Doctoral dissertation research: Impact of academic entrepreneurship on doctoral student innovation

本项目考察了导师创业活动对博士生创新产出的影响。创业企业被广泛认为是就业和经济增长的根本引擎。从事创业的个人来自不同的背景，包括(而且越来越多地)学术界。近年来，大学教授参与创业的人数激增，这促进了技术和知识密集型公司的创建。创业活动的增加在一定程度上是对大学在教职员工中促进创业的回应。然而，随着大学和公共政策制定者加大对教职员工创业的激励力度，他们也应该仔细考虑对大学教授所扮演的其他角色的影响。尽管在促进学术创业方面投入了大量时间和资源，但人们对教师参与创业对创造公共知识和培训学生等方面的影响知之甚少。该项目通过分析导师参与创业对博士生创新产出的影响程度来考察后者，突出了从大学向私营公司转移知识的两种不同渠道之间的权衡。一种是通过创建大学衍生产品，另一种是通过学生来体现。总体而言，这项研究更好地理解了教授的商业活动如何对他们的学生的创新生产力和职业生涯产生长期影响，从而最终影响发明活动的速度和方向。该项目使用了美国一所排名很高的研究型大学计算机科学与工程专业的博士生和教授的丰富管理数据，以评估博士生在研究型教师转变为企业家之前和之后的创新和职业成果的变化。这些数据包括教授的国籍、性别、种族、年龄、工资、联邦资金、出版物的数量和质量，以及他们的专利产出和他们建立的初创公司数量的信息。根据被审查机构的书记官处提供的信息，这些数据得到教授与博士生的配对补充。对于博士生，数据包括国籍、年龄、入学和毕业年份、专业、GRE分数、GPA、性别和民族、以前的学位授予机构、毕业前后的职业以及出版和专利记录等详细信息。应用于本研究的实证方法利用可用数据的丰富性来解决创业活动的分类和内生性导致的潜在偏差。这项研究的发现增强了我们对教授的商业活动对他们建议的博士生的创新产出和职业轨迹的潜在副作用的了解。因此，该项目朝着理解学术创业对大学和未来创新者的影响迈出了重要的一步。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project examines the impact advisor entrepreneurial activities on the innovative output of doctoral students. Entrepreneurial ventures are widely considered a fundamental engine for employment and economic growth. Individuals who engage in entrepreneurship come from a variety of backgrounds, including (and increasingly) academe. The participation of university professors in entrepreneurship has experienced a surge in recent years, which has contributed to the creation of technology- and knowledge-intensive companies. This increase of entrepreneurial activity comes partially as a response to universities promoting entrepreneurship among the faculty. As universities and public policy makers increase the incentives for faculty members to start companies, they should, however, also carefully consider the implications for the other roles played by university professors. Despite the time and resources invested in promoting academic entrepreneurship, little is known about the implications of faculty engagement in entrepreneurship on, for example, creating public knowledge and training students. This project examines the latter by analyzing the extent to which an advisor's engagement in entrepreneurship impacts their doctoral students' innovative output, highlighting the trade-off between two different channels of knowledge transfer from universities to private firms. One is through the creation of university spinoffs, while the other is embodied by students. Overall, this research provides a better understanding of how professors' commercial activities may have long-lasting effects on their students' innovative productivity and careers, thereby ultimately influencing the rate and direction of inventive activity. This project uses rich administrative data on doctoral students and professors in computer science and engineering at a highly-ranked US research university, to assess variation in doctoral students' innovation and career outcomes, before and after research faculty transition into entrepreneurship. The data encompass information on professors' nationality, gender, ethnicity, age, salaries, federal funding, the number and quality of publications, as well as information on their patenting output and the number of startups they have established. These data are complemented by matching professors to their doctoral students, based on information provided by the Registrar's Office of the examined institution. For doctoral students, data includes detailed information on nationality, age, year of admission and graduation, major, GRE scores, GPAs, gender, and ethnicity, previous degree-granting institutions, careers before and after graduation, as well as publication, and patent records. The empirical approach applied to this study makes use of the richness of the available data to address potential biases induced by sorting and endogeneity of entrepreneurial activity. The findings of this study enhance our knowledge about the potential side-effects of professors' commercial activities on the innovative output and career trajectories of the doctoral students they advise. As such, this project takes an important step towards understanding the consequences of academic entrepreneurship for both universities and future innovators.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.