This dissertation attempts to contribute to extant discussions on how one utilizes knowledge for economic gain. The first essay is a response to the controversy on whether the interactions divert academic scientists research agenda toward industry interests at the expense of fundamental science. This essay considers how an academic scientist chooses the level of difficulty of a research project and its level of relevance to industry interests. A simple game-theoretic model between research sponsors, a government agency and a firm, and an academic scientist is constructed. The shows that the funding decisions of research sponsors are strategic substitutes. It also shows that the academic scientists choices of project characteristics are strategic complements. The second essay provides insights on scientific entrepreneurs. It is argued that the nature of scientists research, specifically the level of its commercial applicability, is an important predictor of entrepreneurial actions of academic scientists. Using data from 395 academic scientists at five top US research universities, it is observed that there is a non-linear relationship between the nature of research and entrepreneurial actions. The third essay offers insights on entrepreneurial teams. This essay investigates mechanisms that give rise to entrepreneurial teams. The model shows that an entrepreneur obtains less expected value from a project if the entrepreneur chooses to work solo at latter stage than working in a team. It is also explained how asymmetry of importance between tasks in a commercialization project influences the decision of team formation and its optimal size. An extended model is constructed to analyze two benefits of team work: specialization and diversity.

M. Tech. Organisational Leadership / Over the past few decades, increasing attention has been paid to the contribution of Universities of Technology towards advancing the frontiers of science and technology. However, such research is descriptive and lacks a theoretical framework. Relying on the resource-based theory and incubation models, the present research is concerned with proposing a theoretical framework for the enabling factors that influence the graduation of new technology-based firms that result from the commercialisation of research and technology through to becoming established businesses from university technology business incubators. This framework is being proposed with two major objectives in mind. The first is to identify the main enabling factors that influence the graduation of new technology-based firms within university technology business incubators, which may provide a base for university stakeholders to design an appropriate incubation programme aimed at timely and successful graduation of new technology-based firms. The second is to link the development of business ideas to enabling factors that influence their progression into graduate businesses, which may provide a better understanding of how university incubation aspects work, providing theoretical insights into the incubation process of new technology-based firms. In the theoretical framework, a number of enabling factors were identified as components of the incubation process, namely stringent selection and admission criteria, administrative and legal policies, access to financial resources, access to university entrepreneurial network/mediation, and access to organisational resources and business support services. The most significant finding of the research is that there are a number of enabling factors that influence the graduation of new technology-based firms within university technology business incubators, the most significant of which are stringent selection and admission criteria, the business support services, financial resources, university entrepreneurial network/ mediation and organisational resources. Each of these factors is grouped into three stages: the pre incubation stage, the incubation stage and the graduation stage.

The study examines the challenges and critical success factors for effective incubation of ICT start-up firms. Information and communication technology (ICT) start-up firms are internationally acknowledged for their contribution to economic growth, improving the quality of life and job creation. The selected case site is the Innovation Hub which hosts a hi-tech incubator called Maxum. The Innovation Hub is an internationally accredited science park located in Tshwane, Pretoria which was launched by the Gauteng Provincial Government in year 2002. The Innovation Hub’s challenge is that its incubation programme is similar to those employed in the developed world. The off-the-shelve programme has not been customised for use within the South African socio-economic context. However, the Innovation Hub is a relatively high performing incubator which has met the prescribed precursors for success. The critical success factors include the hands-on professional services provided to entrepreneurs, value networks and government support. In order to improve the success rate of the incubation of ICT start-up firms, there is a need to adopt a long-term approach towards innovation support and to establish an incentive funding mechanism that fosters job creation by entrepreneurs. The objectives of the study were achieved. The researcher has extended Kumar & Kumar framework and added three critical success factors. The findings of the study cannot be generalised but can be replicated. These findings are of value to the incubator managers and also to the policy-makers when developing and enacting policies that promote incubation of ICT start-up firms. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

This study is an in-depth investigation of game and excellence theory's linkage within the discipline of public relations during the period of market entry.The literature review defines and analyzes both game and excellence theory and the value of each within public relations. The literature also examines the impact of new businesses within U.S. economy and the importance of strategic decision making during the period of market entry. Decisions made during this time period, of which public relations professionals are often involved, can forecast the success or failure of a new business. The researcher argued that excellence theory's domination over the mindshare of public relations professionals has overshadowed other theories (such as game theory) which can be of value during the time of market entry.In order to quantify any educated opinions held by the researcher, a content analysis was conducted. The researcher identified specific game and excellence theory keywords to be examined and coded. The keywords were derived from a random sample of 384 public relations-based articles from 1997 to 2007 in Entrepreneur's online magazine, the leading magazine for entrepreneurs for over thirty years. The years of 1997 through 2007 were chosen due to a growth in new business births that have occurred over this time frame.The results of the content analysis showed that there were significantly more game theory keywords than excellence theory keywords referenced in Entrepreneur's online magazine in the aforementioned articles and timeframe. From this evidence, the researcher deducted that while excellence theory is still the paradigm for public relations professionals, game theory is being fused within public relations in some areas of the industry, specifically within new market entry strategy. / Department of Journalism

Small businesses contribute towards the Gross National Product of the country and also provide jobs. More and more people are leaving schools and universities with the hope of finding jobs but this is not always possible. The best solution for these people is that they should start their own small businesses in their communities. Different businesses start because people have identified a need in their community. Good things about small businesses are that some of them become successful and eventually turned into franchise. Franchise is one way of starting a business. People are sceptical of new products, they want the tried and tested products because they can identify with them. However, the franchisee will always be provided with support from Head office to ensure that they succeed. The government has set-up organisations such as Ntsika and Khula that help the SMMEs with things such as business plans and finance. These organisations help entrepreneurs free of charge. This project seek to evaluate those aspects that make some small businesses succeed and others fail in Mafikeng and Mmabatho area and also to what extend does management skills affect small skills affect small businesses. The report also looks at how entrepreneurs use technology in their businesses. / (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2006

The entrepreneurship dynamism of a country is the center of Schumpeter’s creativedestruction process and virtuous circle, in which new and innovative companies enteringthe market drive the obsolete and less productive ones out of the market. As aconsequence of this process, the market is improved and it incentivizes the creation ofinnovative solutions to solve problems. The study focuses on the pivotal function of theentries in this process. To better understand the creation of new ventures process the study investigates how thecontextual factors impact the entrepreneur’s decision of starting a new business, focusingon two business environments: Sweden and Brazil. Through interviews with Swedish andBrazilian entrepreneurs we analyze how entrepreneurs perceive the contextual factors andhow it impacted their new venture creation process. Through the literature we find that the business environment is composed by seven majorfactors that, with an extended framework based on literature review, we consider as:economic wealth, government policies and procedures, legal & administrative, society’sculture; network and knowledge; financial assistance; and non-financial assistance. Analyzing the empirical material about the business environments we find that Swedishand Brazilian entrepreneurs feel the influence of the different contextual factors inbusiness creation but do not always understand their causes. Our findings show that theseven contextual factors do not have the same level of influence in Sweden and Braziland often depend on the environment. However, for entrepreneurs in both two contextualfactors have a pivotal impact: network and financial assistance. This study contributes to the theory by providing a more detailed extended framework tostudy the influence of contextual factors on the process of starting a new business.Furthermore, this research also contributes by providing empirical evidence of Swedishand Brazilian entrepreneurs’ perceptions of their business environment and the influenceof the contextual factors.

My dissertation research focuses commercializing university related technology. My first essay investigates whether patents assigned to U.S. universities largely represent the totality of faculty inventions patented. In contrast to prior work that identified faculty patents by searching for patents assigned to the university, I find in a sample of patents with US faculty as inventors, 26% are assigned solely to firms rather than universities. This initially seems to conflict with US university employment policies and Bayh-Dole. I relate assignment to patent characteristics, university policy, inventor field and academic entrepreneurship. Patents assigned to firms (whether established or start-ups with inventor as principal) are less basic than those assigned to universities suggesting these patents result from faculty consulting. The second essay examines the growing phenomena of U.S. academic entrepreneurship. Building on prior work demonstrating the embryonic state of science and engineering research that is licensed through the university (Jensen & Thursby 2001), I extend this framework to university inventions commercialized by new technology-based firms (NTBFs). I posit that the presence of faculty inventor founders will be beneficial to the NTBF. This is tested with a uniquely constructed dataset representing a variety of university and industry settings. Results indicate firms with faculty founders have a higher likelihood to experience an IPO or become acquired than other similar new firms. Second, faculty members with highly cited publications have incrementally more impact on the likelihood of the firm having an IPO. Thus I discern that while faculty founders matter, 'star' scientists matter more. The third essay identifies significant variables in the observed career level patent assignment patterns of academic serial inventors. Existing life cycle models test the idea that consulting occurs later in the career span of academic scientists. I find that indeed the proxy for consulting (firm assignment of patents) is more likely the later the patent application is from the year of Phd for the faculty inventors. I found strong evidence that faculty performing industry consulting are more likely to continue consulting in subsequent work. However the use of rolling lag variables based on transition probability matrices increased the variance explained in the regression model by a factor of three indicating factors other than life cycle may be significant.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed August 7, 2007). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Univ., Diss.--Klagenfurt, 2005.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Shapira, Philip; Committee Member: Ceccagnoli, Marco; Committee Member: Fox, Mary; Committee Member: Lewis, Greg; Committee Member: Walsh, John.