Inheritance by the Unintended Child: The Impact of Knowledge Transfer on Spin-out Generation, Development and Performance Rajshree Agarwal* Dept. of Business Administration University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign 350 Wohlers Hall, 1206 S. Sixth St. Champaign, IL 61820 Email: agarwalr@uiuc.edu Raj Echambadi Dept. of Marketing College of Business Administration University of Central Florida P.O. Box 161400 Orlando, Fl 32816-1400 Email: rechambadi@bus.ucf.edu April M. Franco Dept. of Economics W210 John Pappajohn Business Building The University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242-1000 Email: afranco@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu MB Sarkar Dept. of Marketing College of Business Administration University of Central Florida P.O. Box 161400 Orlando, Fl 32816-1400 Email: msarkar@bus.ucf.edu All authors contributed equally. The names are arranged in alphabetical order Revised version submitted to Academy of Management Journal August 2002 * Contact Author. The authors thank Dr. Bisakha Sen for her help with estimation issues. We appreciate the comments received from seminar participants at the University of Central Florida, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard Business School, University of Houston, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, University of Minnesota and University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill.