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  • Organization Science

Academic Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial Advisors and Their Advisees' Outcomes

By: Maria P. Roche
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:28
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Abstract

The transfer of complex knowledge and skills is difficult, often requiring intensive interaction and extensive periods of co-working between a mentor and mentee, which is particularly true in apprenticeship-like settings and on-the-job training. This paper studies a context that quintessentially describes this type of learning: the academic lab. I focus on ways a change in the attention of a principal investigator—moving to entrepreneurship—may influence knowledge transmission and skill development by examining the relationship of this change with their PhD students' scientific productivity and careers. To do so, I rely on novel restricted-access data encompassing faculty and PhD students in computer sciences, engineering, and the life sciences who were active at an elite US research university 2001–2017. The results suggest a substantial negative association between a professor's entrepreneurial activity and the short- as well as long-run publication output of the PhD students they train. Furthermore, I detect a decrease in students' likelihood of becoming professors themselves, but also an increase in their likelihood of working for consulting firms upon graduation. Finally, I provide evidence suggesting that changes in trainee development are the most feasible drivers of the results rather than changes in trainee research orientation, selection or life cycle effects.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship; Higher Education; Training; Personal Development and Career; Knowledge Dissemination

Citation

Roche, Maria P. "Academic Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial Advisors and Their Advisees' Outcomes." Organization Science (forthcoming). (Pre-published online October 6, 2022.)
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About The Author

Maria P. Roche

Strategy
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