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What is the core competence of academic entrepreneurs in research-based innovation? : the empirical study of academic reputation and technological depth

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DOI: 10.25236/ICSM.2019.027

Author(s)

Yuanyuan Chen, Wei Liu

Corresponding Author

Yuanyuan Chen

Abstract

Knowledge base is a key determinate for improving innovation performance of a company. Hence, technological depth and breadth, two dimensions of knowledge base, have drawn wide attention by scholars in recent years. Many studies discussed about the significance of technological breadth in promoting absorptive abilities of enterprises, technological depth has proved to be more critical for the firms’ creativity in their early stages. However, few researches studied on what could affect technological depth; therefore, the focus of this paper is to find out the most important factor which impact technological depth of firms. Based on the empirical data of 357 academic entrepreneurs from the opening of the NEEQ to the end of 2016, we figure out that academic reputation gives a significant positive influence on the technological depth of academic enterprises. Furthermore, this paper also finds that social capital owned by academic entrepreneurs has a moderating effect on the relationship between academic reputation and technological depth. According to our findings, academic entrepreneurs with high academic reputation would like to concentrate more on technological depth, that their company can better improve innovation and R&D as well as gain core competence in innovation in early stage. Since companies need more external resources while growing, this paper also implies that the influence of academic reputation on technological depth would be moderated by the effect of social capital.

Keywords

Academic entrepreneurship; Academic reputation; Technological depth; Social Capital; Innovation