Returnee academic entrepreneurship in China
| Pages | 8-23 |
| Published date | 28 April 2020 |
| Date | 28 April 2020 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-12-2019-0281 |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management,HR & organizational behaviour,Organizational structure/dynamics,Accounting & Finance,Accounting/accountancy,Behavioural accounting |
| Author | Yanzhao Lai,Nicholas S. Vonortas |
Returnee academic
entrepreneurship in China
Yanzhao Lai
School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu,
China, and
Nicholas S. Vonortas
Institute of International Science and Technology Policy and Department of
Economics, The George Washington University, Washington,
District of Columbia, USA;
S~
ao Paulo Excellence Chair, University of Campinas, S~
ao Paulo, Brazil and
Leading Research Fellow, Institute of Statistics and Economics of Knowledge,
National Research University Higher School of Economics,
Moscow, Russian Federation
Abstract
Purpose –Universities have become both increasingly entrepreneurial and international over the past few
decades. We still, however, know little about the relationship between the two trends. This paper investigates
the effect of international exposure of university faculty members on university entrepreneurial culture.
Design/methodology/approach –Using a specially constructed dataset of the entrepreneurial activities of
507 computer science faculty members—among whom 138 are returnees—from 21 research-intensive
universities in China during 2007–2017, the study empirically investigates the relationship between foreign
experience and academic entrepreneurial activity back home. We control for characteristics of the faculty
member and the location of the university.
Findings –Academic tenure overseas is found to positively affect academic entrepreneurship. The length of
stay abroad also affects the relationship: returnee academicswith foreign Ph.D. degrees are more likely to start
new businesses than returnee academics with shorter postdoc experience overseas. The economic gap between
the host (foreign) and home country (China) does not have a statistically significant effect on returnee academic
entrepreneurial activity.
Originality/value –To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to empirically investigate returnee
academic entrepreneurship. It provides indications on how foreign educational background affects academics
entrepreneurial activities.
Keywords China, Universities, Entrepreneurship
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Over the past two decades, alongside the traditional teaching and research roles of
universities, the so-called “third mission,”namely the direct contribution to the development
JIC
22,1
8
The authors acknowledge the comments of discussants at the Atlanta Conference on Science and
Innovation Policy, Atlanta, October 2019, and at the special conference of the Strategic management
Society in Hyderabad, India, December 2018, and comments from the anonymous referees of this journal.
Both authors acknowledge the infrastructural support of the Department of Economics at the George
Washington University for carrying out this research. Nick Vonortas additionally acknowledges
support by FAPESP in connection to the S~
ao Paulo Excellence Chair “Innovation Systems, Strategy and
Policy”(InSySPo) at the University of Campinas. He also acknowledges support from the Basic Research
Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics within the framework of the
subsidy to the HSE by the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5-100’. None of these organizations is
responsible for the contents of this paper. Remaining mistakes and misconceptions are solely the
responsibility of the authors.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1469-1930.htm
Received 1 December 2019
Revised 4 March 2020
Accepted 11 March 2020
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 22 No. 1, 2021
pp. 8-23
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-12-2019-0281
of the wider social and economic community, has received attention (e.g. Laredo, 2007;
Uyarra, 2008; Goldstein, 2010;Leydesdorff and Meyer, 2010). Knowledge exchange and
technology transfer emerge as a prominent goal (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1997; Goldstein,
2010). Among the instruments available for university-industry technology transfer,
academic entrepreneurship, related to the creation of new business ventures by university
faculty and students, has received increasing attention (Rothaemel et al., 2007;Protogerou
et al., 2017). Scholars in this stream have found that university policy, technology transfer
offices, investors, founding teams, networks in which the academics is embedded, and
external conditions, all play a role in contributing to or inhibiting academic entrepreneurship
activities. However, as Siegel and Wright (2015) have pointed out, given that many
universities are attempting to increase their international profiles, an important omission in
academic entrepreneurship studies is returnee academic entrepreneurship.
Recent studies have pointed out the increased international human mobility during the
past couple of decades. In particular, the reverse flow of highly educated individuals
returning from OECD countries to emerging economies such as China and India have
intensified (Qin and Estrin, 2015;Li et al., 2012;Wright et al., 2008;Qin et al., 2017). Returnees,
especially returnee academics, are considered important carriers of tacit knowledge and
contributors of innovation and knowledge transfer in their home countries (Saxenian, 2006;
Filatotchev et al., 2011; Kenney et al., 2013). A developing research stream has analyzed the
unique role of returnee academics in filling important innovation and economic gaps in
emerging economies (Velema, 2012;Li et al., 2015).
Having an advanced degree from a foreign country with an academically competitive
university system is highly regarded for employment in the higher education systems of East
Asia (Shin et al., 2014). Such foreign degrees typically signal high-quality education and
advanced research skills. Employers tend to perceive foreign degree holders, as being well
trained and more productive in research (Shin et al., 2014). In countries, such as China, the
preference of universities to hire foreign degree holders is also related to the universities’
effort to rise in global rankings that has intensified since the beginning of this century and
enjoy the concomitant financial benefits that this entails.
The existing returnee academic studies have mostly focused on how the returnee
academic’s training and behavioral (cultural) change in the host country influence teaching
(Chen, 2017) and research (Jonkers and Tijssen, 2008), promotes the internationalization of the
university (Jonkers, 2010), and assists in institutional building (Welch and Jie, 2013) in the
home countries. Herein we are interested in the entrepreneurial side of the returnee academic
phenomenon: Will returnee academics be more likely to engage in entrepreneurial activities—
start new firms or engage in private sector incumbents—than domestic educated academics?
Academics have traditionally engaged with the private sector as part of their interest in
contributing knowledge to society, achieving financial security, and accessing relevant
industrial resources (Bell, 1993). Significant benefits for faculty members to engage in the
private sector include complementing their academic research by securing funds for graduate
students and lab equipment and by seeking insights into their research (Lee, 2000). The
growth of returnee academics and academic entrepreneurship raises important questions
with regard to their impact on universities. University managers and policy decision-makers
would like to know more about the role of returnee academics in university efforts to increase
capacity for knowledge commercialization (Chen and Kenney, 2007;Siegel and Wright, 2015).
To address this issue, we bring to bear a unique dataset that covers the entrepreneurial
activities of 507 computer science faculty members from 21 leading research-intensive
universities in China from 2007 to 2017. Among them, 138 are returnee academics [1]. To the
best of our knowledge, this study is the first ever to investigate returnee academic
entrepreneurship. It provides indications on how exposure to foreign graduate education and
research affects academic entrepreneurial activities. In this sense, the paper is akin to
Returnee
academic
entrepreneurship
9
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