IP strategies in high-tech enterprises a framework to compare academic and Corporate Spin-Offs

Literature highlights substantial differences between Academic Spin-Offs (ASOs) and Corporate Spin-Offs (CSOs), considering their characteristics as some of the causes that could affect their level of performance. On this topic, this paper gives a contribution in defining a theoretical framework useful to highlight the main differences between ASOs and CSOs, identifying the impact of these differences on their growth rates. In particular, by focusing on factors that relate to Intellectual Property (IP) rights, the paper describes the technology exploitation process used by Academic and Corporate Spin-Offs, extracting the "phases" and "IP strategies" adopted in both cases. The framework contributes to demonstrate if and how the different IP strategies applied by Academic and Corporate Spin-Offs have an effect on their growth rate, in the attempt to support or not a recent point of view of some scholars that observe higher success rates in industry than in the education sector.