Ana R. del Águila, Antonio Padilla, Christian Serarols and José M. Veciana
The digital economy is an economic sector that includes goods and services, whose development, manufacturing, merchandising or supply depend on critical digital technologies. The…
Abstract
The digital economy is an economic sector that includes goods and services, whose development, manufacturing, merchandising or supply depend on critical digital technologies. The digital economy can be conceptualized into four different subsectors; on the one hand, it consists of infrastructure and applications and, on the other, electronic commerce and new intermediaries. This natural structure can be directly traced to how business generates revenues. The aim of this paper is to explain what is understood today by digital economy and to identify its dimensions and impact on the firm. For this purpose, it is necessary to develop its theoretical basis. In the second part of this paper, we refer to the results of an empirical research in the Spanish context.
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Christian Corsi, Antonio Prencipe, María Jesús Rodríguez-Gulías, Sara Fernández-López and David Rodeiro-Pazos
The purpose of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that the university context may partially determine the growth of university spin-offs (USOs), with a cross-national…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that the university context may partially determine the growth of university spin-offs (USOs), with a cross-national analysis and using an “interactionist” approach.
Design/methodology/approach
Two samples of USOs, from Spain and Italy (531 and 952 firms, respectively), were examined over the 2005-2013 period. Multilevel modelling was applied to empirically test the hypotheses.
Findings
The results confirmed that the university context is a critical and effective element for explaining USOs’ growth. The university context affected USOs’ growth only for the Spanish firms, while for the Italian spin-offs the evidence does not report a significant determining influence of the university context. This finding may be interpreted as the localization externalities, determined by the Spanish universities, have a more effective impact at firm level compared with those generated by the Italian universities.
Research limitations/implications
The paper provides evidence that the university context has a significant role in supporting USOs’ growth in Spain, but not in Italy. This finding, together with the fact that the Italian USOs showed lower growth rates over the period of analysis, may suggest that greater involvement by the Italian parent universities is needed to foster USOs’ growth. The main point to be underlined to decision makers is that policies aimed at fostering USOs need the active involvement of the parent university in the whole growth process of the nascent firm, rather than just in the USO creation process.
Originality/value
A multilevel approach provides both methodological and theoretical contributions to the study of USOs’ growth, which was adopted as an “interactionist” approach is recommended by literature. In addition, a cross-national approach allows for exploration of the actual effect of the university on the growth of USOs, taking into account international differences.