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Assessing gender disparities in science commercialisation has been in the centre of the unresolved debates on the inadequacies of the methods used to compare female and male academics. Drawing from the literature on non–IP-based academic entrepreneurship and gender disparities in science, this study used the “pair-matched” technique to isolate 406 female and male academics in business schools (203 of each gender from a sample of 729 academics) who share common characteristics regarding academic position, subdisciplinary affiliation, and experience. The study confirms that a comparison of female and noncomparable male academics could lead to an unfair judgement of female academics’ performance. However, the results show that even compared to comparable men, women are less involved in remunerated consultations, generate a smaller proportion of their revenue from consultations and are less engaged in the creation of consultancy companies. In addition, the study allows us to quantify a leaky pipeline of both genders involved in informal academic entrepreneurship and to identify four paths, from progressive to nonprogressive. Most female academics follow a progressive entrepreneurial path but often struggle to move from nonremunerated to remunerated entrepreneurial engagements. The study concludes with implications for university administrators on knowledge transfer and gender inequality.

Assessing gender disparities in science commercialisation has been in the centre of the unresolved debates on the inadequacies of the methods used to compare female and male academics. Drawing from the literature on non–IP-based academic entrepreneurship and gender disparities in science, this study used the “pair-matched” technique to isolate 406 female and male academics in business schools (203 of each gender from a sample of 729 academics) who share common characteristics regarding academic position, subdisciplinary affiliation, and experience. The study confirms that a comparison of female and noncomparable male academics could lead to an unfair judgement of female academics’ performance. However, the results show that even compared to comparable men, women are less involved in remunerated consultations, generate a smaller proportion of their revenue from consultations and are less engaged in the creation of consultancy companies. In addition, the study allows us to quantify a leaky pipeline of both genders involved in informal academic entrepreneurship and to identify four paths, from progressive to nonprogressive. Most female academics follow a progressive entrepreneurial path but often struggle to move from nonremunerated to remunerated entrepreneurial engagements. The study concludes with implications for university administrators on knowledge transfer and gender inequality.

The political environment around universities has led them to create an infrastructure to manage academic inventions. While some consider that the advantages of a university entrepreneurial structure outweigh any potential negative effects, others question their detrimental effect on academic scientists’ entrepreneurial behavior. However, this debate remains unresolved as none of these two views have been fully empirically supported. Using multilevel models for a population of 2230 professors in 27 universities in Canada (82 individuals per unit on average), we test the effect of three features of institutional intellectual property right policy characteristics, namely, property rights (ownership regime), control rights (obligation to disclose and option to commercialize), and income-sharing schemes (when commercialization involves the university or an individual inventor) on two commercial behaviors of faculty members, namely, formal commercialization (patent and spinoff creation), and informal commercialization (consulting and commercial agreement). Our results suggest that contrary to most of the literature, academic inventors’ behavior is influenced not by the invention ownership regime but by the control rights in place and the sharing of income between the university and the academic inventors. The findings have some implications for the importance of an ownership regime and the ineffectiveness of institutional policies which create contradictory motivations for academic entrepreneurs. It suggests some directions for future research using multilevel models.

[EN] Factors that impede the innovation propensity of manufacturing firms have been under-studied and under documented. Obstacles to innovation in RIBS firms are literally not documented at all. Based on a sample of Canadian KIBS firms, this study argues that in RIBS firms, the propensity to innovate should take into account not only product and process innovations, but also other forms of innovation (delivery, strategic, managerial, and marketing). Furthermore, we argue that different obstacles will affect different forms of innovation. The results show that, overall, financial obstacles are negatively related to product and process innovations, and that knowledge obstacles tend to be negatively associated with delivery, strategic, managerial, and marketing innovations. These results carry important managerial implications. Hence, managers of RIBS firms might benefit from remembering that a failure to recognize the differences between KIBS firms and manufacturing firms could lead to an inefficient allocation of the resources invested in innovation activities. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[EN] Factors that impede the innovation propensity of manufacturing firms have been under-studied and under documented. Obstacles to innovation in RIBS firms are literally not documented at all. Based on a sample of Canadian KIBS firms, this study argues that in RIBS firms, the propensity to innovate should take into account not only product and process innovations, but also other forms of innovation (delivery, strategic, managerial, and marketing). Furthermore, we argue that different obstacles will affect different forms of innovation. The results show that, overall, financial obstacles are negatively related to product and process innovations, and that knowledge obstacles tend to be negatively associated with delivery, strategic, managerial, and marketing innovations. These results carry important managerial implications. Hence, managers of RIBS firms might benefit from remembering that a failure to recognize the differences between KIBS firms and manufacturing firms could lead to an inefficient allocation of the resources invested in innovation activities. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[EN] This paper aims to further our understanding of how the degrees of innovation novelty and innovation failure are connected. It argues that a better understanding of the specific predictors of innovation novelty and failure would improve our understanding of the innovation process and inform R&D managerial interventions to reduce the occurrences of failure and enhance radical innovation. This investigation draws on data on 5387 Spanish manufacturing firms from the 2009 Spanish Community Innovation Survey (CIS). Unlike prior studies which examine product innovation, degree of innovation novelty, and innovation failures in separate models, this study relies on a multivariate model to account for the extent to which these outcomes are interdependent Overall, the results indicate that innovation effort and innovation failure are closely linked, especially if the innovation involves a significant level of novelty. These interdependencies are problematic since firms aspire to higher propensity for innovation and novelty; however, this higher propensity is accompanied by a higher probability of failure. Our empirical results identify a number of factors that contribute to enhancing innovation novelty while also attenuating the probability of innovation failure. These factors are: (i) R&D employees, (ii) research and institutional sources of information, (iii) contracting external R&D, and (iv) corporate social responsibility practices. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[EN] This paper aims to further our understanding of how the degrees of innovation novelty and innovation failure are connected. It argues that a better understanding of the specific predictors of innovation novelty and failure would improve our understanding of the innovation process and inform R&D managerial interventions to reduce the occurrences of failure and enhance radical innovation. This investigation draws on data on 5387 Spanish manufacturing firms from the 2009 Spanish Community Innovation Survey (CIS). Unlike prior studies which examine product innovation, degree of innovation novelty, and innovation failures in separate models, this study relies on a multivariate model to account for the extent to which these outcomes are interdependent Overall, the results indicate that innovation effort and innovation failure are closely linked, especially if the innovation involves a significant level of novelty. These interdependencies are problematic since firms aspire to higher propensity for innovation and novelty; however, this higher propensity is accompanied by a higher probability of failure. Our empirical results identify a number of factors that contribute to enhancing innovation novelty while also attenuating the probability of innovation failure. These factors are: (i) R&D employees, (ii) research and institutional sources of information, (iii) contracting external R&D, and (iv) corporate social responsibility practices. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Factors that impede the innovation propensity of manufacturing firms have been under-studied and under-documented. Obstacles to innovation in KIBS firms are literally not documented at all. Based on a sample of Canadian KIBS firms, this study argues that in KIBS firms, the propensity to innovate should take into account not only product and process innovations, but also other forms of innovation (delivery, strategic, managerial, and marketing). Furthermore, we argue that different obstacles will affect different forms of innovation. The results show that, overall, financial obstacles are negatively related to product and process innovations, and that knowledge obstacles tend to be negatively associated with delivery, strategic, managerial, and marketing innovations. These results carry important managerial implications. Hence, managers of KIBS firms might benefit from remembering that a failure to recognize the differences between KIBS firms and manufacturing firms could lead to an inefficient allocation of the resources invested in innovation activities.

This paper aims to further our understanding of how the degrees of innovation novelty and innovation failure are connected. It argues that a better understanding of the specific predictors of innovation novelty and failure would improve our understanding of the innovation process and inform R&D managerial interventions to reduce the occurrences of failure and enhance radical innovation. This investigation draws on data on 5387 Spanish manufacturing firms from the 2009 Spanish Community Innovation Survey (CIS). Unlike prior studies which examine product innovation, degree of innovation novelty, and innovation failures in separate models, this study relies on a multivariate model to account for the extent to which these outcomes are interdependent. Overall, the results indicate that innovation effort and innovation failure are closely linked, especially if the innovation involves a significant level of novelty. These interdependencies are problematic since firms aspire to higher propensity for innovation and novelty; however, this higher propensity is accompanied by a higher probability of failure. Our empirical results identify a number of factors that contribute to enhancing innovation novelty while also attenuating the probability of innovation failure. These factors are: (i) R&D employees, (ii) research and institutional sources of information, (iii) contracting external R&D, and (iv) corporate social responsibility practices.

Creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship are recognized as crucial to foster an entrepreneurial culture, but their relationships from the competence-based approach are not yet sufficiently understood. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the nature of entrepreneurial competences critically analyzing the theoretical underpinnings to such interrelationships. Our literature review informs that the focus, core assumptions and educational approaches to entrepreneurial competences and the role of creativity and innovation may vary substantially depending on which educational paradigm is considered (educating 'for', 'about' and 'through' entrepreneurship). We present arguments on the adequacy of Social Cognitive Theory and Social Constructivism to explain the development of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship (CIE) as a meta-competence. In this framework we undertake a preliminary empirical approximation to the area under study exploring how engineering students from two different socio-cultural contexts, Spain and USA, perceive CIE relationships and to what extent they believe they are developed by the education system. Empirical findings show that most students see themselves as creative people and consider that creativity is strongly related to innovation and entrepreneurship, being more convinced American than Spanish students on the relevance of creativity among entrepreneurs' competences. Moreover, their perceptions contrast with the role assigned to education, where they consider that creativity is still a pending subject in engineering education.