of entrepreneurs and some of the constructs/questions investigated by the questionnaire. These differences were measured through T-Student tests, which allow a comparison between two samples
with different numerosity taken from the same population. The three classifications presented are:
1) Employees of the University or of a Public Research Center vs “others”. 2) Entrepreneurs with prior experience as company founders vs not-
experienced.
3) Professors vs researchers and PhD students.
It has possible to observe that certain expected differences in results between these categories were confirmed. Differences were more remarkable especially for motivations and previous job experience, but important discoveries were also made concerning entrepreneurial passion, entrepreneurial risk taking propensity, perceived supports to entrepreneurial activity and expectations of future growth.
We have also found a confirmation of the fact that some characterics do not vary between categories, as for example with the lack of managerial job experience both for professors and doctoral students.
Hence, a complete picture of the features of entrepreneurship in public research spinoffs has been drawn and it is now available as a basis for further and and more intensive future research. The history of public research spinoffs in Bologna is still too recent for it to be traced in a balanced manner but it is certain that a first study on this topic was needed in order to understand the situation and the problems of these companies and of these entrepreneurs.
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