One-Page Report for the Conference

 

A short report from Ruan Yi on her research findings presented in the conference.

 
Title: Publish or Profit? An Investigation of University Technology Commercialization in Singapore
 
The increase of technology commercialization in university has raised concerns that the research orientation of university researchers might be disturbed by developing application for their inventions and entrepreneurial activity. Empirical evidence on this concern is ambiguous and mainly in the U.S. context. Drawing on data from National University of Singapore, we examine the relationship between academic publication productivity, patenting involvement, and entrepreneurial propensity of university researchers. We find that patenting and academic publication are complements rather than substitutes, but further involvement in entrepreneurial pursuits may lead to decrease of publication. We also find that among university patent inventors, full professors are the most likely to start up new ventures.
 

Ms Els from Ghent University presented a paper about how the scope and newness of the endowed technology predict the post-spin-off growth for corporate and university spin-offs; whereas Ms Mateja from University of Ljubljana shared her study about specific determinants and processes that characterize emergence of academic entrepreneurial intentions that lead to spin-off companies in two European settings. I found Ms. Els’ research question to be quite intriguing as she incorporates the characteristics of technology to explain the performance of university spinoffs and the comparison between corporate and university spinoffs is also quite interesting. The idea of the other paper is quite close to what I am studying in my thesis and hence I also learned some data collection and analysis methods from it. But overall I found that the framework of that paper to be of no surprises which also made me re-consider my consider my own framework.

 

 

A short report from Xu Weiwei on her research findings presented in the conference.

 

Title: Group Tunneling and Affiliates' Power

 

The main objectives of my attendance of AOM this year have three folds: first, job search; second, present a research paper; third, attend a PDW session at the conference. I believe that the conference concludes well with all of my objectives fulfilled. I have 7 interviews with professors from all over the world, including Professor Timothy Devinney of UNSW, Professor Leung Kwok from City U of HK, Professor Richard Dunford from U of Sydney, Professor Gibbons from UCD, etc. The interview process helped me understand more about the academic life, requirements and their schools. I also presented my research paper on business group tunneling behaviors in China. I investigated how the power of the affiliates in a business group can constrain the expropriation by the controlling business groups. I also attended a PDW session called “foster publication on leading journals”, where I listened to a presentation given by Professor Anita McGahan from Harvard Business School. She was a very knowledgeable, humble, humorous and charming person. She set a role model for me for my academic career pursuit. I believe my attendance of the AOM this year was very helpful, informative and inspiring. Thank you for your assistance

 

 

 

 From Left (Manathattai, Aegean, Ruan Yi, Zheng Weiting, Xu Weiwei)