Research Policy 40 (2011) 1084–1093 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Research Policy j our nal ho me p ag e: www.elsevier.com/locate/respol The impact of entrepreneurial capacity, experience and organizational support on academic entrepreneurship Bart Clarysse a,b,∗ , Valentina Tartari a,1 , Ammon Salter a,1 a Imperial College London, Imperial College Business School, Exhibition Road, 46, London, SW7 2AZ, UK b University of Gent, Hoveniersberg 24, 9000 Gent, Belgium a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 30 July 2010 Received in revised form 31 January 2011 Accepted 28 April 2011 Available online 29 June 2011 JEL classification: M13 038 Keywords: Academic entrepreneurship Technology Transfer Offices Spin-offs a b s t r a c t Although sources and determinants of academic entrepreneurship have begun to command the attention of policy-makers and researchers, there remain many unanswered questions about how individual and social factors shape the decisions of academics to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Using a large-scale panel of academics from a variety of UK universities from 2001 to 2009, this paper examines how an academics’ level of entrepreneurial capacity in terms of opportunity recognition capacity, and their prior entrepreneurial experience shape the likelihood of them being involved in starting up a new venture. In addition, we explore what role university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) play in stimulating venture creation. The results show that individual-level attributes and experience are the most important predic- tors of academic entrepreneurship. We also find that the social environment surrounding the academic also plays an influential role, but its role is much less pronounced than individual-level factors. Finally, we show that the activities of the TTO play only a marginal, indirect role, in driving academics to start new ventures. We explore the implications of this analysis for policy and organizational design for academic entrepreneurship. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The rise in the number of spin-offs from universities in Europe, which has taken place since the 1990s, is often linked to the professionalization of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) at these universities. With the support of public funds, TTOs have stimulated a range of entrepreneurial activities by academics, spanning inven- tion disclosures to patent applications, the generation of licensing income, and the involvement of academics in the founding of spin- offs (Clarysse et al., 2007; Siegel, 2006; Wright et al., 2007). The US Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, and its European counter- parts, by encouraging universities to patent inventions funded by government agencies, marked the beginning of notably greater pro- fessionalization of the TTOs at the different universities (OECD, 2003; Rothaermel et al., 2007; Siegel et al., 2003). Meyer (2003) sug- gests that the professionalization of the TTO increases the degree to which academics are involved in entrepreneurial activities. Although earlier academic work suggested a strong link between the efficiency of the TTO and the entrepreneurial activity of the aca- ∗ Corresponding author at: Imperial College London, Imperial College Business School, Exhibition Road 46, London, SW7 2AZ, UK. Tel.: +44 20 7594 9850. E-mail addresses: b.clarysse@imperial.ac.uk (B. Clarysse), v.tartari@imperial.ac.uk (V. Tartari), a.salter@imperial.ac.uk (A. Salter). 1 Tel.: +44 207 594 18 76. demics at the different universities, more recent empirical work does not find a clear impact of the TTO office. For example, Stuart and Ding (2006) highlight the social structural antecedents, i.e. the specific normative beliefs, which prevail at the department and university about entrepreneurial activity, as strong determinants of academic entrepreneurship. In this study, whether or not a uni- versity had a specific TTO did not have a consistent and significant impact on the likelihood of academics to engage in commercial activities. Bercovitz and Feldman (2008) build upon these results and conclude that the social environment mediates the individ- ual attributes of academics, such as exposure to entrepreneurial activities in previous universities, which might explain why certain academics are more likely to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Yet, surprisingly, the literature on academic entrepreneur- ship makes very little reference (one exception is Mosey and Wright (2007)) to the individual attributes which the wider entrepreneurship literature have repeatedly put forward as the central determinants of entrepreneurial activity and success. There is, for instance, a vast literature on habitual or serial entrepreneurs, which claims that entrepreneurial experience is a very good pre- dictor of future start-up activity (Hsu, 2007; Ucbasaran et al., 2006). This literature on habitual entrepreneurs is in line with the equally large literature on entrepreneurial intent, which puts entrepreneurial self-efficacy (the belief one has in his/her own competencies to start a company) as a consistent predictor of the intent which people have to become entrepreneurs or undertake 0048-7333/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2011.05.010