The Evolution of Resources in Research-Based Spinoffs: Learning from a Case Study

A great deal of interest and concern has been raised in recent years over the theme of research‐based spinoffs (RBSOs) and their economic and social implications. An RBSO is a new business entity formed to market one or more related technologies generated from the research work of a public research institute. The literature has studied this phenomenon from three different theoretical perspectives: resource‐based, business model and institutional (Mustar et al. 2006), but no studies have integrated the above three theoretical perspectives. Other gaps identified in the literature are the lack of an analytical consideration of the impact of technological resources on RBSO performances and the limited empirical studies on the evolution over time of RBSOs, i.e. considering the resources in the different stages (or phases) of the RBSOs’ development. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the evolution of a spinoff’s resources and institutional linkages over time, adopting the four stages of spinoff development identified by Djokovic and Souitaris (2008): 1) opportunity recognition, 2) entrepreneurial commitment, 3) threshold of credibility and 4) threshold of sustainability. To this extent, the authors have extensively investigated a research‐based spinoff from the Italian ICT sector .This paper provides a thorough and integrated analysis of the research‐based spinoff in terms of resources (including institutional resources), using a longitudinal approach, and highlights the importance of resources during its life‐cycle.