The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of university Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in contributing to the creation and the performance of academic spin‐offs (ASOs). More specifically, it investigates the relationship between resources invested in TTOs in term of employees and the creation and growth of ASOs. The empirical analysis refers to Italy, where since 1999 academicians have been allowed to be actively involved in setting up companies for the ‘industrial use of research’. We used data on ASOs and resources invested by Italian universities in TTOs during the 2002–2011 period to investigate if and to what extent such investments contributed to the birth and growth of ASOs. We also controlled the results using information on university and on local context, in which university is located. The results of the empirical analysis show that in a first phase academicians reacted more promptly than universities to the opportunities offered by the new legislation, which may in part be due to the organizational rigidity that characterizes Public Administration in Italy. However, the empirical analysis also shows that after this initial phase the size of the TTOs (in terms of employees) has had a positive influence on the number of new ASOs (i.e. birth), but not on the performance of ASOs (i.e. growth), which is influenced by both long‐term investments in research (i.e. the quality of research results) and other variables linked to the regional and national contexts, such as the presence of incubators or the level of economic development. Our results regard a widely studied topic and should provide incremental findings for the community of entrepreneurship scholars and relevant implications for policy makers and TTO managers.

中文翻译：

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大学对技术转让办公室投资与学术衍生公司之间关系的实证分析

本文的目的是分析大学技术转让办公室（TTO）在促进学术衍生公司（ASO）的创建和绩效中的作用。更具体地说，它研究了从员工角度而言，投资于TTO的资源与ASO的创建和成长之间的关系。实证分析涉及意大利，自1999年以来，意大利一直允许院士积极参与成立“工业用途研究”的公司。我们使用了2002-2011年期间意大利大学在TTO中投资的ASO和资源的数据，调查了此类投资是否以及在多大程度上促进了ASO的诞生和增长。我们还使用有关大学和大学所在地区的信息来控制结果。实证分析的结果表明，在第一阶段，院士对大学对新法规提供的机会的反应比大学更快，这可能部分是由于意大利公共行政部门具有组织僵化性。但是，经验分析还表明，在此初始阶段之后，TTO的规模（以员工人数计）对新ASO的数量（即出生）产生了积极影响，但对ASO的绩效（即增长）没有积极影响。 ，这既受到对研究的长期投资（即研究结果的质量），又受到与区域和国家环境相关的其他变量（例如孵化器的存在或经济发展水平）的影响。