Can university spinoffs acquire managers from industry? Empirical analysis of technology management by universities on performance of the spinoff ventures

University spinoffs usually utilize technologies that are created by basic researches. Therefore, they need to manage their early technologies in order to adopt them to market. However, in many cases, university spinoffs hire universities´ researchers that are out of touch with business. Hence, for their success, it is important that business experts commit them and they manage technologies properly. The aim of this paper is to clarify whether not only the organization´s internal factors of spinoffs but also external factors such like alliance management by mother universities affect on their performance. We conducted regression analysis using questionnaire surveys on Japanese university spinoffs and their mother universities. We utilized the number of policies and rules of universities as independent variables to represent university-industry collaboration policy and intellectual property policy along with organizational factors of spinoffs. Dependent variables are whether the spinoffs acquire managers from industry. As a result, it is revealed that strong university-industry collaboration policy of mother university is a significant variable to affect positively on acquiring managers from industry, while strong IP policy is a significant factor to affect on it negatively. The results suggest the importance of the accessibility to resources outside of universities.