Structuration aspects in academic spin-off emergence: A roadmap-based analysis

The influence of the strategic management research rooted conception of firm performance as resulting from the structure–agency duality is clear in the academic spin-off (ASO) literature. However, the interplay of structuration aspects during ASO emergence is still under-researched—though potentially relevant to explain spin-offs’ heterogeneity. Thus, this paper presents a roadmap-based investigation of structure and agency patterns in the emergence of a Brazilian high-tech ASO focused on developing products from carbon nanotubes to industrial applications. Causal cognitive mapping was used to construct seven emergence roadmaps from entrepreneurs' retrospective narratives and the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) was applied to formally analyze the maps. As a result, the main generative mechanisms of the structuration aspects were identified, leading to evidence-based propositions about the distinctive explanatory capability of: R&D-oriented agency, internal structures and environment–resources combinations. Moreover, the study identified subsets of the original roadmap layers able to consistently limit, in a logically parsimonious way, the empirical diversity of various phenomena considered theoretically relevant aspects of academic spin-off emergence. Hence, the paper illustrates the value, from a scholarly perspective, of incorporating formal techniques to roadmap analyses and identifies complex patterns of structure and agency to be further explored by future investigations.

► All the phenomenon's aspects can be explained by a subset of these aspects ► R&D activities are the most encompassing generative mechanism of academic spin-off ► Resources play a prominent role in explaining most of spin-off emergence aspects ► Material and immaterial capital act as independent conditions of spin-off emergence ► Causal cognitive mapping and QCA refine roadmap construction and analysis.