The ongoing discussion about academic research not being sufficiently commercialized has overlooked the individual actors in the university context, not least students as potential entrepreneurs. The purpose of this thesis is to enhance our understanding of student entrepreneurs by exploring how entrepreneurship education and key actors in the university context facilitate the formation of student start-ups. Two overall research questions are in focus; i) How does entrepreneurship education at university facilitate start-up formation among students? ii) How and why do key actors in the university context facilitate the formation of student start-ups? These questions are answered by three sub-studies, presented in the five published and appended papers. The data were collected through postal questionnaires as well as interviews in the context of three universities, namely Halmstad University, Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg.

This thesis makes several contributions. Firstly, it shows that entrepreneurship education at university facilitates start-ups by enabling knowledge spillovers from research to students willing to take on the entrepreneurial role, the so-called missing link in academic entrepreneurship. Secondly, it also demonstrates that entrepreneurship education contributes to the development of long-term entrepreneurial capital, which facilitates future start-ups. Thirdly, entrepreneurship education facilitates start-ups by connecting key actors with different roles; students were found to be present, prepared and persistent entrepreneurs, alumni to be resource-providers and role models, while researchers became enablers with a need for utilization of their research. The revealed reasons for these interconnected key actors to enable student start-ups were; i) students are looking for a career, have start-ups skills from entrepreneurship education and access to role-models and business opportunities in the university context; ii) alumni are anxious to pass on their business experience and maintain the mutually beneficial ties to the university; iii) researchers are reluctant to change their established career but with a strong need for utilization of their research enables students to make commercial use of it.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and visualize alternative ways – how and by whom – that academic research can come into commercial use. This study in the Swedish context investigates one entrepreneurial university, Chalmers University of Technology. In total, 18 interviews were conducted about researchers' views on commercialization and on how research comes into commercial use.Five propositions are advocated in relation to researchers’ role as enablers of others' commercialization. The concept of “need for utilization” is introduced as the critical explanation for researchers'  readiness to transfer knowledge mainly via alumni to established companies. This study suggests that both universities and policy should acknowledge alternative ways of commercialization of academic research instead of putting all efforts on trying to transform unwilling academic researchers into entrepreneurs. One alternative is to foster ongoing contacts between researchers and alumni, who make commercial use of academic research in established firms. This study furthers the knowledge about researchers’ individual motivation for commercialization, as driven by a “need for utilization.” By showing how researchers enable others commercialization, this study broadens the prevailing focus on researchers' formation of university spin-offs as the essential output from entrepreneurial universities. The results also contribute to understanding the role of alumni in knowledge transfer to existing industry. © 2017 © Emerald Publishing Limited

A wealth of research in the past decades has examined born globals or international new ventures, which are firms that from inception view the whole world as a market and as a source to access resources. Many of these firms build their competitive advantage on high-tech knowledge. However, although many studies have shown how born globals can achieve success if they access resources through their relationships from actors in their networks, few studies have explored the relationship between born globals and universities. Universities are important actors in creating new technology knowledge, and many studies have shown how new firms, or so-called university spin-offs (USOs), are formed around universities. The current study explores why some USOs are successful in their international growth strategy and discusses the factors that influence and facilitate the internationalization process. The study investigates 10 USOs around the newly established Halmstad University in Sweden and finds that universities have a positive effect on firm creation and initial international growth. The regional competence base increases from the establishment of a local university, primarily by strengthening the regional human capital and by increasing university research. This study shows that researcher entrepreneurs’ ventures start as born globals, but that these firms do not continue to grow. Born global business models, per se, do not lead to competitive advantage and successful internationalization. Instead, a strategy built on customer focus and an ability to adapt to different customer demands lead to growth, and the location of growth is dependent on the size of the home market. This study also shows that student entrepreneurship can be a successful growth strategy for USOs focusing on both international and local markets. © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York

Research on firm’s that already from inception see the whole world as a market and/or the whole world as a source to access resources, so called born globals. Many of these firms, build their competitive advantage on high-tech knowledge. Universities have shown to be an important actor, to create technology knowledge, and numerous studies have shown how new firms are created around universities, so called University Spin-offs (USOs). Earlier research has shown that some USOs are successful with their international growth strategies. This study aims to explore why some USOs are successful in their international growth strategy and some are not. 10 USO around the newly established Halmstad University in Sweden is investigated. Both USOs founded be students and researchers are included in the sample. This study shows the positive influence of a university for firm creation and international growth. The regional competence base has increased by the establishment of a local university, primarily by strengthening the regional human capital, but lately also by an increased amount of university research. This study has showed student entrepreneurs more successful in growth and international development than researcher entrepreneurs, which imply that further development of support for student entrepreneurship is fruitful to create international growing firms.

Purpose – The aim of this study is to test the assumption that ability to handle communication and iability of newness (LoN) is enhanced by academic entrepreneurship education and/or previous start-upexperience.

Design/methodology/approach – The data collection includes a questionnaire with a total sample of 392 responding entrepreneurs in Sweden. Statistical analyses are made between entrepreneurs with academic entrepreneurship education respectively previous start-up experience. Findings – The findings show that entrepreneurs with experience from entrepreneurship education report more developed communicative skills in the dimensions of openness as well as adaptation, whereas the dimension of other-orientation is found to be learned by previous start-up experience. When it comes to perceived problems related to LoN the differences between the groups were not as strong as assumed. However, the differences observed imply that also for handling LoN the authors identify a combined effect of possessing start-up experience as well as experience from entrepreneurship education. Consequently, entrepreneurs with experience from both, show in total the most elaborated skills.

Practical implications – One way to improve future entrepreneurship educations is to make students more aware of the mutual profit in a business agreement and how to communicate this in a marketing situation. Another suggestion is to include starting business as a course work.

Originality/value – This study not only meets the call for actual outcome from entrepreneurship educations in terms of changed behaviour but also for interdisciplinary research in the entrepreneurship field in integrating leadership research with focus on communication.

The aim of this paper is to describe how the development of an entrepreneurial university contributes to the commercialisation of research. This is illustrated with the case of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The findings show the importance of early pioneers creating a favourable culture from the very beginning of the university’s existence. It also shows the influence of a few key individuals for the developed best practice in the innovation support system, which is to commercialise research by match-making researchers with complementing competences like entrepreneurship students as well as using alumni.

The aim of this paper is to describe how the development of an entrepreneurial university contributes to the commercialisation of research. This is illustrated with the case of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. The findings show the importance of early pioneers creating a favourable culture from the very beginning of the university's existence. It also shows the influence of a few key individuals for the developed best practice in the innovation support system, which is to commercialise research by match-making researchers with complementing competences like entrepreneurship students as well as using alumni.

This paper analyzes entrepreneurship students setting up new firms. It includes a comparison of firms set up by graduates from formal schools of entrepreneurship with graduates from an innovator-entrepreneur program. Based on an empirical sample of almost 300 former entrepreneurship students, the results indicate that an entrepreneurship education influences the entrepreneurial behaviour of students. Especially students who choose to participate in a formal school of entrepreneurship seem to benefit from what they have learnt in order to exploit opportunities and create new firms. The results have implications for universities teaching entrepreneurship, incubator managers, and different kinds of policy makers.