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Ready to leave the ivory tower?: Academic scientists’ appeal to work in the private sector

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Abstract

This study investigates the factors that shape the attitudes of scientists toward starting their own business or working in a private sector firm. The analysis is based on data collected from scientists working in the German Max Planck Society, a research institution devoted to basic science. We find that the scientists’ attractiveness of working in a private sector firm or of starting their own business differ considerably according to their academic discipline and the self-reported commercial potential of their research. The ability to take risks, prior work experience in private firms, and personal experience in cooperating with industry lead to a positive attitude towards switching to private sector employment or entrepreneurship. Strong willingness to freely distribute research findings is related to a low appeal of private sector work.

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Notes

  1. A. Einstein, ‘Autobiographical notes’, in: A. Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. 1949. Everton (Ill.), ed. P. A. Shilpp.

  2. Further studies on scientists’ job movements to the private sector deal with skills gained in academia that are useful in the private sector (e.g. Zellner 2003) and the impact of academically trained personnel in private firms (Herrera et al. 2010).

  3. This supports the supposition that attractiveness does not necessarily coincide with intention (see e.g. Ajzen 1991).

  4. According to Stuart and Ding (2006), scientists are more likely to become entrepreneurs if peers at their institute are involved in commercial science. Bercovitz and Feldman (2008) show that organizational influence stimulates the entrepreneurial activity of scientists as scientists tend to learn to adopt the behavior of peers.

  5. Note that among doctoral students in the humanities, no nascent entrepreneur is found, so that we disregard this variable in the analysis.

  6. Statistics are available upon request.

  7. We are not aware of any comparable study that could serve as a reference to the shares detected by us.

  8. However, the study by Ponomariov and Boardman relates to informal interaction of academic scientists with private firms rather than job movements between sectors.

  9. Our measures of peer influence relate to the mean entrepreneurial attractiveness and the share of nascent entrepreneurs—regardless of scientists’ own observation. Bercovitz and Feldman (2008) observe peer effects by regarding cases when scientists switch from one institution to another while Stuart and Ding (2006) regard the entrepreneurial activity of past co-workers. Therefore, the three measures can hardly be compared.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich Schiller University, Carl-Zeiss-Strasse 3, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Michael Fritsch

  2. Institute of Economics, Economic Policy Research, University of Kassel, Nora-Platiel-Str. 5, 34109, Kassel, Germany

    Stefan Krabel

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  1. Michael Fritsch
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  2. Stefan Krabel
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Correspondence to Stefan Krabel.

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Fritsch, M., Krabel, S. Ready to leave the ivory tower?: Academic scientists’ appeal to work in the private sector. J Technol Transf 37, 271–296 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-010-9174-7

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