How does the entrepreneurial orientation of scientists affect their scientific performance? Evidence from the quadrant model

Abstract

In order to identify the effect of academic entrepreneurship on science, this work compares the publication performance of entrepreneurial scientists with that of conventional scientists. Using Stokes's ‘quadrant model’, this paper examines how the entrepreneurial orientation affects scientific performance. The results on advanced materials research in Japan found that (i) entrepreneurial scientists publish more papers than conventional scientists do; (ii) the papers of conventional scientists demonstrate better citation performance than those of entrepreneurial scientists do, on average; (iii) coming to the top-cited papers, entrepreneurial scientists show higher propensity for publishing high-impact papers than conventional scientists do; and (iv) the portfolio interdisciplinarity of papers authored by entrepreneurial scientists is higher than that of conventional scientists. Although the influence of academic entrepreneurship on scientific performance is still unclear, our findings suggest that entrepreneurial scientists could make a relatively large contribution to furthering the scientific frontier by relying on innovation rather than convention.

Keywords:

• university–industry linkages
• academic entrepreneurship
• Pasteur scientists
• scientific productivity

Acknowledgements

We thank Miwao Matsumoto, Yuichi Tei, Kazunori Kataoka, Nobuyoshi Akimitsu, Hideaki Miyajima, and the participants of CMIS Seminar; DIG Seminar, Politecnico di Milano, 9 June 2009; Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Montreal (Canada), 6–10 August 2010; DRUID society meeting 2011, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15–17 June 2011; Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Boston, USA, 3–7 August 2012; Triple Helix Conference, London, UK, 8–10 July 2013 for their helpful comments. N.S. expresses gratitude to Waseda Institute for Advanced Study for academic support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. By controlling for impact factor (SJR), we are testing the impact net of the journal, which means that papers published in high-impact journals that get below the average would be negatively evaluated.

Additional information

Funding

This study was partly supported by University of Padova (Fondi MIUR ex 60%; Bilateral Agreements) and by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) Program [(#17330082 and #20330077]) from The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan and Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) [#19730166, # 23330121, and # 30323489)].

Naohiro Shichijo is a senior researcher and unit leader in the National Institute for Science and Technology Policy, S&T Foresight Centre, S&T Foresight Unit, Japan. He received his Ph.D. degree of engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan. His research interests include technology management, innovation management, and dynamic capabilities theory within the context of knowledge industry, among others. He has published articles in major refereed journals and academic proceedings in engineering and innovation management and such as Research Policy, International Journal of Innovation Management, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH, and Proceedings of the Japan Society for Science Policy.

Silvia Rita Sedita is an associate professor at the Department of Economics and Management, University of Padova, where she teaches Marketing and Management of Creativity. Her research agenda includes issues within the field of management of creativity and innovation in inter-organisational networks. The theoretical focus is on agglomerations (clusters and industrial districts), project-based organisations in creative industries and university–industry collaborations in high-tech industries. The main research settings are creative industries (design, music industry), high-tech industries (life science, advanced materials), Italian industrial districts and clusters. She published articles in major refereed journals such as Research Policy, Journal of Economic Geography, Regional Studies, and Urban Studies, among others.

Yasunori Baba is a professor of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) at the University of Tokyo. He received his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Sussex, UK. His research interests include economics of technical change and sociology of science and their applications to science and technology policy. He has published articles in major refereed journals such as Research Policy, Strategic Management Journal, and American Sociological Review, among others.