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How management team composition affects academic spin-offs’ entrepreneurial orientation: the mediating role of conflict

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Abstract

This research has been designed with the purpose of analysing the influence of both the composition of academic spin-offs’ management teams and the potential conflict emerged within such teams on the degree of entrepreneurial orientation exhibited by academic spin-offs. To this end, we have used the upper echelon theory as theoretical background and have analysed the impact of the proportion of non-academic managers within management teams, the heterogeneity of such teams with respect to the age and main educational area of their managers, as well as the potential mediating role of the conflict emerged. Drawing on a database of 167 Spanish academic spin-offs, results show, on the one hand, that the presence of non-academic managers within management teams is a key factor in the academic spin-offs' exhibitions of higher levels of entrepreneurial orientation and, on the other hand, that conflict fully mediates the relationship between management teams' age heterogeneity and entrepreneurial orientation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology Project ECO2010-18325.

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  1. Department of Business Organization, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Cádiz, Avda. Duque de Nájera, 8, 11002, Cádiz, Spain

    Juan Pablo Diánez-González & Carmen Camelo-Ordaz

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Diánez-González, J.P., Camelo-Ordaz, C. How management team composition affects academic spin-offs’ entrepreneurial orientation: the mediating role of conflict. J Technol Transf 41, 530–557 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-015-9428-5

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