The role of non-economic goals in academic spin-offs
本文提出非经济目标（如控制、身份和情感）影响学术衍生企业的行为和绩效，解释了它们为何在财务困难中仍能长期存活，对学术创业研究和公共政策有启示。
Abstract Acting as a crucial link between academia and the business world, Academic Spin-Offs (ASOs) play a key role in translating innovative technologies from academic discoveries into commercial applications. Despite their potential for technological advancements, ASOs often struggle with challenges in financial performance and growth. Traditional explanations attribute these challenges to a lack of commercial resources and competencies. However, since ASOs often demonstrate prolonged survival, such explanations may not fully explain the paradox in ASOs’ outcomes. This paper offers a novel perspective, highlighting how non-economic goals, deeply ingrained in the academic context in which ASOs originate, shape their behavior and outcomes. These goals, related to the dimensions of control, identity, and emotions, go beyond financial gains, reflecting concerns that are specific to the academic environment. Integrating the organizational goals literature with insights from academic entrepreneurship research, we present a conceptual model describing the origins and nature of these goals and explain how they can help shedding light on some paradoxes in ASOs’ development, growth, and performance events. Our model bears significant implications for the academic entrepreneurship literature and related public policy.