Does the multiple affiliation of academic entrepreneurs influence their behaviours? An empirical study.

Entrepreneurial intentions are cognitive representations of the objectives and actions to be implemented in order to either establish a new independent venture or create new value within existing organizations. As a result, the ability to understand and predict entrepreneurial intentions becomes a central issue in the management literature. It has been demonstrated that entrepreneurial intentions are influenced by personal factors and social context, but there is no clear evidence on the impact that organizational affiliation has on this process. In this paper we compare the entrepreneurial intention formation of two types of entrepreneurs: academic entrepreneurs, who are affiliated to a university, and private entrepreneurs, who have no such affiliation. We test for differences within the intentional processes of the two groups, putting forward a set of five hypotheses. Our study relies on a matched-pairs sample of 52 academic entrepreneurs and 52 private entrepreneurs, founders of 52 academic spin-offs and 52 private start-ups. The university affiliation of the academic entrepreneurs results in a different entrepreneurial intention formation. The academics’ entrepreneurial intention is mainly driven by risk-taking propensity and technical skills, while for private entrepreneurs it is fostered by entrepreneurial self-efficacy and managerial skills. These findings provide us new theoretical and empirical evidences on the role that organizational affiliation has on the formation of entrepreneurial intentions.